 business. All right, here we go. Hey, what's up dudes and dudettes? It's Drew here from the anxious truth back with Holly. What up, Pals? Hi. We are going to tackle chapter nine of the Claire Weeks hope and help for your nerve hope and help for your nerves book. What's it called in Europe? Hope piece from nervous. You have a different name there or I think was it peace from nervous suffering or is that just completely I'm not sure but it's out there under about a billion different names, but it's all this. It seems seemingly all the same book. Anyway, hope and help for your nerves. We've done the first eight chapters of this over the course of like the last three years, like it wasn't even born yet when we started. Yeah, I think yeah, I think it's for three and a half years. We're graduating university when we finished the last chapter. I'm quite sure. Anyway, we're going to do chapter nine today. If you guys do not have the book, hope and help for your nerves. You can find it anywhere or you can go to the anxious treat dot com and follow the bookstore link. There's a link there where you get it. Making it easy for people. And yes, it would make a couple of bucks for the channel and we'll buy Holly in a camera. So please look at this blueness that I'm in. What's going on? It's very warm and yellow in this room. I don't know what's happening. I had to tell my Christmas tree lights off and everything. Not good. We believe you. We've all seen you. You're not that blue. So chapter nine in the book is all about it's kind of talking about how the she talks about set back. She talks about the fear of it's not going fast enough. All those things. So it's a lot of things that we hear about often, like in the Facebook group, where people are like, Hey, I'm doing it now, but how come it's not getting any better? Or I was doing so great. And now I'm not. What's going on? They keep going backwards. She talks specifically about that. Exactly. Yeah, this is this chapter is called being yourself again. And it's the it's so this is for people that are like a little bit further along now. And they're actually like into where they've been able to put into practice the sort of face in and accepting or surrendering, you know, and the sort of letting time pass. But this is more maybe about the letting time past it. I think so. And by the way, we should probably say if you haven't seen the first eight videos in the series, if you go to the website or go to my YouTube channel, whatever or the podcast, you'll see, watch the first eight before you do this one. So this is about your right. Now you've understanding what's going on. You know what it is and you know what you're supposed to do. You're starting to do it now. And how do things start to change or not change is what she's really addressing. So I made some notes as we went. And the first thing I highlighted is right at the beginning of the chapter, she says, Now it is almost certain that despite your new approach to your illness, your symptoms will continue to return for some time, perhaps at first as acutely as before you read this book. So like you have this blinding flash of insight. Oh, this is the way. This is awesome. And then you discover like, Yeah, but I still feel the same way. Yeah, we see this come a lot, right? We get a lot of people saying this constantly, constantly. And she follows up because I think it's all kind of the same quote. She finds she wrote that after she's talking, she was a doctor herself. And she says she often finds that after talking to what she called a nervously ill patient. And there's a lot of old language in this chapter too. They leave the room and they're all happy like, Oh, this is it. I, you know, I see the light. I know the way. And then, you know, a few days later, there's all the crest falling disappointed like this, but it doesn't work. It's not working. Yeah, because all their symptoms are still there. And the thoughts are still racing. And you know, exactly. So I mean, those are my first two things that I highlighted, which are your parents. Yeah. So a lot of that is about managing your expectation when she says that it's not do not expect to be instantly cured. Do not expect to find instant relief because this is so important, isn't it? Because if you're doing it just so that you feel relief, it's almost like completely defying the whole point of it. You're not trying to face and surrender and let it all happen to you so that you can feel better. You're trying to do that so that you don't add anything, add anything to it. So you're not adding that fear to it. Right. You're learning to do it with the intention of feeling better. It's not you kind of missing the point. Exactly. And I think that's what sets so many people up. I mean, number one, everybody wants to feel better right away. So I think we could all understand that. But it's that, you know, okay, I'm going to accept my anxiety. I'm going to accept these symptoms. But I'm I still don't want to accept that I have to have them be there. I want to make them go away as fast as possible. And you have to be super honest with yourself. If that's really what you think this is going to do, then you're going to set yourself up for this this disappointing thing that she's talking about. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what is the goal in the end? Not to make it go away, but No, but to be you can't change it, you can just change your reaction to it, right? It's it's understanding that you're not in any danger. And so that you don't add that fear to it, which keeps you perpetually in this, you know, fight or fly and sense highly sensitized state. But what's so important to learn is, or to realize is that when you're in that sensitized state, it does it takes a while, even if you're doing it bang on correctly, what you should be doing every single time takes a long time to be able to come down from that level of like sensitization. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's what people forget is like you're learning to experience those things without being afraid of experiencing those things. And that that takes a while like so and you're what you're giving yourself as repeated experiences with a positive outcome that says I was sweating and dizzy and felt like it was gonna faint and all of those horrible things and those I thought it was gonna go insane. And I didn't do anything. I just let it all happen. And I turned out okay, I didn't I didn't none of those bad things happen. And you need that repeated experience to say like, Oh, I guess I don't have to be afraid of that. So in the end, that's that's really what's going on. And she actually addresses that. She says it's enough at this stage to wish to be unafraid. Yeah, I love that. Yeah, me too. Like it's okay. Everybody wants to be not afraid anymore. That's totally fine to want to not be afraid. But the only way to learn to not be afraid is to first be afraid. He does know it away. Yeah, I wish that you won't be afraid enough. And then Oh, I'm not afraid anymore. Like, right, you have to just go through it and sort of keep seeing that nothing happens to you and that actually there is nothing to be afraid of, you know, and that that is what teaches you that. And then through that experience, you actually sort of become not afraid of it, even if it seems impossible that you would one day not be afraid of this, because it's so frightening at the time. But if you just this is where we talk about the leap of faith, right? If you just sort of put your trust into it, and say like, Well, I just want to not be afraid. So I'm going to just trust whatever one says and go through this and try not to add any fear to it. And then if you keep doing that and keep doing it, you realize that nothing bad happens by by letting it do its worst, you know, right? So you can't just decide to be not afraid, you have to learn through experience to be not afraid. And the experience is being afraid. And nothing bad happens. And like, Oh, okay, I didn't have to be afraid. So people say that all the time. But how can I just ignore it? It's so scary. Yeah, it is. I know, I know. It's so yeah, it's super scary. Do it anyway. Like, and she's saying this, that's really what she's saying. So I don't know, you got anything else to add before we go into the next chat, the next thing she talks about was the next bits of a contentious issue. But yeah, there was one thing she wrote something really nice. I don't really like analogies a lot of the time, because they're not the actual thing you're talking about. So you're very flawed. But this is a really nice analogy that she did right. She said, So what is this people when people like I said that even if you're doing it right, and you're doing it right every time, and they go and like, but well, I'm still not better. I'm still feeling it. Am I doing it wrong? And she says, imagine that you're a runner that's finished a race. It's not like as soon as you cross that line, you just instantly stop, you have to like run it off at the end, until you can actually stop, you can't just, Oh, I got to the end. And then sort of like, Yeah, no, you have to like cross the line and come to a sort of standstill. And you know that it still takes a bit of time even after you've crossed the finish line, you know, that's what she said. So, you know, not that it's necessarily going to be that quick, even, but just to realize that just because you've crossed the line of something and you've done it, it doesn't, you don't just stop there, you know, you keep going and you keep going and then and then you sort of slow down and then and then you're done, then the race is one because all those old habits and behaviors have momentum over weeks, months, maybe years for some Yeah, yeah, a long time. And I would even like, that's really, and yeah, I'm, you're right about the analogy thing. But if we run with run with that part in the pond, a little bit more, we could say that like, the this isn't even, she's saying like, you know, the realization of what this is and understanding, Oh, now I know what it is, now I know what I have to do. That's not the finish line. That's, it's almost like a series of races. So that's that's the starting point of the next race that you have to run now. Yeah. So yeah, it's never that just learning what it is. Yeah, it's not the end of the race. There are multiple events happening here. You got to do good at all of them, right. So the next one, and you and I probably disagree to a certain degree on this next thing too, which is good. I like it. So she mentions now, before we get into it, though, and I think we could both agree on this, you have to remember that she was writing in the 1950s and 60s. Yeah. So things were a little bit different. And you could tell by the language. So the very first it's called the front line of battle is this the subhead in the section, she says, Do not think I expect you to do this without the help of sedation. I've even called it sedation back then, you know, it's so it's all it does, doesn't it? Like, you know, but that's what they said back then. So it's totally fine. She's talking about the use of what she calls tranquilizers, which is reasonably accurate. But again, it's dated today. And, you know, 2019, we were talking about the use of Benzodiazepines, like at a van or Xanax and that sort of stuff. Yeah, as a pen, right? So, right, there's a zillion of if it ends in AM, it's it's one of these pretty much clonopin kind of applies to. So you why don't you jump into this? I respect your your view on this. You have a different view than I do. We don't really have a different view. You have a different experience. Correct. And your experience is as valid as mine. So Yeah, well, just my experience, where I came from, I came from a Benzo place. I was on Benzos for a long time, all through my sort of anxiety career. And and and in loud me, well, it didn't. But I felt like it did. And maybe it did in some ways, you know, I got I got myself to that point where I wasn't hiding in my house and sort of hiding in my bedroom suffering from anxiety. I was going out and I was working and I was traveling and I was flying and I was going all over and moving to different cities by myself and really sort of like getting out there and live in life, but with sort of crippling anxiety and panic attacks at the same time. But I don't know if I would have done that if I didn't have, you know, because I was taking it a lot, you know, it was like every time I went to work, I was taking like Valium and stuff to get myself out the door or you know, and stuff like that. So I'm not saying that's what helped me. But certainly I'd by the time I came to this approach that we talk about these accepting and the facing, I'd already done a lot of the work already. So I wasn't like agoraphobic. I was but I was making myself get out and do stuff anyway, partly just through sheer necessity and partly through just like sheer determination to not like be made sort of to stay. I just thought because I thought this was something I had to live with my whole life. So I was like, well, if I have to live with it my whole life, I'm not going to live in my bedroom because I had it from when I was really young, like 11. So it didn't not be different. It's not like I was a normal person adult live in my life. I grew up with it. So I had a very different experience of that. So yeah, so I used I did use Benzos a lot to get myself out. You know, every time I was flying, every time I was doing a lot of things, you know, I would I would take it and it and I managed to go out and do stuff. So by the time I came to this approach, I had done a lot of that hard work because we meet people on this journey and when they come to us and you know, they find this approach. They're still, you know, locked in their bedrooms and in their houses and they can't go anywhere. And it is really tough and very daunting. So me, I'm sort of on the Clare Weeks, like, if it helps you get out the door, if it helps you do stuff to learn that like you can actually get out of the house and do stuff and and go there. If taking some like a tranquilizer, if taking a Benzo like helps you to do that so that it helps you in your learning process, like I'm totally like whatever makes it easier, like do that. But just what I will add is that I only actually got better when I stopped taking Benzos because every time I was taking one, I was reinforcing the sort of false belief that I the feeling anxiety and feeling panic was something to be squashed and sort of controlled and held down so that I could just about get through something. I was white knuckle in my way through life. And so it was only when I actually went to when I sort of realized all this and came to this sort of like approach and stuff. I realized that my taking my taking a Benzo was a form of avoidance because I was trying to avoid the anxiety. I wasn't facing it and I wasn't letting it do its worst because I was trying to keep it down. You know, I was trying to like keep just about on top of everything. If I take a tablet I can just get through this. So that was my so it was only when I stopped taking Benzos and you know, I tapered it and I did carefully and gradually. It's only when I stopped taking them and was suddenly faced with that thing of like, I'm going to go out the house without any tablets on me. And if like a panic attack comes to me then, oh my god, like, I'm just going to have to go through it. And it once I did that, I mean, then it worked like recovery came to me quite quickly because I'd already done so much of that work. I only had a little bit more to go. Yeah. But I had to do that huge step of, you know, I'd been on Valium for 22 years and I had to sort of suddenly learn to do everything that I was doing without it. And that was crazy. But you know, that's what that's how I got better in the end. That's how I got better. I think it's just a side note of encouragement for anybody that's listening and is taking those medications 22 years. And like now you don't take them and you're healthier and have a good life and like you're functioning. So yeah, so many people get so afraid like, oh, I'm addicted to them now. And yes, addiction is an issue with those. That's true. But you are, you know, you did it and you came off it and now you live without them and you're fine. I didn't have that particularly bad time coming off them as well. Yeah. Yeah. So so on the top side of that, we should also mention though that she was talking about tranquilizers or what we would say is Benzos now. She was not talking about antidepressants. They didn't exist when she wrote these books, right? So that's important. And that's two different things. And we can talk about that maybe in its own video one day. But there's two schools of thought on this. And I and I understand the concept of I can't even go from my bedroom to my living room. So how am I supposed to go out the door? So I'm going to use Valium or whatever it is in small doses. And I could say small doses only when needed with the intention of not using it. Like yeah, that is right. And I can understand that approach. And for some people, that's a valid approach. That's okay. The other the flip side of that is and this speaks to the antidepressant thing to for people who are involved in behavioral therapy, they will say if you take away the symptoms, then what are you learning? So you just to be aware of that, right? That's why the intention always has to be I'm going to take it this time, but I'm going to really try to do it next time without it or as soon as possible without it, which is fine. And the other thing that you might look at is okay, I can't even leave my bedroom to go to the kitchen without having a panic attack. Well, okay, so you don't have to go to the mailbox or the supermarket or the shopping mall or on a world cruise. All you have to do is get up out of your bed. Like you can you can break it down into the tiniest little thing that makes you anxious and attack them little by little by little. It would mean slower starting, but that's another way to do it. Maybe without without the meds. But either way, but also just as well, if there's that person that maybe like can't leave their house or something, but through necessity or just sometimes because of life, like you have to do something that's way bigger than your just, you know, I mean, like, that's when I'm like, if your doctor's described it and said take it when you need it, I would just say we'll just take it and go and do the thing that you have to do. I do. I understand that somebody who's completely homebound leaves the house, you know, and we see them every day, or like white knuckles their way through five things that they can do. But now they have a wedding to go to. It's two hours away. It's an all day affair. You know, that one time use, because that wedding could turn into a really horrific experience, otherwise and it could be a flooding thing. And so there are places where this stuff can be used judiciously as a tool. I don't just find myself singing the Walker Brothers, like make it easy on yourself. Just like, like life's really hard, like you don't have to make the hardest thing all the time, you know, sometimes should maybe just make it easier on yourself whilst trying to do with something really difficult. Exactly. And now with the just very quickly, I don't want to get too far into the antidepressants are different because antidepressants are a long term thing. They're not an event by event thing. So she was not talking about that. And I don't want anybody to confuse the fact that, you know, Dr. Week said it's okay to take meds. She was not talking about Prozac and that and and Paxil and those and those things. That's different. And in behavioral science circles, that's even more hotly debated, because when you start to take an antidepressant and it knocks everything down after 10 days or two weeks, if it does, if it works for you, then what exactly are you working on? You don't. And that's the note. That's the people who say like, well, I they worked great for me. But here I am in this anxiety group, still unable to go to work. And, you know, it can delay things. Anyway, so that's what she was talking about there. That's probably enough on that one. But I agree. The way you used it is probably perfect. And sometimes I mean, not really, but yeah, well, I think, and when I think we first met, you were you were just I'm guessing you were just at the tail end of that. We remember still five, six years ago. I just stopped taking them. Yeah. Right. Yeah. But you it was pretty quick before your tone changed, like almost immediately. Suddenly, you were like better quickly, which is great. So let's move on to the next thing to actually in a cup. Yes, the rapid recovery thing. She mentions that. So let's talk about keep occupied. This is this is a thing. Yeah. And I see this a lot, especially in the group. And by the way, if you don't know, we're talking to the Facebook group, there's a link in my every where there's a link to join the Facebook to go and do it. So it's ever get in it. Just join the crowd. So she says it's essential that you be occupied while awaiting cure. However, I must warn you against feverishly seeking occupation or to prevent to forget yourself. So there's a fine line between like, I need to be busy all the time to distract myself from this thing that I hate. It's not what you want to do. And just sitting. So sometimes I see people that have been dealing with this for such a long time, they start to see this new way. They want to do it. And essentially sometimes all they wind up doing is this. So the only occupation they have is recovery thinking about anxiety. Exactly. Like and you see people who get stuck with like, well, every time I feel anxious, I'll go out for a walk. That's fine. But there has to be more to life than waking up and wondering how you're going to recover that day and just walking around your block. So it doesn't matter what it is reading music, you know, puzzles are volunteering somewhere whatever it is, some occupation, because you have to try and live the life I would say especially occupation that means that you have to interact with other people is really good. Yeah. Yeah, it is. I just think it's good for you in general, you know, I would agree with that 100% and I think it's also you're almost pretending in the beginning and that's OK. So like, well, I'm going to go and whatever volunteer at the local soup kitchen or whatever it is picking something, I don't care what it is. I don't want to I'm terrified when I'm there. It makes me feel awful, but you're almost pretending to be a recovered normal person again. And then you learn to be a recovered normal person again by doing those things. And if your housebound today, you're not going to go and get a full time job in a city 45 minutes away. I get that, but it is important to do more than just and be completely consumed with. Well, this activity that I want to do right now, if I want to do a puzzle right now, was that recovery? Is that the right thing? Should I do that? Am I not allowed to do that? The doctor, we say anything about doing puzzles. Like it's a I understand why people get trapped that way, but it's important to recognize when you are in that pattern and try and break it. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, so one of the key words that she says in this little paragraph about keeping occupied and the difference between being occupied to avoid anxiety, because obviously that's not, you know, sort of helpful, is the word meanwhile in the meantime, in the meantime, like, I'm gonna like, you know, I'm working on my anxiety and I'm trying not to avoid it. And I'm trying to accept and surrender to it. But in the meantime, whilst I'm doing all this, I'm gonna like do some other stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And it's that word like in the meantime, which is very different than like, I'm going to do this stuff. So like, that I don't have to think about anxiety, do you know what I mean? Right. While I'm, while I'm like accepting and dealing with my anxiety, I'm also going to cook dinner. Or I'm also going to take a walk and buy some veggies or whatever, whatever it happens to be. And we say this a lot, like life is exposure, can be exposure. So sometimes, yeah, yeah, just the act of the way. So that's super important. They'll get trapped in that like, all I do is think about recovery, read about it, talk about it, being on the forums and you know, like you got to do more than that. You really do. Yeah. So let's talk about the quick recovery thing, which was, I think, great that she mentioned it. Yeah, you were a good example, I think. Yeah. But like I said, I've done a lot of that work already. Yeah. I had a long time to work on it. Right, right. Well, I think we've both seen people around over the past few years that have this experience. And it's great when it happens. It's possible. What, like the quick one, the quick one where they even they've been at this for years. I know one particular person she might be listening and she lives in Pennsylvania. She might know who she is. Just months ago, she was in tears, couldn't drive her son a mile away to school. And, you know, she like, oh, OK, I have to do this. And she started doing it religiously and relentlessly. And within like two months, like she kind of got most of her life back. So that can happen. Yeah, it's possible. I had a friend that was he was in just, you know, total like crisis mode. He sort of had to quit everything he was doing and move back with his parents and, you know, in his sort of late 30s and stuff. And and and he just didn't know what he was doing at all. And he didn't really understand even particularly what was happening to him. And I remember just talking to him on the phone one day and sort of like very quickly, like realized that, you know, he was having a complete like anxiety panic sort of, you know, melt down and was now suffering from panic disorder. And and all literally I was maybe on the phone for like an hour and a half. And by the end of that phone call, he was like, better. And I spoke to him, like, you know, like two weeks later or something, he had now like gone and moved somewhere else. And he was doing great. And like sitting this was maybe two and a half years ago. And he's been doing great ever since. And he just said, like it just sort of clicked with him and he just realized what was happening and what he needed to do about it. And just the understanding of it, clink, clink, clink, you know, he obviously like still had set backs and stuff. But he got it and he was just like, Oh, this is what I have to do. This is what's happening to me. And it was just like it was just amazing to like see it was just so incredible. I've had I had two experiences with panic disorder bordering on agoraphobia in my life. And the first time it ever happened when I was a sophomore in college in 1986, I had that experience. I read this book. And within a matter of days or a week, boom, I was good to go. And I that came back to bite me later, because I didn't actually have to do all the work and learn it. I just sort of like, Hey, this is cool. This made it all better. And I never actually learned the process. But it's possible it happened to me the first time. The second time it wasn't that way. That brings us on into the next bit that she makes, which is about the, is this the next bit, the set back? No. Yeah. The next is what she likes about quick recovery, which is quick. And then she says gradual recovery is the next one. So she, yeah, she gets there. Setback is after that. Oh, yeah, sorry. When she talks about gradual recovery, and I had a highlight this just because it was adorable. Like it's so 1950s, like get out there in the fresh air, take a stiff Constitution. She says with good food, she actually mentions. Oh, yeah. I know it's like, Oh, that's so cute. I'm not poo-pooing good food. Everybody should eat healthy, of course, but I found it so fascinating that she literally wrote that like physical physical exhaustion made delay recovery. But even here with good food and peace of mind, you're going to be okay. Like just have already soup and everything will be great. But I was kind of cute. But she uses this thing like the strength and a limb may depend on the confidence with which it is used, which is super. We see this all the time. And honestly, that's just believing what your anxiety is telling you what your thoughts are. Like, Oh, I can't possibly do it. I'm if I do that, I will fall over. I can't stand up. I'm dizzy. I will faint. Most common thing we hear. Like, Oh, really go stand on one foot. Tell me how it goes. And people stand on one foot. And it's like, Oh, my God, I didn't fall over. Maybe I'm not really dizzy. And it's like, Okay, that's what she's addressing here. Like, I think she's addressing the idea that the fear that you feel will tell you not to do certain things. And so you think you can't. And until you do it, and then you discover, Oh, I actually can do that. She gives that really interesting example of like a woman that was going to the gym for three years after she was, you know, recovering from nervous nervous illness. I'm saying it just like off the table. Yeah, like she did. Yeah. And and the instructors in that gym obviously didn't really sort of understand it very well. And they were like, Oh, no, you've got to be you haven't used your muscles. And so therefore you must because you've suffered from nervous illness, you've got to be really careful on your muscles. And they sort of like implanted this weird belief in her that she she had to take it really easy. Otherwise her body wouldn't be able to take it. And then Dr. Week said to her like, No, no, no, it's just confident. You just got no confidence about using your muscles like use them. They're absolutely fine. And she was like, really? And then she went down and then she started like working out and stuff. And then like, she was just amazed at how much she could. She said she couldn't believe she was like, I only thought I couldn't do these things. But I could do them. She actually said, I mean, this is evidently a quote from the woman. It doesn't seem possible that wrong thinking could have kept me so weak, but it has. And, you know, we hear that all the time, other people who go out and start doing the work and they're going into the things they fear and they'll come back. It's like, Oh, did I overdo it? Like, I feel badly today. So I must have overdid it yesterday. And it's really almost no such thing as overdoing it. Like, go do more than like do more like do that again. So yeah. And then you learn like, Oh, there is not such thing as overdoing it. So yeah, although do you want to clarify because you do talk about the flooding thing and I think that that's what overdoing it is. That's true. So flooding and this does come up a lot. It flooding is contextual, right? So it depends on your particular situation. If your safe zone, comfort zone, whatever it is, is, you know, five minutes from your house and only with your safe person, then flooding would be I'm fixing this today and you get in your car and drive 100 miles away and decide to spend, you know, overnight by yourself and hotel. That's a flooding experience. But if you are going like into recovery now and you say, Hey, today, all right, I'm going to take a walk. I'm going to take another walk that I'm going to practice driving that I'm going to go with, you know, my my wife to the supermarket for a half hour and do the shopping and help cooking. And at the end of the day, you say, Hey, I did all these cool things. They're all within your zone. They're achievable. And then maybe the net it's always the next day when somebody says, Oh, and they're so elated that day, I did all these things. It's awesome. And then the next day they are like back to Oh, but I have anxiety again. Did I overdo it yesterday? No, yeah, it's fine. Do those things again today. Yeah. Yeah, it's not like you worked out and did it and now you can't walk the next day. Right. You're sore or something like that. It doesn't work that way. Yeah. Yeah. Doing those things is the positive experience we talked about in the beginning. You need to do those things again and again and again. You cannot overdo it. There's no such thing. Yeah, I think coming from my own experience, I was talking about when I was white knuckling through my life, I'm just trying to think if anyone else is doing that sort of thing that I did. I don't think flooding exists in that context because I would go anywhere and do anything, but just have a hellish time kind of doing anything if it was going to the pub to meet my friends, if it was sitting on my sofa watching TV, if it was flying across the world, like it, it was just panic attacks everywhere. When you're living the way you lived, I think the way you describe it because I didn't know you back then, but there is no such thing as flooding because you never build a safe bubble. So flooding is when you take your safe bubble, which is really not necessarily physically a thing, but just situational and you explode it instantaneously and like 10 times bigger than the bubble. You didn't have that. You were still out doing stuff, traveling the world and doing gigs and do all this stuff. So yeah, you didn't. You never made a safe zone. You weren't helping yourself, but you never made a safe zone. You know, I think I was just I never had a safe zone. So everything was like an unsafe. So just briefly, like one good question. I think people would probably be interested in so many people who don't know what this is, especially if they started as a child and you've mentioned that you can go all the way back to childhood with this thing. They didn't even know what it was and they say like, well, I just thought that this was the way people were. Do you ever have that? Like this is just normal to be afraid and anxious and like tied up in knots all the time. Do you ever think that until you figured out that it wasn't normal and you could be different? No, because when well, yeah, probably when I think back to before when I had like, because basically I had a huge panic attack out of the blue one night when I was 11 and sitting watching TV with my parents and I just went. And it seems like and I know this is impossible, but it seemed like it lasted for nine months like nonstop continually. Oh, no, I wasn't at school. I was just, you know, and so I knew that that wasn't normal. OK, absolutely. I mean, it was just like level one thousand, you know, like there was no way I'd ever seen anyone acting like that before, you know, make sense. When I think back to before that, you know, I was like really afraid of things. And I think I ever thought things a lot and put a lot attached really weird significance to things. And, you know, and I guess I just thought that was normal. And, you know, yeah, I don't know what normal is anyway. So there is. Yeah, what is what is normal? Anyway, this is all philosophical now. But the next thing she talks about, she calls it. She she entitles a little section and we're actually almost done at this point. There's not much that much more left, but she calls it the old forgotten sensations. And she's essentially addressing that thing and just to bring it into the modern terms that we hear from the people that we deal with every day. I've had such a good two weeks, which means 99 percent of the time means. Is that that? Did that was an S setback? Oh, I just did that. No, I didn't. Oh, were you doing it? I was drawing like a big S. Oh, like we need to get you a illustrator, a setback thing. She does. She talks about setback in this, the return of the symptoms or the old familiar feelings. And that's that thing that's like I've had such a good week and I've had such a good week usually translates to for most people. I wasn't feeling that anxious. And that is great. There's nothing wrong with that. Like that's a good life to have, right? But and then they feel anxious again. It's like, uh oh, it's a huge setback. I'm back to square one. Obviously I'm broken. She talks about the specific thing when the sensations that you haven't experienced for a while come back. That could be in two days or a week or a month or five years. Doesn't matter when she talks about this. And she talks that sometimes people struggle so much with the setback because it feels so much worse because it's contrasted against like the brilliant like peace and sort of like hope that came with that good period. And then when it like goes back to how it was, you know, it feels so much worse because it's in so much contrast to because before you're just going along at this level of just like, it's just, you know, feeling bad or whatever, you know, and then when you sort of start to have like this good, good period, it's just like, oh my God. And like all that sort of hope enters your world that hasn't maybe been there in so long. And so that when you go back to how you were before because it's not just an instant cure as we've been talking about. Yeah. So it will go back. Then it just feels so much more hopeless and lots of people. She says that lots of people say that like they just feel like when they hit that sort of depression of like going back to it again, they just feel so hopeless. They're like, maybe I'm just not cut out for this. I just don't think I can handle the, you know, the clock. Clearly we hear like I'm clearly doing this wrong. I don't know what it is. You know, I'm never going to get better. All those things happen. But I think one of the key indicators, somebody asked me a friend of ours the other day said, what did you do when you had those feelings that said, well, this is I'm never going to get better. No, they actually asked me, how did you deal with those thoughts of like, what if it comes back? And I was able to answer that and say like, I never worried about what if it comes back? Here's the difference. So a good period that precedes the setback, quote unquote setback. If the good period is this is a really good time because I don't feel those things that I hate, then just be ready because they're going to come back and just know they're going to come back and look at it as a chance to practice. The real measure of a good period is, hey, I feel pretty good today. But even if I didn't, I'd be all right. That is what defines the actual good period. When you get to that part, there is no such thing anymore as a setback. You won't even think of it ever again as a setback. So if it returns, it returns. You just keep doing the things that you're supposed to be doing. Yeah. She says, I highlighted this. She said, like, well, how do you respond to a setback? And she talks about the person who like, oh, feels it again and immediately goes back to the old safety stuff. Like, oh, I was feeling so great. I was out. I was doing stuff today. I'm so anxious. I've stayed in bed all day. Like, she's literally says, never do this, nerd buzzer. Never do this. Never let the unexpected return of panic, whenever it may strike, even if it comes years later, never let it shock you into running away from it ever. Never run away from it. Right. Never run away from it, whether it's a day from now, a week from now, a month and out, or 10 years from now. It doesn't matter. Never run away from it. And I think just to clarify that you can never engineer out your humanity so that an initial flash of fear will always happen. It happens to me. Probably happens to you. It happens to every human being. Yeah, you can't engineer away the first fear, the flash of fear. But you can. It's not what happens in the first two seconds. It's what happens in seconds, three to 10 that determine everything else. Right. So even when it comes back, you have to stop for a second, have that flash of fear. Oh, my God. And then like, oh, wait a minute. What am I supposed to do? I know what I'm supposed to do and then do it. That's the only response to that. That's the only possible. The only response that you can have is that. Yeah, yeah. I really like, I mean, I don't always get that right. But what I do make sure I do is that I don't repeatedly get it wrong. Thank you. Right. Because she said like the last line pretty much of the chapter or one of the last lines is that you may falter, but you will never be completely overwhelmed again. And like that. And I just feel like, yeah, because so I just want to talk quickly about the she talks about the worst setback of all because I love this and I have experience of this as well. Is that she says often, so you know, like the road to recovery is not completely linear, right? Like so you go like good, bad, and you know, but eventually like you'll sort of make you sort of climb your way out of it through going through and practicing and learning and learning and doing it again and again where your brain starts to realize you're not in any danger and all of that. But she says this sometimes happens and it's usually when people are so close to being fully recovered that they have like just the mother of all setbacks where it just feels like they go back to square one maybe even further. And this personally happened to me as well. Do you like I was I was doing really well. I like recovered in the thing I started recovering in like October came completely off the valley and by like November, December I was like really like learning how to be like drug free. January went on holiday to South Africa. February found out I was pregnant and just went, oh my God. And I just like, you know, I planned it, but I just lost it. I just it just shocked me. I know I was just in so much I just was like a person just in shock just going and I just sat on my sofa for what felt like weeks. And like I wasn't even a gorophobic before and I somehow went back to square one. I went back to taking Valium and I was pregnant at this point. It was just terrible. I remember this against all the doctor, you know, against what the doctor was telling me to do. And I was just freaking out. You know, I was just absolutely just, you know, I lost it. I went beyond. I was like a minus square minus three never minus square one, you know? Yeah. And and I was just like, well, this is it. You know, and it felt like months and months of just me sitting in my house unable to even like look out the window. And like I said, it wasn't even like I was like like that before. Like I was going out and doing stuff but just having panic attacks and I just froze. I just couldn't even get off the sofa. So it wasn't like that long though. Yeah, no, it was about two weeks. Yeah, right. And I remember texting you and you saying like, you're fine. Just do the work. You know what to do. Just do it again. Just go out the house and do it again. And that is when I read Claire Weeks. That's when I discovered not discovered, I rediscovered weeks and, you know, all that stuff about floating out the door. And and I just sort of did it. And then I was like better. I was like fully better within like, I think about two weeks. I was like fully better again. And so I had so having been like, oh, I think I'm completely recovered to like and then drop even further than I was. And then to come out again using exactly the same methods. It wasn't anything else. You know what I mean? It was just facing and accepting not avoiding the panic, not avoiding the anxiety, understanding what it was just to then like just sort of flow out of the cave. So like easily as well. And now it's four years later, or three and a half, four years later. And I'm fine. You know what I mean? Like, and I just have so much confidence now. Like I because we see people that have like done really well with the recovery, but you can tell there's this fear of like, but what if I go back to how I was? What if it, what if it comes back, you know? Right, I know you can't hear this because you don't have headphones on. I don't know what alien is eavesdropping on our conversation right now, but wait, there's a regular, like it sounds like a cow is mooing. Sorry for your listening. Is it Fransky snoring? Oh, Fransky is snoring. I'm like, what is that? It's so loud in my headphones. You could see me adjusting my gain and stuff. I'm like, mate, am I picking up a truck or something? Oh, that's so funny. I think it's a dog snoring. Yeah, it's her snoring. It's so regular. I'm like, what is this? Just discovered in my life. Oh, I don't hear you around with that snoring. That's fine. Now we know what it is. Who cares? Oh, I love it. Anyway, I'm sorry. I got sidetracked by that, but I think, yeah. So yeah, we get people that are doing really well with their recovery, and you can see it lurking in the back of their mind. What if it comes back? Right. And so I say, let it come back. I said, let them have the setback because once you come out of the mother of all setbacks, and for you, possibly, because you'd already recovered when you were at university, right? And then it came back to you years later. I mean, in some ways you could call that, like it's just a really bad setback. Yeah, it was like an eight month or year setback. Sure. Yeah. But having come out of it twice, using basically the same methods, do you know what I mean? It sort of reinforces the method of just like, I really have no problem if it comes back because it's not gonna come back now because I'm not gonna get overwhelmed by it. Absolutely no fear that it will return now. So that last, which doesn't happen to everybody, but it happens to many people, or some people at least, that mother of all setbacks right near the end before you kind of turn that corner, it sort of has to be. Many sports teams on the way to winning a championship will lose in the finals first, then they come back. Yes, like to use a sports analogy for everybody, all these sports. Many of the greatest teams experienced that last setback. They got all the way to the end and they lost the big game, they lost the final series, then they came back a year or two later and they won. I was watching a film about, I can't remember a baseball team. And they would know these. And then, but when they came, he brought in a new management method anyway. Many sports. It's a quite famous film. Yeah, and in sports all over the world, like that's a common thing even in team sports, like you almost have to learn how to deal with the adversity that one last time. You get all the way to the top, oh, but then you lose the big game, that's the last setback, then you come back and win. So yeah, it's a thing. I think like often the best boxes are ones that have then had like a massive defeat, right? And it's the comeback that's so much. That's exactly right. But you know, just to, you know, we're a little longer than we usually are, but I think it's okay because it's good stuff. Do we hear the setback thing all the time? And I, somebody has said that, and I started using it too. I don't remember who coined that and I'm sorry, but like you can't unknow what you now know. You don't, you don't forget, like you don't unlearn all of this stuff. So there really is no going backwards. There's no external process that just comes in and wipes you out. It's not a wave coming in that you get a tidal wave. Essentially it's just life. And she talks about that. Sometimes there's strain, tension, like she actually says some strange, some tension. So whatever it is that you hear. I think if you're under a lot of stress, it can definitely, you know, get your nerves all jangling and ready sort of sense size. She even mentions this. She even mentions it. But in the end, even when that happens, and you're right, especially people who are new in this process of recovery, like I had somebody this morning that actually mentioned, I think, you know, an over full plate. My plate is so full right now. And she feels like she's going backwards. It's a health anxiety thing. But I'm like, well, no, you're still, you're new to this. You're two months into it. That's not a long time to learn these new competencies and confidence. So anything that's stressed in your life, anything that's, you know, a bad event in your life, whatever, may trigger these things. But in the end, you didn't unlearn. You didn't suddenly lose it. No tidal wave came in and wiped everything away from you. You just had a different change of circumstance. You felt some different things and you started acting the old ways again, which is in the end a choice. And I know that people hate sometimes when they say that, but it is a choice. So you just, you just, you fell into a little bit of a bad habit for a week or two. And then you changed it. Yeah. You know, when I found out I was pregnant and stuff, like, you know, that sort of decline into just sitting on my sofa, like, like, I just, I could have got up and got out, but I chose to just, I just chose to sit there. Was my own doing. And I did not, and I did know all this stuff and I knew it and I'd done it. And I did somehow forget, but just as soon as I actually, I didn't forget it. I just stopped doing it. I just stopped practicing it. Do you know what I mean? And then as soon as I did it again, I just went whoop. Yeah, because you still knew all the stuff. You had those experiences. Yeah. Exactly. So that's, I think it's super important to think about in setback. Like it's not an external thing that happened that wiped out all your progress. Like, no, some things changed. You felt some stuff you didn't feel like and you just went into some old habits, whether they'd be mental, cognitive, emotional or behavioral. Like, all right, no problem. The good news always is that even in a setback, you are still in control of the process. It's still not an external thing that is like going to outside of your control. So that's always a good thing. I honestly encourage the mother of all setbacks. I encourage it. I'd say I like, you can see the confidence in the people that have gone through that. Like then it's just like, no, now I'm bullied. Yeah. There's one person in particular, she's in Ireland right now. I think you probably know who I'm talking about. She went through it. Yeah. Not too long ago and you could see it happen, but she is just on fire now. Like just in the group that you invite, she is now like a different person. I didn't, she's listening right now. But so what else are we up to here? I think we're almost done here. She talks about memory, how memory could kind of stir things up. And then she goes, one of the things that I thought was interesting was how she talks about and going in search of the old sensations, which I'm not sure. Yeah, so I went backwards just a little bit, but I want to bring that up. So she literally writes, you may sometimes go in search of the old sensations to try yourself out, thinking it too good to be true. I don't know if people necessarily are searching it to try themselves. Some people do that. Like let me see if I can make that happen again. Yeah, and that's great. That's actually not a bad exercise to do. Do it, go ahead, try and feel bad, like if you can. Because I think that displays, that's a sense of confidence and almost like, all right, I'm willing to try to see if I can make this crappy stuff happen. So it's not a bad thing. You're learning, you're honing your skills, you're learning some confidence there. I think a lot of people wind up looking for the old sensations because of that thing where they're just, they're not there yet. So they're still worried that it might come back. Like it's some monster that's stalking them. What if it shows up today? And they're worried, because they've spent so many years like trying to hide from it. And now it's like, well, what if it, if you're still worried that it can get you, then yes, you will find yourself looking for those things. You're not trying to get them, but you're always looking for them. People talk about it all the time, like, I don't know, I've had a couple of really good days. Why am I looking? Why am I scanning and looking to see how I feel? Well, because you're nervous that it's gonna come back and get you. That's why. So I think that looking for the old sensation sometimes is something you choose to actively do to test your recovery, which is great. Sometimes it's just an indicator that like, oh, I guess I'm still afraid of this. That's all right though. It just means you're still learning. Nothing wrong with that. It's all good. Yeah. It surprised us. Yeah, I thought it was worth bringing it up, but I think we pretty much covered the whole shebang. No? Yeah, I think just it's important to mention that she says that like, you know, so even once you've recovered and in all this that, you know, like the flash of panic and it's that the flash of panic can be so intense and so, and it really can hit you even years later. Yeah. And that that is, if you can have that happen to you and like not sort of fall into your old habits and not sort of be afraid of it, then, you know, like, even though you might be sort of afraid and just like, oh my God, you know, like if you can sort of them be like, oh, okay, this is a panic attack. And sort of like, you know, just let it sort of what happened, then you really are recovered. So like, it's just worth mentioning again that recovery is not the complete absence of any anxiety, that it's not the absence of any panic, that it can still hit you at some points, you know, and I don't know, like, I think some people are more prone to it than others for just a whole myriad of different reasons and some people are just kind of anxious people and do you know what I mean? And like, oh, they're sort of like wired to go that way when sort of lots of stresses sort of hit them or they get overtired or whatever. I don't know, you know, it happens to me when I'm really tired or it's stuff like this, but if you can deal with that panic and not be afraid of it and not change your life or not even sort of think about it. I mean, if we didn't like, sort of help people in an anxiety, I honestly don't even know when I would even think about anxiety these days. I would almost never think of it. That's true. That's absolutely dead on track. I feel like I never need to have to talk about it. Yeah, even if I'm feeling anxious, I just pay it's just like sort of like a, oh, great, now I feel anxious and I've got to go to work. Like that's a drag, isn't it? It's just a sort of annoyance. It's like, it doesn't even register anything more than just like a... Right, it's like waking up with the flu or being caught, you know, have a cold like, ah, really? This isn't ideal, is it? But never mind. And it's interesting because the times that it will happen for me, it's, I actually, this is gonna sound crazy, but sometimes, if I really am honest about it, the presence of anxiety for me is almost a positive mechanism. It's the thing that tells me that even I have a limit of like sleep deprivation and projects and like all that stuff. And it's like, if I'm having that, that usually tells me like, oh, I guess I probably should sleep a little bit more. And like, that's when it's gonna hit me. But it's like, all right, no, there's that alarm. I guess I gotta do something now or get some sleep or like... It is a friendly reminder that you're only doing it through. Right, right, that you're not a machine. Like, even though you might act like one. So you're all out of anxiety. Right, you know, so, and you can, if you're listening to us, you could probably get to that place too, where it's not like, oh no, here it comes, like, whatever. No, it's just like... It'll make me angry. The few times that I've even felt compelled to tell someone how I felt, it's always because I'm just pissed off at myself. Like just, I need to tell you about a human being that kind of messed up here and I'm not sleeping and I'm just, yeah, now I feel like crap. So that I said it. I've had it when I've been really ill, like I had kidney stones. I was actually eight months pregnant at the time. I had kidney stones and like, so I was having all these really strange symptoms and then like my body just started having panic attack and I'm just like, great. Now I can't even tell what's the symptom and what's the thing. So I was just like, I don't even know if I'm feverish because I feel really hot but that's how I feel when I'm anxious. It was just really annoying. It was just like, just get lost panic attack. You've been really unhelpful at the minute. I need to know what's actually wrong with me. I'm pregnant. Like a kidney stone's really now, really. Yeah, and cause I didn't know it was kidney stones at that point. So obviously I was just like, oh my God, there's something really wrong with me. And so just then the panic attack to jump like piggyback on that. I was just like, don't need you right now. This is really inconvenient. Yeah, yeah, I get it, I get it. All right, I think we've done chapter nine. That's good. So we went a little longer than we usually do. But if you're hung in this whole time, thank you. I keep getting reminded, I'm obligated to say if you're listening on iTunes and not on YouTube. But you know what? If you're watching it on YouTube then hit the thumbs up or something or subscribe to the channel. If you're listening on iTunes, like give us like a five star rating or something or write a review. And thanks for coming by and joining us. Give like thumbs down on YouTube. I don't understand that. Just here's my 10 second YouTube brand. YouTube is a steaming pile of horse crap. It really is. I mean, it's the second biggest search engine on the internet. Great stuff. Like you can learn all kinds of things on YouTube. But YouTube is the biggest collection of angry people that I've ever met in my life. Like in no other place in humanity that I know people gather just to say shitty things to each other. So yeah, I give a thumbs down to shitty comments. So there you go. If you don't like it, I guess thumbs down if you want, if it makes you feel better. Anyway, all right, thanks for coming by guys. And we'll do chapter 10 maybe in the next week or two if we can. Yeah, yeah. With your best. We will finish this book one day. All right, I'll see you later. I'm gonna stop recording. Stop recording.