 down when anxious is a good idea and will help you. But you also may dread the idea because if you slow down, you might, oh my God, you might actually feel things. So this week on Recovery Monday, we're going to talk about that. We are doing lessons from this book, 7% slower. There it is, you can get the book at 7% slower.com if you want to follow along. Today, we're going to talk about chapter five, which is all the reasons why you might not want to slow down, even though you kind of feel like it's a good idea and you wish you could. And the number one reason for that is if I slow down, I might actually feel things more strongly and hear my thoughts more loudly and I cannot have that. So we're going to talk about that. Let's give some time for everybody to kind of wander in here. Interestingly, only 11 people that I see right now, which is a little bit slow. So I'm not sure if maybe we're having a technical problem in certain spots here. I'm Bax's Bethany. We are good on Facebook. We're good on YouTube. I see that. Hey, Katya, how's it going? Is everybody doing today? Not a whole lot of lecture today. So I don't think we're going to spend a whole lot of time going through the chapter because it's a relatively easy concept to explain. So we will do that. Let's let some more folks kind of scroll in here, 7% fewer, but more than 7%. I don't know what's going on here. Just got the tweet and hopped on YouTube. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. So I don't know, maybe the Facebook group will see. Could be technical problems, but that's all right. I'm cool with like a smaller crowd. Ain't no thing. So let's get right into it today. Where are we here? Got some folks from the Netherlands. The usual suspects are in. We are going to talk about reasons why you might not want to slow down, right? So we've been talking about this, why recognizing speeding up and rushing around as a standard response is important about understanding what it looks like when you rush around and speed up, why that makes things worse, why maybe that was a good idea 30,000 years ago for those humans, but not a good idea for modern humans. We talked about all that stuff, right? And we talked about the idea that learning to slow things down when you get anxious and afraid and stressed is a good idea because it helps you improve your relationship with anxiety and fear. It helps you along the path to recovery. It helps you toward sort of managing your stress differently and that sort of stuff. So we've talked about why this is a good idea. And I think a lot of people do a lot of head nodding like, yeah, that's me. You're talking about me. I rushed around. This was crazy. I got to learn how to slow down. But hey, Julianne, how's it going? But often I find resistance in this. And a lot of people will say, well, I get that. But when I try to slow down, everything feels stronger. And the answer to that is correct. That is true. So when you slow down, because when you get really anxious and afraid, and you are in that mode, and you're running around as that sort of part of that natural response, running around is a little bit of an escape, not only from what you think I have to get out of the supermarket. I have to get off the highway. It's kind of a way to try to escape from the things that you are feeling also. And I'll relay my own personal experience. For me, when I would start to have those that rising anxiety, and I would feel panic start to build, yeah, I was 100% starting to speed up. And I would also engage in a lot of little fidgety habits. And I think this is related. So you have to really look at, like, what are those fidgety habits? What are you doing? We get a little jittery. Now I understand, adrenaline is going to do that to you anyway physically. But oftentimes, that some people will pace, some people will tap, some people will shake their legs, some people will shake their hands. I've seen people kind of walk around like bobblehead dolls. And there's a little bit of a physiology there because the adrenaline will make you feel like you have to move. So I get that. But the speeding up, the fidgeting, they're kind of amping things up a little bit is often an attempt to get away from the feelings. Just really truly, that's trying to get away from anyway, we didn't really care if we're on the highway or not, we really care that how we feel while we're on the highway or in the supermarket or in the school pickup line or whatever it happens to be, right? So if you slow down and I discover this, when I really started to make an effort to slow things down and go against that demand to speed up, everything was magnified. Like, yes, it's really hard to stop and sit and feel those symptoms. You can literally hear, heal, feel your heart pounding more. So as crazy as it sounds, if your heart is racing and you stop and slow down, you'll feel that racing heart much more. And if you are running through the supermarket pushing your car like a speed demon, the thoughts were a little bit louder. They were clearer. So yeah, you get confronted with those things. There's no doubt about that. But that's not necessarily news because if you look at the way people in general are wired, and there's an entire sort of cottage industry, it's probably more than a cottage industry and self-help and personal development that addresses this, how often have you heard personal development gurus do the, oh, like get comfortable being uncomfortable man. And like there's a little bit of value in that. And a lot of the times it's that inability or unwillingness to confront our own thoughts and things that we don't like to feel. We don't like to feel angry. We don't like to feel sad. We don't like to feel disappointed. We don't like to feel empty. We don't like to feel bored. We don't like to, there's a lot of things that we try not to feel. And we develop all kinds of habits to run away from feeling our feelings. Food, drinking, sexual addiction, gambling, scrolling endlessly on our phones. So even people who don't have anxiety disorders, 100% do this. Like a lot of people, especially, I hate to sound like, you know, that guy, but especially sort of in a digital age, we're all connected. We have constant distraction always available to us, always on demand. So that's why you people are, you know, you're waiting online somewhere and there are people on that line, everybody's scrolling their phones. We don't, we don't want to feel empty. We don't want to feel things that make us feel uncomfortable, anxiety or not. And that holds doubly true in the case of hot elevated anxiety, a threat response, panic, the things that are really, really unpleasant and feel like urgent disasters right now. So yeah, you don't want to feel those things. And part of the reason why you start to rush around and speed up is to try and get away from the threat. And really, if the threat is coming from inside you, we're trying to get away from those feelings. So there's a lot of resistance often, well, people will say, I want to do that. And I tried it, but then I'm just left alone with like my racing heart. I'm just left alone or it feels like shorter, shorter, it's a breath or I'm just left alone with those, those what if catastrophic thoughts that tell me that I might be dying or something like that. Oh, I forgot to put the shadow relay up. Let me throw that up there real quick so you guys can see what each other is saying. That's really common. And in fact, a couple of years ago in the Facebook group, we had an admin, she's not active anymore. She's lovely. She actually made a video about that one day. And she was just beside herself. And I'll never, I'm never going to forget this video. Some of you in the group might remember Bethany, you might remember who I'm talking about. And she was, she's very upset. And she's like, I don't know. I can't get this. I don't understand why I can't get this. She was trying. She was, she wasn't an admin yet. She was working hard on sort of getting, getting going on her recovery. And I remember her saying, I just, I don't know why I can't get this. I'm working on it. I've read the book. I'm reading the pocket. And that might even be before I wrote the anxious truth. She was reading Claire Weeks. She was listening to podcasts. And at one point she finally kept talking and talking and talking. And she just sort of boiled it down, kind of boiled it down. And she said, but if I do all those things, I'm just left with my symptoms. And then she just sort of stopped and looked at the camera. And that was an incredibly powerful moment to this day. I think one of the more insightful and educational moments that I've ever had in that Facebook group in all the years that it exists. But if I do all those things, I'm just left with the symptoms. And I remember a couple of days later, I promised I would respond to that and I sat on a beach and I made a video about that. And the answer to that is, yeah, yeah, that's exactly right. So in all of the stuff that I talk about here, whether it's me, whether it's Claire Weeks, somebody just mentioned Josh Fletcher, Bess just mentioned Josh and some of the things that he talks about, Kim, Quinlan, all the, you know, the people, Jenna, Jenna Overba, all the people that sound like me. When we talk about these things built into that is, is the realization that yes, you're actually confronting or at least allowing those things to come at you without, without trying to shield yourself from them. You're trying to wiggle away from them. You're not trying to stop them or shield yourself from them or run from them. That's all true. And slowing down is part of the way that we learn to have that new non-reactive reaction to anxiety and panic, if you will, form that new relationship, learn that you don't have to be afraid of it. But unfortunately, part of that is that, yeah, you're going to have to feel the things. So I don't have a good answer here to, but if I slow down, I will feel things like, what do I do about that, Drew? And the answer is, you feel it, you feel the things. Like there's just no way around this. I'm not going to do really a whole lot of reading out of the book today. But one of the things that was pulled out by my editor, I think as a, as an important quote, and I'll get to it, is I did write this. I said, every so often, the things we have to do, every so often, this involves facing fear and feeling super unsteady and vulnerable. And the quote she pulled out of the book was, these are the cards we've been given by the universe. At some point, we must make a choice, stay stuck and do hard stuff and feel afraid or unsure to get unstuck. And I will stand by that. And that's a crappy thing to have to say. But the choice is, if you're going to say, well, I can't slow down because then I'll feel the things and I can't allow myself to feel the things, you are entitled to make that choice. That's true. But that is, that is going to keep you stuck, right? To a certain degree, that's going to keep you stuck. Progress will be hard to come by if you want to stand by that. But on the flip side, if you do choose to slow down and allow yourself to feel these things that you insist you should not ever feel or incapable of coping with, that's also going to be really hard. So both ways are really hard. One way keeps you stuck. One way at least gives you the chance to maybe move forward a little bit. Right. So that's kind of important. That's, and I always give credit to Allegra Castans. She's obsessively ever after on Instagram. She's a therapist here out of New York City. And she said, she uses the phrase, suffer in the right direction, right? I might say like pick your heart. You're going to have to, you're going to, it's hard to not recover. And it's really hard to recover. So the only thing that I really have to say about the idea that if you slow down, you might feel things more is correct. And sometimes we just, we understand that we are picking to do difficult things. There's no, it's nothing easy about this. Right. So I spend all day long every day trying to, you know, reaffirm that and validate that this is difficult. This is difficult. Simple plan, hard to execute. Right. So I know a lot of people are hoping that there's going to be some sort of tips and tricks like what, but, but how can I do that if I feel the feelings? And the answer is you have to feel the feelings. Right. So there's no, fortunately, I'm not going to, I don't have any tips or tricks for you that are going to somehow tamp them down or make them less loud or make them go away, make it easier for you to slow down a face that I just don't have that. It don't exist. But one thing that can really help, and this I didn't put in the book, but it is part of the whole sort of all the stuff that I talk about, is if you remember why you're doing it, it can make a difference. Right. So a lot of people will say, well, I know I have to do this. Right. This is one of these things that I know I have to do. I'm going to learn to slow down. I'm going to practice what's in this 7% slower book. And they know they should do it, but sometimes we forget why. And we're confronted with that adversity that like, oh my God, the symptoms and the thoughts are so strong. If I do that, I don't want to do that. Sometimes circling back to, okay, wait a minute. I know I need to do this, but let me remember why I'm doing it. Oh, that's right. I'm doing it. And somebody had mentioned it in a comment a too long ago. There you go. Haya139 said to relearn it. So if you can stay connected to the why we're doing this, I'm choosing to do this really hard thing because I need to learn some new lessons and have some new experiences. Sometimes that can make it at least give you the push to go forward into that. But if you are approaching it as I know I need to do this, and I really have to try to learn how to do it as gently and easily as possible, you forget why you're doing it. Like gentle and easy sort of defeats the purpose. We're not intentionally making things hard to be hardcore. Is that an exercise and doing hard things just for the hell of it? But the difficulty and the difficulty of navigating through the experience is the point of the experience. Otherwise we wouldn't have to do it to begin with. So try to stay in touch with the why we're doing it. Oh, that's right. I really don't want to do this. I hate this. This is scary. No problem. I get that. I don't want to do it. This is really hard. Yep. But I know why I'm doing it. I have to. This is a learning experience for me. Stay with that. Right. Stay with that. That can help. Doesn't make it any easier, but at least might help you kind of jump over that hurdle that says, I can't find a way to knock down these feelings. So therefore I won't do this. Oh, no, I'm not supposed to knock them down. I'm supposed to feel them. This is the why. And that's why I'll do it. So that's it. That's all I really got in this chapter. It's not, it's a short chapter. All the chapters in seven percent slower are short. This is a much shorter book than the anxious truth and it's a little bit more accessible. So whatever. If you guys want to ask some questions, I will see what I got. I'm happy to take them. Let's see here. Hey, Kelly, how's it going? Hey, for those of you joining from the UK, damn, you guys are roasting over there. Let me acknowledge that. I know you guys are cooking today. So stay cool for sure. Let's see. Hey, Vancouver, what up? Can you please do a segment on dysfunctional breathing due to anxiety? That is one of the very, very, you're very, very rarely going to see me specifically talk about anxiety symptoms here. Very, very rarely. I did in fact do a podcast episode on breath centered anxiety. So if you go to the anxioustruth.com and you search for breath and anxiety, there's a search tool, you will find the episode that I did. Hey, I'll put this up on the screen. You will find the episode that I did on this. It's not special. I know you think it is. I have not seen your name before. So maybe you might be new and welcome, but I know you think that you need some sort of special instruction about special breathing problems with anxiety, but I promise it's not special. So if you want to go listen to that episode, it might help you. Okay. So let's see here. Hey, Carol, what's going on? This is true. This is 100% true. The feelings aren't the problem or interpretation of the feelings are it's that inner dialogue, right? So you have an OMG thought or you have a symptom. I don't know whatever it is. Breeding. Let's talk about it. Oh, thanks, be appreciated. Bethany, just put the link up in the comments if you want to check that out. That's 100% true. So what a roller saying is correct. You have a symptom and then you think what you try to interpret what that symptom means. This means it's a heart attack. This means I'm having a stroke. This means I'm going to pass out or thoughts. My thoughts are so strong telling me I'm going to have a psychotic break right now. And then we interpret those. Yes, this sounds important. This sounds real. This time it might be real. So that's correct. And when we make the choice to allow to to slow down and allow ourselves to feel them without trying to save ourselves, that experience teaches us that no matter how I would say about anxious thoughts, they're very strong. But we also learn that we're very they're very wrong. Right. They're very wrong. They're very strong, but they're very wrong. And we find out that our symptoms could be very disturbing, right and make us afraid, but they never actually are the harbingers of doom. So that's really important. Oh, this is great. Sophie, I'm gonna put that up when I get down there. That's a good comment. Hey Montreal, what up? Let's see here. Oh, good. Bethany put or somebody in the Facebook group. I don't know who I'm sorry that if you're in the Facebook group, I don't see your name. I only see Facebook users. So thank you for linking. If you're in the Facebook group, you know, I'll put this up. If you're in the comments, you can click on that. If you're in the group, you'll be able to see that. That was our friend Bab. She was lovely. She's not active in the group anymore, but you'll see that. And then I also had a response to that talking about what we're talking about today. So there you go. Oh, this is great. Love it. Okay, ready? Welcoming the symptoms, more relaxed, not more calm is key in my recovery. That is, this is such a huge, huge, huge, huge statement here. So thank you, Genevieve. I appreciate this. Learning to be relaxed, even though you are not calm, that's huge. So if we do want to talk about, maybe I'm wrong, maybe there is a little bit of a hack or a tip or a trick here in terms of, how do I do this? Because if I slow down, I feel all the things. Understand the difference between relaxation and calmness. So a lot of times people are trying to find a way to like, well, if I do this and I somehow do a trip, I'll feel calmer, right? Which means I won't be so scared by the loud thoughts and the strong sensations. But that's not true. That's actually not true. So you can be relaxed without being calm. Do not demand calmness, but practice a state of relaxation. Now, I know a lot of people are going to be like, you're crazy. They're the same thing. They're not the same thing. They're not the same thing. You can learn to physically relax your body, even though you do not feel calm. And the calm follows down the road, down the road. Oh, this is great. So Genevieve just said like, it's not easy, but if I can learn to do it, you can. And it's a little bit nuanced for sure. No doubt about that. I'm not going to deny it. It is not easy stuff. So let's see here. Now this is a big deal. Oh, I'm going to throw this one up here too. GBGA was always good with the comments. Feeling fear led to confidence for me. So I did a podcast episode. I don't know when. I have no idea when these were anymore, to be honest with you, called the three C's of recovery and courage, competence, confidence. So when you do do this hard thing, and okay, I'm going to slow down like it says in the book, the lizard book, I'm going to feel all the things. When you move through these things repeatedly again and again, and you have that building of experiences on top of each other, or nothing happened again, I did it again, I did it again. That's courage that makes you do that. It's courage that compels you or pushes you to do the scary thing for sure. And then the more you do the scary thing, the more you begin to feel competent. That's competency. So I am able when you thought you couldn't do it. And the courage compels you to at least try. And then you start to build competency. And the more you flex your competency muscles, the more you begin to build confidence. So courage is the Kickstarter, if you will, competence is the first change you begin to understand that you are competent able. And then when you exercise that competence again and again, you begin to feel confidence. And confidence is what starts to broaden your recovery. So when you start to feel more confident in general, that's when you can say, hey, I'm really good at the supermarket now. But I'm feeling pretty confident so I can apply the supermarket lesson to the highway or the school pickup line or staying home alone for two hours. So GBG, good, you're right. Feeling it ultimately leads to confidence. And it goes through that path. Courage, got to have courage, competence, confidence. Keep that in mind. And posting the links, B, thank you so much. These are all the podcast episodes that I am referencing. Bethany is helping us out by posting the links. They're all on my website. You can always go to the anxioustruth.com and search a little magnifying glass like as a search tool. No, no, no, no, no. Let's see here. I want to say thank you. I'm really doing good days and bad days pulling your slowly day by day. You're very welcome. I'm glad you're finding the material helpful. Very good. Carol is roasting in the UK. It's super hot there. I get it. Let's see what Katya has to say about DPDR. Always good for an excellent contribution. As someone who used to consider DPDR a worst symptom, I would actually think of the physical symptoms as a relief. This is so good. Sometimes you guys are just on fire with these comments. This comment right here from my friend Katya is so like it is such a strong illustration here of why we never focus on specific symptoms, right? Because again, I'll just put up on the screen because it's that good. For everybody that will tell you, and we can give it in a humorous way, for everybody that insists that short of breath is the worst sensation, there's a bunch of people with cardiophobia that would like to have a word for you. They'll learn a word with you. They will throw it out because no, it's not. Clearly heart symptoms are the worst symptoms. And then behind them is a bunch of people who say DPDR is the worst, scariest possible symptom, and they want to have a word with you, and they want to throw it down over that. So when you declare a worst possible symptom, keep in mind that there are other people that will declare that you are wrong. I mean, we never see that. No one ever says you're wrong. But understand that they would be, they would say, no, no, no, I would pay for that symptom. So Katya would have gladly paid for heart's fear as opposed to feeling DPDR. Think about that. I've had people who have literally said I would pay to be nauseous if my heart would just slow down. But for some of you listening right now and watching right now, that nausea and the fear that you might get sick is the worst possible nightmare on the planet. And yet I've literally had human beings say I would pay to be nauseous compared to this. So keep that in mind when you want to hang on to like this is the scariest thing to me. Consider that other symptoms are super scary to other humans who are just like you. And it points out the fact that, oh, okay, wait a minute, this is not, this is not special, which you don't want it to be special. And this thing we do here, you do not want to be special. And there's comfort in the fact that you're not, we're all special, we are all it's important. But you're not unless you're an alien, your brain works generally mind does and you don't want to be special. So it's good to not be special. And some people hate thoughts most of all, I'm going to throw it up on the screen when I get down to it. So sure, oh, we got a coast high from Costa Rica. Hello, Alice. I don't think we've had anybody from Costa Rica in the live yet. So I appreciate you coming by. Hey, Detroit went up. I'll throw this up March. So does the same thing allow following apply to depressive feelings. So this is always important to talk about. There are some parallels for sure. But and you had to remember that this is not therapy in a, in a, you know, an Instagram live or YouTube live or whatever we're doing here today. But depression is a little bit different because depression is a thing where you want to challenge those things. And I don't mean challenge them in your with arguing with them. Although in depression, when clinicians are treating depression, often they will use a lot of sort of the old school CBT tools of like fact checking and thought records and things like that. That can be helpful. But also we always challenge depression. So we don't passively just sit and think that if we float enough, depression magically goes away. Right. So we can use some of those tools to say, well, I can recognize that some of my depressive thinking is a little bit catastrophic and distorted, you know, I'm hopeless. There's no point. I'm never going to get better. We can start to understand and use some of these tools to say, well, I understand that those are probably distortions that aren't real. And I'm distorting because of my state. But no, depression is not about just sitting and floating. I would not tell you to just quietly sit with depression. I'm not saying you have to run around all day, but it's crazy. It sounds in the context of these little lectures here about slowing down. It's almost the other way. I don't want you to run through your day, but we don't need to sit really important. So if you're dealing with depression, my heart goes out to you. I've been there. If you're working with a therapist, talk to your therapist about this more than anybody else, right? It's really important. So that's how this relates to that. Let's see. No, no, no, no, no. This is good. A little win from our friend Patty. Therapy session where there was no AC. It was quite a high session. I have a phobia about humidity, but I did it. I always love I did it. So somebody before had posted Josh does the his hashtag is what I did it anyway, right? So always I did it. Try to always say I did it. Never I made it. You're always going to make it. I made it sounds like dodged that bullet. I can't believe I'm still standing. I don't know how I did it. I don't know how I made it. I'm lucky. I did it. You're always going to make it because you always do make it even when you're afraid. All right. Let's see. Let's throw this up. It's a good question. How do you approach being around a large family with a fast-paced chaotic environment when trying to go slower? Like a triggered by fast-paced people around me even I'm going slow. Okay. This is a reasonable question. And in the end, I think you have to realize that in Semper since lower when I talked about how to learn and practice going slower, I did talk about exaggerating it and almost going comically slow to learn how to do that. But the difference between fast and slow or between I want us to use better terms between frantic and measured is not that much, right? So it's not like you're around your family and they are literally moving at light speed. And if you go too slow, they are leaving you behind because like literal things like walking speed aren't everything. That's not the whole story by going slow. So I think you will find that if you allow yourself to slow down a little bit in the midst of what you kind of see as chaos, I guess, the difference, the operational and behavioral difference between you and them isn't going to be that much, right? It's not going to be that much. So when I literally when I for myself came up with the term 7% slower, I said that was just for myself. I just made that up for me. I never in a million years thought I would be telling it to other people. It was just an absurd number that illustrated that it just has to be a little bit. 7% is not a lot. So if you were in fact taking this literally and said, well, I'm learning to go 7% slower on my frantic family, the 7% isn't a lot, right? So you wouldn't really notice that much of a difference. So right now I think you're you may be overthinking this a little bit. There's not going to be that much difference between you taking the frantic-ness out of your activity. You'll still keep up with them. You just will not do it in a frantic way, right? Frantic is the word I use in this book a lot. Okay, this is a good one. Let's throw this up. I slowed way down. I moved like a slug these days. I did write and later on we go through the book. I did write about that. When you're learning that and trying to break the speed habit and you're practicing, you kind of move like a slug. Sometimes you have to, you have to almost exaggerate it to get the feel of like, oh, okay, this is what it feels like to not be frantic. So yeah, it's moving like a slug. Sometimes it feels like it. Sometimes it does, right? Let's see here. Let's pop this up real quick. We're doing good today on time. This is great. What do you say recovery means that your attitude is, it's irrelevant whether or not anxiety is present? That is 100% what I think what I, that's how I define my recovery. As a byproduct anxiety will decrease, but you can't make that the goal. Yeah, I've literally talked about that, this exact concept in the podcast since 2014. It's an everything I've ever written. It's woven in all of my social media content that is 100% accurate right there. Recovery is just maybe I'm going to panic today. Maybe I won't because it's irrelevant. I don't want to. I don't want to have an anxious day. It's not pleasant. It's not fun, but maybe, maybe I will. Maybe I won't because it's not an emergency anymore. So recovery is really what happens when anxiety goes back to its normal place in a human life. Yeah, it might be here, might not, but I could tell you now that anxiety doesn't feel more anxiety. And since I'm not afraid of it, I get, I have anxious days when I'm really stressed, right? So which is normal. That's like the normal healthy human anxiety. If I'm really stressed, I'm kind of going to have a little bit more of an anxious day, which is really more of a stress day. But the difference is like, I'm not anxious because I'm anxious. If I panic, I don't panic because I panicked. I panicked probably because we can use Josh's stress drug analogy. Maybe my stress drug spilled over. And it spilled over into a panic episode. And it's over in 15 minutes. My legs will shake for another 15 minutes after that because adrenaline. And then that's it. I don't panic about the fact that I panicked. I'm not worried if it happens again or doesn't. So yes, excellent, excellent, excellent. Thank you, Shane. I appreciate that. Let's see here. Thanks for the link. Okay. What up, Eric? I'm a very competitive person. So when I feel anxious, I view it as an opportunity to train myself for future anxiety attacks. That's good. That's really good. And sometimes we can use our personality traits, if you will, to our advantage. So in this situation, Eric gets to compete against himself, which I think is tremendous. I kind of dig it. You don't want to push yourself so far that you lose the ability to be kind yourself, kind to yourself in recovery. Remember, we're really doing hard stuff. We're doing difficult things. These are hard things to learn. It takes practice. So don't lose the ability to treat yourself with some compassion and kindness. But I like the idea. I can relate to this person. Like, yes, I'm a pretty competitive person myself. And it's me against me. And I want to do better and better every time. So it's really good. Stephanie is killing it with the links today. Thank you, B. Appreciate it. When you... I'll throw this up here. When you're healing... Curiously, I talked this morning on the anxious morning. If you're not subscribed to the morning newsletter and you want to get it, go to the anxious morning.email, the anxious morning.email. You could sign up for the newsletter. This morning, I literally did that. I literally wrote about whether or not you are healing or learning. So, yeah, the answer is... And I would not call this addictive behavior. Now, I don't know, maybe there's a little bit of language barrier. I get that. But, yeah, the essence of sort of learning recovery, learning the lessons of recovery, not necessarily healing. And you can read about what I wrote this morning on that if you want to go over the anxious morning. But it is about dropping the safety behaviors. You have to... I understand what you're saying when you say addictive behaviors. You're addicted to doing them because you think they keep you safe. Yeah, we have to learn to drop those things. So, yes, it's important. I'm going to do a podcast episode very shortly on that. The next two are frequently asked questions. And I think the one after that is about that. Safety behaviors specifically using people as safety behaviors. Yeah, sooner or later, you're going to drop those. Like, if I only do my exposures with water and mints and my wife on the phone and close to home, then they... I'm not going to say they don't count, but we do have to drop them. Right. So, let's see. Let's keep going here. Ooh, this is good. I used to run around looking for distractions. Since anxious thoughts are not rule. Oh, I keep forgetting to turn off my screen blanking software. Hang on. Let me do that. So, screen goes blank. I don't need the blank to screen. I used to run around looking for distractions since anxious thoughts do not my real life. And I totally enjoy doing nothing. This is huge. I'm not trying to put you to work here, but I also did a podcast episode about learning to sit quietly with yourself. This is such a big deal and it's part of what a lot of people miss in recovery. In fact, what I find interesting is that a lot of people will really focus, especially people who have panic disorder or agoraphobia. They will focus on doing the exposures. I got out. I got out. I did. I did. I drove. I went to a party. We ate at a restaurant. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And then they find themselves, yeah, but now I discover that I don't know how to be quiet or I don't know how to sit quietly or some people start that way. Some people start that way or a lot of anxious people think they're sitting quietly when they go into retreat mode, but they're not really sitting quietly. You're scrolling. You're frantically listening to podcasts. It's fun. Bethany's in link mode today. We're killing it, by the way. This is an iconic duo just so you know, in case nobody knows. Yeah. So a lot of people will find that like, oh, I think I'm sitting quietly when I retreat to myself because I'm anxious, but you're not. You're not. You're engaged in a bunch of little distraction behaviors. Other people know flat out, just flat out, like, yes, this has always been a problem for me. If I am not running around, then I am anxious as hell. So some people know that this is a problem going in. And this, the idea of learning to slow down, is aimed kind of right at those folks for sure. So if you're one of those people that knows if I'm not busy, I have a problem, well, that tells you you have to work on like those quiet times a little bit, a little bit at a time. Just like anything else. Let's see here. We got somebody that has vertigo, a fellow vertigo suffer. I get vertigo a couple of times a year. No fun. So I'm just kind of going with it. Excellent. I don't know if it's anxiety, but boy, that wasn't fun to experience. No, I can tell you flat out that when you, that there is a difference between, I'm going to use the air quotes and I don't mean to do it disrespectfully. But remember, I kind of, I've been there too. There's a difference between dizzy. I'm dizzy and vertigo. Vertigo is your room is spinning. You literally cannot stand up. You may actually get nauseous and get sick. Your eyes are shaking. It's called nystagmus. You cannot focus. It's, it's a thing that has nothing to do with anxiety. When you have vertigo, you know you have vertigo. It is, it is far beyond anything that anxiety will throw at you. So it's important to understand that, but it sucks vertigo just sucks. Total. Let's see here. Let's keep scrolling. This is a good question. Do you think I'm holding myself back because I've never had a therapist to help me? James, it's a really solid question, my friend. I can't say like I'm a huge fan of getting professional help, especially people who are trained and specialized in treating anxiety disorders. I talk about it all the time. I'm a big fan of that. Do people recover without a therapist? Yeah, I'll be flat out honest with you. I did it. I did not have a therapist. I did have a therapist for a short while, but Rhea was as much as she was awesome for me and I love her. She was not an anxiety specialist. So I know I talk all the time, always get an anxiety specialist, but it was a good relationship anyway. So, but when I was really doing most of my recovery work that I wrote about in my first book, The Anxiety Story, and the things that I document in The Anxious Truth in 7% Slower, I did not have a therapist and many, many people can recover without a therapist. But a therapist trained in treating these things can be a huge help, a lot as a coach, a motivator, keep you on the straight and narrow. So to me, sometimes the things that I hear is like a therapist really helped me clarify, or a therapist really called out all of my excuses. I hear a lot of those things. So it can be helpful. But do you absolutely have to? No, I don't think you do. A lot of people do with that. It's okay because I can acknowledge it. It's hard to find therapists that are trained in treating anxiety disorders. It's not easy. In the U.S., it's not easy in any country that I'm aware of. Hey, this is a big win. I stayed home alone today for three hours and I did it. Love it. Awesome. B, if you want to have at it, I did a podcast episode on monophobia, which is that fear of being alone. It's another one that might be really helpful. It explains what that is. So you might check that out. This is a tough one. It's a good question. I was talking about how do you find a therapist who understands anxiety? You kind of have to talk to a bunch of them. Then there are places you can go, at least in the U.S. I can't speak to other countries because I'm in the U.S. But in the U.S., there's a ton of therapy directories out there. Psychology Today has a huge director of therapists. I mean, some people will argue whether psychology Today is really psychology or if it's just a popular magazine, whatever, but they do have a giant directory of therapists. So you can find a therapist in your area that way, and you can sort of narrow them down because the therapists do actually talk about what their areas of training and certification are. So you want to look for a therapist that actually will say they have certifications in things like CBT. Do you have a certification? And you can use that word, certificate. They'll know what you're talking about. Do you have a certification in CBT? Do you have a certification in ACT? Do you have certification in metacognitive therapy? You can ask those things, and the therapist should understand what certification means. What you'll find is that almost everybody in every directory of therapy will list anxiety as one of their things that they treat. It's extremely rare to see a therapist is not just throw the word anxiety in the list with everything else. So sometimes you have to ask them about their certifications and their training, right? Not their degree so much in the U.S., but well, what trainings have you undergone? Are you certified in CBT, dialectical behavior therapy, ACT, MCT, ask about those things? And when they say, yeah, I do anxiety, do you specialize in treating anxiety disorders? And if the therapist says, well, not really, I just have patients with anxiety, then that might be a reason to ask someone else, right? Move on to the next one. Do you find somebody who says, yes, I treat anxiety disorders? That is my specialty. Hard to find. You might have to sift through interviews and phone calls before you find that. Yeah, Leslie, I'll talk about that in a second. Let's see here. Hey, Julie, welcome. Oh, Bethany had put this up already. Different types of therapy was helpful for anxieties. And now that's, that's 100 episode 130. That was well over a year ago, but they still, it still counts. There I was talking about the difference in paradigms and worldviews or what you might call developmental theories. So generally speaking, you're going to find that a lot of therapists that really kind of focus on not so much psychoanalytic, but maybe humanistic or the humanistic therapy is something you could add in with almost any modality, including the ones we're talking about. So don't let that keep you away. But therapists had a really heavily invested themselves in talk therapy and feelings and healing and digging and resolving probably not your best bet of your agoraphobic. Debbie, I'll answer that too in a second. I'll just get that to the end. Let's see. Hey, anxious dude, what up? I just got home after having a panic when growing up with a friend. Just tripped. I got stuck through it. Awesome. How's it going? Good. Welcome, anxious dude. Glad you're here. Now I feel fine again. It's a great feeling when you move through it, right? And you're very welcome. I'm glad you're finding the material helpful. So let's pop down here. Kermit is in the background. That is correct. I did better without a therapist to get some good insight. Excellent. That's true. No, no, no. Monophobia. Thank you. That's okay. I'll sort this up real quick and we'll wrap it up in a minute or two. Do I find ACT helpful? ACT stands for acceptance and commitment therapy. And the more I learn about ACT, the more I can tell you that that will 100% be one of the tools I use. Like when I am licensed and ready to go and actually see patients, I will use ACT. 100%. ACT is a great, great modality. It's based on the idea that we should not, I'm going to give you a really quick version here. ACT is based upon the premise, acceptance, meaning pain and suffering and adversity is just part of the human condition. So we have to stop calling being anxious a disease or that you're broken or we have to medicalize this or cure it. Like it's just part of the experience of being human. So we need to start to develop some psychological flexibility that allows us to move through that experience in a more productive and healthy way. So I'm a huge fan of ACT. It's one of the, it's one of those third wave therapies that are really gaining a lot of ground. Better than sort of old school CBT for sure. I love ACT, hugely effective. I'm also a fan of metacognitive therapy, which we'll talk about in another day. That's really thinking about the process of thinking. And when you become aware of your own thought processes, ACT is a little bit more mechanical, but that's another good one. So let's see here. Do you think, I just kind of went over this, do I think talk therapy will help? No, I just flat out do not. Talk therapy is not real. And talk therapy meaning where you just sort of go to your therapist and they ask you, so how are you doing? How are you feeling? Like, how's it going with your mom? Like, I'm not saying that's not valuable therapy. It is. But if you are trying to solve the specific problem of having panic attacks that are crippling me, I have OCD, I have crippling health anxiety, I can't leave my house, then just talking about how you feel. And I know this pisses people off, but this is not news. That's not terribly effective for that. So no, just talking about how you feel almost never, almost never is effective in this situation. Now, that doesn't mean if you have panic disorder and you also have other issues in your life that you want to work on, totally cool. Talk therapy is super helpful for a lot of things, just not this or sometimes we have to combine things. I know people that are fortunate enough and lucky enough to live around good therapists that have multiple therapists that might have two at the same time. They have a traditional talk therapist, maybe a little bit more of an analytical or humanistic bent, and they have a CBT therapist or an anxiety specialist. Everybody works together. That's awesome. So talk therapy is super helpful therapy. And you should always evaluate yourself of it if you need it. It's just not really geared to the stuff that I'm talking about. Hopefully that helps. Let's see here. Better for adolescent anxiety, possibly, possibly. Yeah, metacognitive therapy is the other one. Let's see here. I'm going to throw up one more comment here. Somebody else mentioned another. Leslie had a comment. I just want to make sure. Here we go. Debbie had a comment too. Certification. So when you are picking, I'm only speaking in the U.S. I cannot speak to what goes on in the U.K. or in other countries, but in the U.S., generally speaking, in our 50 states, we have two things that a therapist has to meet. A therapist has to have credentials and a therapist has to be certified. Credentials is like licensing. So in every, I don't know that there's a state in the U.S. where a therapist can practice without a license. So when you go to find a therapist, you will find a therapist who is either licensed as a clinical psychologist or an LPC, a licensed professional counselor, or an LMHC, licensed mental health counselor, LMFT, licensed marriage and family therapist. So that's their credential or their license that allows them to legally practice and says, yes, they've satisfied these very stringent educational requirements. It's going to take me 3,000 hours of supervised work before I can even sit for the licensing exam. So that's your guarantee that the person has actually been trained and also is probably adhering to standards of supervision and ethical practice. Certification is, after that, I may choose to go and get certified in dialectical behavior therapy or metacognitive therapy. And then I'm going and I'm actually spending more time and paying more money to have people who are experts in that type of therapy train me and certify me. And in most of those modalities, there's multiple levels. So I'm level one, ACT level, two, level three, level four. So that's what a certification is. Hopefully that helps. And what else? Is that what I'm teaching now, ACT? What I'm teaching now looks a lot like ACT, but there's elements of old school CBT and metacognitive therapy in the MCT. So it's a mix. I think that's it. There was one more comment that I wanted to throw up here about neurodivergence before we end it. If you are autistic and anxiety therapists say I can't recover from anxiety because of my HSP and autism, is that true? So this is one that I can't really comment on. So it's always important for me to say, and we have to recognize that our neurodivergent friends experience the world differently. Not wrong. They're not broken. It's not a disease. At least I don't believe that it's a disease state in some way or a broken state. It's a different state. So I'm always speaking to a non neurodivergent population because I don't have personal experience that I can draw on and I have no training in dealing with neurodivergent populations like people who have autism or Asperger's. So I can't really say. I will say that the approach might be a little bit different because we have to understand that you may be experiencing these things differently than I will or other people might. But I would not say that it's impossible. I don't know what therapists would ever tell you that it's somehow impossible to recover because maybe you're existing on the autism spectrum. That doesn't sound right to me, but I'm far from an expert. I'm never going to I'm always going to tell you if I don't know. And in this case, I don't I don't have enough to know to say. Okay. So let's see, brought your book to the mailbox five whole days. Nothing. No, hey, Debbie, I'll put this up on the screen. We should put up on the screen. We'll end with a big win from a new friend here. Have walked to the mailbox five whole days. Nothing monumental for some. Everybody in this room right now, Deb, understand that that is monumental. So there's no need to minimize it. It's a big deal. Trust me, there were days when just getting out of this house, getting in the car and driving around the block for 45 seconds was a win. So do not minimize that. Great, great, great job. So well done. All right, guys, we're good. 43 minutes. I think I'm, they are a little longer, right? What's up with that? Like I always say they're going to be short and then they're not. So you guys should probably not even listen to me say that anymore. I'm going to bother saying it. So that's it. That is the end of recovery Monday episode 38. We'll be back again next week. What is next week? Let's see what next week is. Next week is why should you go seven percent slower? So we'll talk about that. Remember, we're doing lessons out of this book. If you want to copy the book, I'm going to unabashedly put it up on the screen. It's a great book. I'm told that it's going to be a kindle. I don't know. I just got email from Amazon that's going to be one of the kindle deals soon. I don't know, but whatever. Anyway, so thanks for coming by guys. I will keep commenting if you want wherever you happen to be. This will stay on my YouTube and a playlist for recovery Monday. It will stay in my Facebook page. It stays in the Facebook group. Hard to define there because the group is like a fire host sometimes, but the best way to come back and find these I think is my YouTube. So go check it out. Subscribe to the YouTube channel and look at the playlist. All the podcast episodes, all the recovery Mondays are all in playlist there. Like it's super easy to find there. Super chaotic on Facebook. All the videos I do with Lauren Rosen are in there. So go check it out. All right, guys, we'll see you next week. Thank you. And I am out. I'm letting you know what? I'm going to answer this before I go. Can I message you? The answer is no. And the reason why I'll address it while there are 50 people in the room or whatever, I would answer personal messages all day long. I can't. I know so many of you guys friend requested me on Facebook and you try to message me. I'm probably never going to see them, not because I'm too important. I just couldn't possibly answer all the personal messages. If you saw my inboxes, you wouldn't believe it. And it's also just not ethical for me to do that. Like I can engage with you one-on-one because they don't actually know you. Right. So don't be, don't take it personally. If I don't see your message or I don't answer your message, I just can't. Practically speaking, I can't do it. And I have to adhere to some ethical standards also. So that's why. All right, guys, now I'm really out. I will see you.