 complete the process of recovery if you do not make your recovery a priority in your life, so you can maintain the commitment to the process. So today on episode 26 of Recovery Monday, we're going to talk about prioritizing your recovery and what it means. So let's get cooking. Chat overlay is going up on the screen, so let me know where you're from, how you're doing, let me know everything's working, caught you what's up, how everything's okay in your part of the world in stressful times. Good to see you. Just make sure that we can hear me. I'm guessing that we can hear me because my headphones were working before I came on. Today we are going to chapter five, which is there's really six chapters in the anxious truth, but five is really the last chapter because chapter six is just a wrap up. So just a reminder, every Monday we do a lesson out of this book, The Anxious Truth. That's why we call it Recovery Monday. We're just going lesson by lesson and we are now in the home stretch. We've been doing it for 26 weeks already. Today we're talking about, we're going to chapter five, which is about executing your recovery plan and we're going to talk about the need to prioritize and commit today. So if you do not have a copy of this book and you want to go back and watch all the Recovery Monday episodes on YouTube or whatever and read along, you can get it on my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com. And if you are reading it, you dig it, maybe write me a review on Amazon because it certainly helps. So today we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about the need to prioritize your recovery and what that really means and the need to commit to it. So let's see, how's everybody going? Pony Girl caught a live stream. Don't know if Pony Girl is, but okay. What up, Jason? GBG is here, Carol is here. Hey, Carol, Sam is here. All the usual suspects. I am heard, says Bethany. Thanks, B. All right, let's get into it here. So it's going to be pretty short because I really only have, I have like two really important things to say today. And that's what this chapter of the book is really all about. And that is that prioritizing your recovery is really, it is important. So one, for a couple of reasons, there's two main reasons that I want to cover. One of them is that we are doing these things that we don't really want to do, right? So we're doing scary things. We're challenging ourselves. We're intentionally making ourselves uncomfortable so that we can build this new relationship with anxiety and put it back into a normal, healthy place in our lives. Okay. So when you have to do really like hard things, it's easy to kind of skip out on doing hard things, especially when we get busy. And I'm going to say air quotes, busy. And I was guilty of this too. Like I'm really busy. I just have so much to do, like when am I going to find time to do my ERP homework or do my exposures or whatever it is. So it's important to understand that if you don't prioritize your recovery as something that's important, no, no, no, I make time to do this. This is a thing that I do because it's important in my life. Then it becomes really easy to take easier things like your job or maybe schoolwork or taking care of your kids. I'm not saying those things are easy. They're not, but easier than doing exposure and being intentionally uncomfortable and afraid. It's really easy to kind of push the exposure and the recovery work down the ladder, right? Or if you're dealing with that all day anxiety, the gap, the health anxiety, whatever it is, becomes a whole lot easier to tune into YouTube all day, listen to podcasts all day, have the TV on all day. It's easier to do easy things. So if we do not commit to this process and prioritize recovery, it can be really easy to just sort of accidentally, I'll do that later and then you don't do it. Then it becomes, I'll do it tomorrow and then it's, I miss tomorrow. I'm really busy. I have so much going on. Okay. So that's the first reason why it's really important to sort of prioritize your recovery because you're worth it. And number two, here is the other part. I'll go through comments in a bit. Here's the second most important thing. This is the one that I really want to stress today. Prioritizing your recovery and committing to this process, which means making time to do the work. And in future episodes, the next couple of weeks, we're going to talk about that, setting your schedule, like getting your family and friends on board with the fact that you have to do all this work. One of the things that I hear people say to me all the time is, well, I can't be selfish. And they will say, well, if I prioritize my recovery, and I put myself at the top of the list, because you are, when you prioritize your recovery, you are in fact, putting yourself at the top of your list. Now for many people, this is a completely foreign place to be. It will feel, for a lot of you, wrong or irresponsible or selfish, or that's what self-centered people do, are narcissists put themselves on the top of the list. But it's really, really important for you to start to tear down that belief and understand that if you think you want to be a selfless person and you want to be there, and these are, you know, socialized roles and things that we have stuck in our heads, if I am a mom, my kids always come first. I'm a terrible parent, a good, a bad mom, bad dad, if I put myself above my kids. So you will lament the fact that you are not an effective parent because of your anxiety, but then we'll also say that you can't prioritize your recovery because that would also make you an ineffective parent. See the unfairness of that trap? So if you want to be a selfless person, because you think that's better, then for whatever, and we could argue that some other time, but if you want to be a selfless person, it's really hard to be selfless if you are stuck in where you are with your anxiety problem. So if you are struggling because you're not able to fully engage with your family, you're missing events, you're missing out on your kids, you're not fully present with them, I've heard all of these things, right? These are common things we heard all the time. And to get better, you have to put yourself temporarily on the top of the list and commit to doing the work and make it a priority. People will say, well, I can't do that either because I'm a mom, I'm a dad, I have a business, I have this, I'm a husband, I'm a partner, like I can't prioritize myself. Well, it's going to be really hard. You're not giving yourself a really chance at succeeding. And in the end, prioritizing yourself is not in any way selfish because you're not being terribly effective within your family and social structures, stuck the way you are. Excuse me. So in the end, wouldn't it be sort of a selfless act to put yourself in a position where you can get better and be that better version of yourself that you long to be? So this is really tough. And I see this is probably the number one message that I cannot stress enough today, that the idea that if I prioritize myself and make myself a priority and my mental health a priority and my recovery a priority so I can commit to this process and actually work on myself, the idea that that makes me selfish or it makes me a bad parent or a bad employee or a bad friend or a bad partner or whatever the bad spouse is not right. It's just not right. That's not true. Everybody has to take care of themselves. And it would be really hard for you to wear the mantle of I take care of everybody else if you can't even take care of yourself. So that is just in a way being really unkind to yourself and being very unrealistic and unfair to yourself. I would bet that the people in your life that care for you, where you play a role with them and a family system and social systems and work systems and clubs and organizations in your church, whatever it is, I'm guessing that they would be more than happy to see you miss a couple of church meetings or miss a couple of school pickups or whatever it is that you have to do to prioritize making yourself better. The people in your life that care about you would likely want you to take the time to get better and feel better and be happier and be more satisfied with yourself. And in turn, they're not asking for benefits, but they will also reap benefits. It's so important. Like, I did have to prioritize my recovery and it did make me feel like, oh, I'm a failure as a dad. If I do that, because I put myself on the top of the list, like that's so selfish. But in the end, I was a way better father for having done that way, way, way better than to keep saying, well, I can't do that because I have to be dad. Like, well, first of all, what did I really have to do? You have to be careful about also using that I have to be mom, I have to be dad, I have to be husband, wife, partner, I have to be whatever that can also easily become what seems to be a socially and morally and ethically acceptable excuse for not doing the scary things that we don't want to do. So these are not so much mechanical issues today that we're talking about procedural issues. They really are emotional or sort of mindset issues and I hate the word mindset, but I cannot stress enough that in order to commit to this work, like, no, I am going to do this. This is it. I'm going to do this part of commitment is you have to put it at the top of the list. You have to make yourself a priority, just the same way that you would want your kids or your partner or your mom, your dad, your sister, your brother, your best friend, your spouse, whoever, you would want them to take care of themselves. So you have to look at yourself the way you would look at them. If your partner came to you and said, well, I really have this problem, I have to solve it, but I can't because I told you that I would take you to the movies on Friday, you'd be like, don't be silly, like take care of yourself. I want you to take care of yourself. You would tell the people you love that they should take care of themselves and you would be fine if they put themselves on the top of the list for a while. In fact, many of you may even have these conversations in your family and in your social circles. Like, dude, you never take care of yourself. You never put yourself first. How many times have you told that to somebody that you love? Well, you're going to have to tell it to yourself a little bit too, right? So it's not a really super long or technical message today. It really is a message about beliefs, and it is really going to be difficult to commit to the process, which commitment is a thing that's also in this chapter. Commitment has to do with discipline. There's a lot of stuff that goes into that, but it's hard to commit if you insist that you cannot be a priority ever. Now maybe you have been taught to not be a priority. You've been in family systems or social systems that punished you for putting yourself first. Well, in this situation, you're going to have to start to work through those at least acknowledge like, oh, this belief comes from this, but I can work through that and maybe you need some help working through those things. But these are some of the things that I hear very commonly in our community where people will insist that they cannot put themselves as a priority and their recovery progress does suffer. It's not impossible. It just gets frustrating. And sometimes there's no reason for it to be frustrating. I don't want you guys to be frustrated or disheartened or judge yourself harshly if you're not even giving yourself a running start to begin with, right? So let's check it out in the comments. Let's see what you guys have to say. Like I said, not a long lecture today. It's kind of, you know, it's really about that. So let's see what you guys have to say about that. Hey, from Bethlehem. Julie's here. What up? Oh, Bonnie Clark is Pony Girl. Hey, Bonnie. Nicole is here. Katja's here trying to focus. Oh, the Oscar news. Oh, goodness. The Oscar news overlapped all the way. I want to, I just want to talk about the Oscar thing a little bit because I did post about that. And I really struggled with posting about that. Maybe at the end we'll talk about that a little bit. So let's see here. I'll put this up. You know what? Okay, we'll take this. So this is one of those things, struggling with health anxiety as awaiting cardiac tests. How do you cope with this uncertainty? All of life is uncertain. So one of the things that I've taken to say lately very flippantly is, you know, three and a half billion years ago, life sprang forth on planet earth and every day has been uncertain since then. So there is no certainty in life. And in this situation, trying to find a way to take away the uncertainty or magically make uncertainty feel okay or comfortable or confident is not a fair ask of yourself. It is okay to be uncertain and a little worried about that when, you know, you're waiting for test results to come back. Anybody would worry about that. Anybody would be concerned about that. There's no reason to try to fight the worry or think that you can somehow engineer away. It's okay to be a little bit worried about that, to be a little preoccupied with that. Everybody would understand that. You know, if a friend saw you sort of zoning out off in the distance and knew that you were waiting for some health results to come in, that person would probably know like, yeah, you got some stuff on your mind today. That's okay. It's okay. You have to allow the uncertainty and understand that it will make you uncomfortable, but it would make anybody uncomfortable. The secret sauce is, I don't have to be afraid of being uncomfortable. So that's the stock answer all the time. Am I uncomfortable because I have a reason to be? Sure. Am I more uncomfortable because I'm uncomfortable with the fact that I'm uncomfortable? That I don't have to do. And that's what we always are working on here. So just allow it without struggling. And I hope everything turns out okay. I really do. I hope you get the results that you want. We all do. GBG has to say this, I prioritize my recovery by behaving as if I'm recovered. That is a really good point. So you are prioritizing your recovery when you do that. If when you act like a recovered person, you are challenging yourself. Even when you are feeling anything but recovered and you decide I'm going to act like a recovered person, you are literally taking on the challenges of recovery. You're doing the work of recovery. So and I love that because in a way, you can, you can almost have it both ways. If you're going to do it the way GBG did here, you know, I prioritize my recovery by acting like a recovered person. Okay. So I am going to fulfill my role as dad by driving the kids to their, you know, whatever, to the soccer games, even though I don't want to. So you can manufacture exposures and things like that to do instead of doing your dad or employee or husband or wife or partner business, or you can actually do that work. I can be a husband, I can be a partner, I can be a dad or a mom or whatever. And that's my recovery work. So that's good. I like that because you can kind of combine it. That's good. You had to kind of have it both ways, which is really cool. Good comment. Thank you very much. Let's see here. Okay. Marine says, I'm saying your name right, by the way, I have to admit, look over the comment. There's always one. I have to look admit that I many times use the going, the going on exposure stays on a prior to have other things more important to do right now. And I felt like a burden with my anxiety, my exposures. Okay. So that is, it's really along the lines of the whole like, how do I deal with the guilt of the way I am and I'm ruining my family's life and I'm not a good mom and I'm missing everything and my husband is fed up with me. I mean, these are things we hear all the time. These are heartbreaking things, right? The best way to address that and that I feel like a burden with my exposures would be to do your exposures so that you don't have to be that burden anymore. I'm not saying you are a burden. You feel like you are and I can respect that you feel that way. I mean, it's really harsh judgment on yourself. But the best way to deal with that is to actually prioritize doing the work so that you don't have to feel like that anymore. So if you deprioritize the work because you think your exposures are a burden, but also your anxiety is a burden, you are giving yourself absolutely zero wiggle room. You have no place to turn paint. Now you're painting yourself in a corner and you're dead in the corner. I can't move. So that's just not fair to yourself. We hear the term self-compassion all the time and one of the most compassionate things you can do for yourself is to break out of that and put yourself at the top of that list. Then it might feel really uncomfortable to do that for now, but look at the benefits down the road. So it's just not fair to yourself to do that. You paint yourself into a corner. That's not cool. It's not cool for yourself. We don't want you to do that. So this one was really helpful. It helped me to understand what was holding me back and why I had to set back. Thank you, Katya. Chapter five is loaded with sort of the practicality of, you know, this is really the things you got to do. Like I said, we're going to talk in the future about getting your family involved and arranging your schedule to accommodate your recovery and all that stuff. So we're going to talk about all that. I kind of feel like chapter five is maybe the most important chapter, but I hesitate to say that. They're all like that. So let's see here. Okay. So there you go. Carol. And by the way, Carol, you are working hard and a big fist bump for me. You're doing great work. I know how hard you're working on your stuff, but yeah, it would be a great help to your husband. I like the way you said that it would be a help to my husband if I could be less dependent upon him. That is an objective statement of fact. We could probably all agree like, yeah, it would probably would be helpful to your husband. And you did not call yourself a burden here. You're not judging yourself. You're not talking badly of yourself. So we can acknowledge, yeah, like this is, you know, my anxiety situation has an impact on my loved ones and my family for sure. But it doesn't mean I'm a bad person. So be careful about that. Like Carol, like the way you said that, that was, that was great. It was just an objective statement of fact. And like, I can work on that. So good job. And yes, when you notice that, then it really says whether I can prioritize myself. So then in the end, it's a benefit to both me and my husband. Right. So good deal. Good morning, Donna, Oregon. So let's see here. I assume they mean it to block out, okay, I'm going to pop this up here. I forgot to make me a priority. Okay, I assume that may mean I need to, oh, you didn't make yourself a priority. I assume that may mean that I need to block out those who are creating toxicity so I can't recover fully correct. Sam, I don't know if you're actually asking me this question or responding to a comment. I can't tell, but I'm going to address it anyway. You know, sometimes the answer to this is yes and no. Like sometimes there are people in our lives that literally do not want us to get better for a variety of reasons. Sometimes those reasons are a little bit nefarious and hurtful intentionally. Sometimes they're a little bit hurtful or limiting not intentionally. I know people in situations where one person's recovery becomes a threat to the other, either because the person, one person needs to be in control, that's not really great. Or the other person begins to feel value less if they are not the caretaker. So some of that stuff can happen as for its toxicity that's keeping me from being recovered. I'm not really sure about that. I think that's really a personal thing and it depends on the people you're talking about. I clearly don't know your relationships and you're going to have to be the judge one by one of that. But I don't necessarily say that it's a rule of recovery that you must cut certain people out of your life. You can control what you do. And I think it's always about, well, I can control what I do. But if this person is impacting the way I can do what I do, then maybe I have to modify my relationship with that person. But I'm not a huge fan of that blanket statement about toxicity and toxic people that's a little bit overused. We all should stand up for ourselves. We all deserve respect. We all deserve to be safe in our relationships. Nobody deserves to be, you know, abused or manipulated or anything like that. But I'm a little bit on that whole toxicity thing. Sometimes it's a blanket statement that doesn't need to be there. No, no, no, no, no, let's pop those. I'm sorry. I can't see Facebook user. I don't know who you are. That's just the way Streamer does it. That tells me you're in my Facebook group. If you avoid the news or negative information, is this avoidance unproductive? That's also situational, right? So what I would say is, for instance, what's going on in the world now sucks in a big way, right? We all agree. And this is bad news every day. What's going on in the Ukraine right now is not a good thing. And just the rest of the world, there's just bad stuff happening. You do not have to immerse yourself in bad news about the world every day, all day long. That's not exposure. But you also have to be honest with you and say, well, when I watch the news, it triggers this particular response in me. It triggers this avoidance. It triggers this compulsion. It triggers this safety behavior. So I will watch the news for five minutes so that I can work on relating to this news, upsetting them, maybe in a different way for five minutes, maybe for 10 minutes. Maybe I'm just going to watch a half hour of the news and then that's it. You know better than anybody else. So I would tell you that if you feel like, well, I can't watch the news because it sends my anxiety through the roof, you got to reframe that and say, when I watch the news, I get upset, which anybody would. Then I add upset on top of that because I'm afraid of being upset. There's a difference between I'm upset because I saw some really terrible images on the news, understandable. I'm upset because I'm upset, not so much. And that's what you have to work on. But you do not have to immerse yourself all the time in bad news. That's not exposure. Time it. Make it measurable. I'm going to watch the news for five minutes and I'm going to work on moving through the feelings that I experience as a result without declaring them disastrous and without accommodating the idea that I must be upset because I am upset. Right? I did an episode in the podcast a couple of weeks ago about crying. One of those common things, like in a normal state, you would say, I cry because I am upset. Nobody would question that. The flip side is what we're always working on. I am upset because I cry. I am upset because I watched the news. Sure, we all are. I am upset because I'm upset. That's what you got to work on. Okay. Representing from Twitch. All right. We got two Twitch people. Woo, more happy. Thanks, Twitch. Okay, so let's see it. Is it acceptable to take breaks from exposure if needed when you feel overwhelmed? You know, this is, yes, of course, everybody's allowed to take breaks. I'll take it off the screen because it's a huge comment. Everybody's allowed to take breaks. We're all allowed to rest. Like human beings get tired. We get worn down. This work can wear you down mentally, emotionally, physically. And we are all allowed to rest. The only thing that I always say about rest is you have to be really honest. When I, when you say, when I would say, well, I just feel overwhelmed. I need a break. Well, what does overwhelmed me? What does overwhelmed mean? If it means I'm physically exhausted, I'm mentally exhausted. I, you know, I just need to rest. I need to sleep. I need some downtime. Totally okay. Take that. There's, that's not an error. It's not a problem. It doesn't break your recovery, but we always have to be super honest. And what do I mean by I'm tired? If I'm tired is just, well, I've been out for four days in a row and I really am afraid to drive today. So I'm just going to take a mental health day. You have to be just really honest with yourself. And if you can be honest with yourself and you know that the answer is like, all right, I'm avoiding here. What I used to do sometimes is I would say, okay, I'll take a smaller drive today. And I would at least do something or I'm going to go out and take a little walk around the block today. Walking around the block wasn't so much of a problem, but I would do something and then rest. So you never know. Some days you've got to crash on the sofa. It's okay. No crime there. We just always have to be honest with us. So, you know, and Bethany just says, where do people get the idea that they can't rest? I'm going to take ownership of some of that because when I wrote my first book, An Anxiety Story, in that book, I clearly said that I took no days off and I regret writing that. It's true. I did take no days off, but I think I mistakenly held that up as an ideal of some kind just because I did it that way does not mean that everybody should do it that way. In fact, I would probably say that most people shouldn't do it that way. When I say no days off, I would completely rewrite that. I can't change what I wrote, but I would rewrite that to say no days off based on being afraid. No days off on being afraid. So I just described some of those days. I would scale things back and when I was tired because I was tired. I was physically tired from that work. I would scale it back and do something small that day so that I just never spent an entire day in complete retreat. That was my no days off. I didn't, you know, I know I wrote as if I was a machine, but I would have to take responsibility for putting that out there. No days off in recovery. And I still will say that sometimes. No days off based purely on fear. We do not retreat from our fear and call it rest. But when we need to rest, we rest. That's what humans do. It's okay. Hopefully that helps. I'll own that. I regret writing those words. I'll always regret writing those words. Let's see here. Oscar news verdict. Everyone sucks here. I can't argue with that. It's solid. Okay. Let's see here. I'm going to scroll down a little bit until you make it. I have one week of being away from doing exposure every day. Okay. I'm sorry. I'm just going to scroll over a quick to see which ones we're going to talk about. I'll put this one up. I've had a week of being away from home and doing exposures every day. Good job. But strangely being back in my room brings up more anxieties if it's a habit or because I've had most of my panic attacks here. Good day. Like that ingrained condition response that like, well, this is where I panic is powerful. So like, hey, look, I did all my stuff, but back home, this is where I panicked. It's okay. Unfortunately, this is just another one of the situations where it's like, okay, if you feel anxious when you get back home, you're going to have to work on moving through the anxiety even at home. It's okay. It doesn't mean that something is wrong or you're not recovering or anything like that. It's okay. It's not fun, but don't try to analyze that or assign any special meaning to the fact that like, oh, I don't know, I was out and now I'm anxious at home. Okay. Well, no matter where I, we are trying to learn that we are okay across all contexts, all situations, all places, all groups of people were always okay. So now you'll have to learn that you're okay even at home. Something's making noise, but I can't tell what. So hopefully that helps. And everybody, by the way, you guys are huge. Like the admins in my slack, it never fails. If I'm going to do a live video, that is when you guys are going to start to protract the discussion in slack. And then it's like, I'm getting hammered with slack notifications right now. But I love you guys anyway. So it's okay. Let's see. I always felt like medical care and some of the scary sensations give me more strength to endure the dirty. I'm not going to get in the middle of this clearly as a conversation here between other people. Let's see. How do I stop having? Okay, I'll throw this on here. This really isn't the topic, but okay, JJ, what up? How do I stop having recurring thought? You don't. You don't. You do not turn off your notifications, man. I forget me. I forget. I should. But it's invariable. You guys like you have a time. Okay, so how do I stop having recurring recurring thought? You don't stop having. It's so important to understand that your goal is to never, never, never try to stop your thoughts because you can't. We do not get to choose what we think ever. Yeah, we can choose certain thoughts that we're going to have. I can choose to think about a thing, but you don't get to choose what pops in your head randomly. So you don't do that. Should I ignore it or expose myself to it? Yes, sort of both of those things. I can't say specifically in your circumstance, but you are learning that it's okay to have that thought. More important, it's okay to experience the discomfort that that thought brings up for me. I can move through that discomfort and know that I am still okay. So when you learn that the discomfort does not mean doom, it doesn't mean that the thought is true or untrue, whatever the disaster scenario is. Like I can be uncomfortable. I had thought that I don't like and control that makes me uncomfortable. I can move through this. So it's not so much ignoring. Be careful about ignoring. You couldn't ignore that thought and that discomfort if I paid you. You can't ignore it. You're going to feel it, but I can move through it even though I experience it. So that's a short answer, but hopefully that helps. When I was constantly seeking out news, it was definitely attempting control. Oh, this is good. This is good. We have a comment in from Twitch. When I was constantly seeking out news, it was an attempt to control. The more I knew, the more I thought I had some control, it was obsessive. That is a huge amount of insight right there. Like I applaud that, knowing that that's what you're doing. So some people can do that. Some people are, for sure, they want to avoid all the news because it will trigger them and make their anxiety go through the roof. And some people on the flip side, so it's really good backing. Glad you brought that up is that. Like if I just know everything about it, then somehow it's better. So when I was doing a lot of my recovery work, we had the big financial collapse, like the mortgage crisis of 2008 and the economy just literally was collapsing around us. And I watched every minute of coverage that I could get my hands on for like two weeks until I realized like this is doing nothing for me. So I get that. I was kind of that person. But also in the past in my battles with anxiety, I would avoid the news. So it's interesting how that shifted during my recovery work. I wanted to know everything and understand everything. I'm like, suddenly I'm going to be a Nobel Prize winning like economist. No, I'm not going to learn all that in two weeks. So good, good comments. I appreciate that. I'm going to put up a, putting up a, hey, Paula from Twitch, putting up a Twitch comment, just have two Twitch comments. But the toxic label is awful and is created because of a pop culture self-help book. You know, I think we can all agree that some people do have a toxic nature. I understand. But toxic has become one of those words that everything is toxic. So I know it's unpopular when I say stuff like that, but I'm not completely invalidating the fact that some people are certainly damaging their personalities, their behavior could be damaging and hurtful. Just we way overuse all of these things, all of them. Oh, this is good. Kat, thank you for saying this. Love yourself first is super cliche and everything, but it's true. Like it's true. I cannot even believe that I'm saying the words love yourself first in a live video. Like what has even happened to me, but that's true. It is true. Like be nice to yourself. You deserve it. Let's pop in here. Hey, Don, what up? Let's see. The recovery mindset can be down. I'll put this up. Bethany is a good comment. Thanks, B. I know the recovery mindset can be a daily thing. It affected how I might approach my daily life. Okay. This comment right here with Bethany said, listen to that. Yes, that's true. You can be in a recovery frame of mind every day and aware of like, am I making good choices or am I retreating or avoiding unnecessarily? That's okay. Like you can't get obsessed with that, but I love this. This is really good. It is very different. Be committed to your recovery does not mean that you drive yourself into the ground. That's really important. Really important. I couldn't take a tail from stinky thinking says, let's put this up. Okay. This is Donna illustrating the fact that you don't get to control your thoughts. So Don has done tremendous work and come so far in her recovery. Don, you've done this. You've done tremendous work and I'm super happy that you're where you are now, but this is important. I could not take a day off from my thoughts. So by default, then you wind up in that recovery mode almost every day in some way, shape or form, because you're always practicing. That can happen to some people. Let's see here. When I say I'm tired and really fight to get myself into this. Okay, let's see here. Julie, what's up? I get worried when I say I'm tired and really fight to give myself permission to rest. Okay. This is just my normal life, not recovery. Some people do find themselves in that position. I mean, look, there's a concept that's really funny. It has to do with not wanting to go to bed. And it's funny because when I first heard about this concept, like some people just they stay up late and that's me and refuse to go to bed. I refuse to go to bed. I literally will tell you that there have been long periods of my life and even sometimes now where it was almost like a defiance. I will not end this day. There's more that I can do or I just want to sit and watch mindless YouTube videos for me. And I'm not giving that up because this is my time. So some people do get stuck in that for sure. And some people, somehow for whatever reason, Julie, you might be one of them. You have adopted that belief that saying that you are tired or taking a rest somehow decreases your value or puts you in a vulnerable or wrong position. Maybe you will be criticized as being lazy. Maybe you have been criticized as being lazy. That's something that I would say to definitely work on. All human beings need to rest, even me. I like to pretend I'm a machine, but I got a rest too sometimes. It's not a crime to rest. We're allowed to rest. So let's see your turn of identification. Okay, this is fair. I think again, I would agree with this recovery work has to be done down. This has to do with today's chapter and commitment. It does have to be done daily, but it depends on the extremism, right? So it might look different from day to day. It might look different from day to day. Some days you're going to tackle really big challenges, do that again and again and again for a week or two straight if you can do it. And then some days you're just going to drop back and say, I'm going to do a small exposure today just so I don't retreat. And then I'm going to take the rest of the day on the sofa. That's okay. So I would agree. It does get done every day just that those rest days might look a little different. Let's see. Word. I love the comment word. Okay. Oh, Donna, this is a good comment. Not because you're watching these videos. I mean, you can stop watching them or watch them anytime, but this is so good. Can't figure out why except that I can now. That is a huge comment. That's the comment of the day right now. Would have given it to Bethany, but now I'm going to have to give it to Donna. Thanks, Donna, because this illustration right here. Now I keep watching these videos. I guess presumably we have police violence. Not going to comment on police violence. The bad thing, of course, we all agree with that. But it's not about that. It's about the fact that Donna can watch what are really disturbing videos that might bring up some really strong opinions and sort of get your dander up and get you really upset. And I know you're a good person. You want to change the world. So I do get that. But now you can. Like the fact that Donna got to the point where she would avoid all the triggers and now will intentionally watch those videos, maybe because of an interest in that topic and maybe trying to improve things or help fix things in her community, whatever it is. The same holds true for the thought I'm going to go insane or I'm going to die or I'm not going to exist. Like it is a big deal. I did a video not too long ago and I believe it's on my Instagram about fear of death and being crippled by the idea of death during the midst of the worst of my anxiety. And now like actually enjoying conversations about existence and the nature of death and afterlife if there is one in faith. And now those are great discussions to have. So whatever your huge fear is right now, it can actually one day we will come where that is not that's not your huge fear anymore. Like recovery encompasses so much just when you are in an anxious state and under the gun all the time, things that are like super triggers now over time, it can be less and less triggering. I swear and Donna right there is living proof. We're all winners here. All right, now we're getting out of control. And let's see here. I ended up laughing about elevators. All right. I will tell some of there were two questions about depression now next year next year. Yeah, next year. I believe next week, the podcast episode that comes out. I don't know this week or next week. I can't tell is about depression. I specifically talk about how I deal with depression. Somebody asked in the comments, how do you make sure you don't get depressed? You don't like trying to take evasive action because you are afraid that you might be depressed is not a good strategy. Like do your work, keep working your recovery, engage in life, remain active, like all of those things apply because they're just what everybody should do. But there is no special thing that you should do to say, well, I'm not depressed right now. I don't have depression, but I'm worried and afraid that I will become depressed. So I want some sort of special strategy to prove that wrong, that I won't become depressed. That's not good. You don't want to go down that road. Basically, you want to say I'm just going to be as healthy as I can. And I'm going to treat myself as best I can. I'm going to keep working on what I have to work on. And whatever happens tomorrow happens tomorrow. And I will deal with that then that is really important, really important. I was blown away when I discovered just how large the fear that I might become depressed is in this community. Like I'm not depressed now. I actually feel great now, but yet I'm afraid that I might get depression. And so I will act based on that fear. Don't go down that road. That's really difficult. It will kick off things that you don't want. And should I allow depressed feelings? Marge says, I'll throw it up real quick. I'm going to say one quick thing before I end it. Should I allow depressed feelings? What choice do you have? What choice do you have? I'm not going to allow those feelings. You don't get to choose your feelings. So while I'm having feelings of sadness or low mood or depression, I'm feeling a little low. I'm feeling down. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling discouraged today. You're allowed to have all of those feelings. So that question by itself that says, well, I don't know if I should allow them. Well, tell me what not allowing means. I think what you have to do is allow all the feelings that you have, you're allowed to have all feelings. Humans are designed to experience all feelings, including low mood or sadness or regret or feeling hopeless. Sometimes we all have those feelings. It's important to understand that if you are in the habit of immediately trying to evaluate them to determine if in fact that is depression, that's an issue. You don't have to do that. Depression is the thing that gets diagnosed by a qualified clinician. And it lasts a little while. Being sad is not depression. Being low mood is not depression. And being sad does not mean you are going to be depressed. So you have to get off the idea that I have to monitor myself for depression. I just wanted to throw that out there. So before we end, and again, I think it's either this week or next week. I don't remember. I'm going to talk about, I'm going to talk about depression, my personal experience of depression, including how it lives in my life now from time to time. So I just want to say one thing. Let's talk about the Oscars for just a second, and then we're going to wrap it up. I posted this morning about it, and I really did not want to have anything to say about that. And I want to clarify what I said. First of all, there's so much wrong in the entire thing that I don't even know where to start with that. And no way shape or form is what I posted in any way defending or apologizing for Chris Rock. What he said was ridiculous. And while I might believe that comedy should probably be unlimited in theory because of what we think about the arts and who we say we are from a society, doesn't mean that a comic has to be unlimited. I think Chris Rock, for a variety of reasons, should have known better and did not have to tell that joke. But the point that I made today was, while I do understand, and I'm going to be totally honest with you guys and authentic, if I can, I hate the word authentic, but I'm going to be, every strand of my alpha male DNA wants to root for the fact that Will Smith got up and slugged Chris Rock. That tells me that I am wrong. That tells me that I am wrong. Why do I know that that is wrong? Because we don't necessarily have to be slaves to our emotions. In that moment, I understand he was very emotional. He was angry. I understand. I can think of 15 other ways that he could have approached that and probably done a better job of still standing up for his wife and supporting her. That being said, what I'm more concerned about is the rooting for the fact that he got up and threw a punch at somebody. Because in this very community, we have men who feel that they are less than and weak or feminine or not masculine enough or not testosterone enough or not alpha enough. If they express concerns about their own mental health, men will suffer in silence because they are afraid to be vulnerable and talk about these things and show weakness. And so when we root for the solution that says, you get up and you let the testosterone run through your body and you throw a punch at somebody and then sit down and jaw at them from your seat. It is literally the message that says, that is, excuse me, that is masculinity. That message says, that is what a man does. And that is not what a man does. That is not what a man does. One possible option of what a man can do. But again, I could think of 15 other ways that he could have done a better job with that. Easy for me to say, I might have made the same mistake that Will Smith did, but I'm sure he feels bad about it. But my message this morning was not apologizing for Chris Rocker defending him. I just don't like that we will glorify an image that intentionally sends the message that men are not supposed to be anything but that. Like dudes, you are way more than what you got between your legs. You are way more than testosterone. Like we can be smarter than that and still, still fulfill healthy male roles. I do not like that that sort of behavior stifles the ability of men to ask for help, be vulnerable when they need to be. It's super important. I didn't want to weigh in at all, but that bothered me when I saw the response to that and the chest bumping and just the ridiculous nonsense. That's how you handle it. That's what you do. You know what? If you come after one of my friends or somebody you love, I'm going to want to take your head off too. But I'm going to try and use my head and do that in a more productive way that doesn't become damaging for everybody and isn't just self-serving to my own ego. So there you go. I will get off my soapbox now. But that's why I said what I said. So just to show you guys now. And dudes, if you're struggling, it's okay to speak about that and ask for help. It really is. I promise it is. So there you go. 42 minutes is about where we end it. I'm sorry. I can't take all the comments and I will get off my soapbox now. But again, we'll be back again next week. I don't know how many more of these we have next week. We're going to talk about I was trying to give you a heads up. So chapter five, I don't know how many lessons it has. But okay, lesson next week, same time, say that channel two o'clock Eastern, you're on YouTube and on Facebook and on Twitch Twitter, if anybody's watching on Twitter, we're going to talk about arranging your life accordingly. We the logistics of being able to fit your recovery into your life. So we'll be back here again at the same time. This video will stay on YouTube on Facebook and the Facebook group. I think it stays on Twitch and I don't know what it does there. I don't know if you're watching over there. Thank you very much. But that's it. I appreciate you guys coming by again, teaching lessons out of this book. I'll see you again next week until we're done, which I think we have another four or five weeks, six, seven weeks tops. Go and I'll see you guys next week. Thanks for everything.