 This episode of the anxious truth is brought to you by me because I'm not just a podcaster. I'm also an author I've written several useful books and anxiety and anxiety recovery, and I know you're gonna find them helpful You could find them on my website at the anxious truth comm Welcome back everybody welcome to the anxious truth. This is episode number 18180 Entitled are you trying to be recovered before you do recovery? This episode is being recorded in October of 2021 actually on Halloween. So it's a very spooky episode I'm kidding. It's not a spooky episode at all has nothing to do with Halloween But it does have a lot to do with anxiety and anxiety recovery because that's what we talked about on this podcast Anyway, welcome. I am Drew lince a lot a creator and host of the anxious truth I am glad that you are here if this is your first time welcome whether you are watching or listening I appreciate that you're here if you've been here before then welcome back I'm also really glad that you're here. So today. We're gonna address what seems like a silly topic Are you trying to be recovered before you do recovery? Are you putting the cart before the horse? Now this sounds like a silly little sort of flippant thing to say, but it's it's real This is a real thing and it's an incredibly common mistake. It's an incredibly common bit of misunderstanding that I see every day In this community. It's not a crime a lot of people get this wrong It's okay because so much of what we talk about here on the podcast and so much of what we talk about in terms of The path to recovery really is counterintuitive sort of the opposite of what you want to do So I get that if you're making this mistake and and you'll know very shortly want to get into the episode here If you're making it and if you are it's okay, really you're in good company many many people make this mistake I made the mistake too. So don't sweat it if you are actually in this boat Are you trying to recover? Before you do recovery. Are you trying to be recovered before you do recovery? Are you putting the cart before the horse? Let me explain. I Get asked almost on a daily basis in the community questions like but how can I learn to not be afraid? So I can go and do my exposures Right people are trying to figure out ways to not be afraid so they can start recovering How can I get it? How can I put my brain around this? How can I convince myself that I'm okay so that I can start to go and do these things that you're telling me that I need to Do to recover and really and truly when you think about that it makes Sense I guess from an emotional or a gut standpoint like well I want to go out and drive around the block But I'm terrified to do that so how I got to teach me how to not be afraid Like how will I convince my brain that I'm okay? So that I don't have to be afraid so that I can go and drive around the block So from an emotional standpoint because none of us wants to be afraid or uncomfortable that question makes all kinds of sense But think about it from a recovery standpoint. It doesn't make sense at all. You're actually flipping it You're you've got things backwards so if you are listening to the podcast or you read my books or you're following other people on social media that Sound like me and talk about these kind of things if you have been racking your brain for any amount of time Try to come up with a way to convince yourself that you're okay so that you can start to do the recovery stuff You got it backwards. So if you're trying to somehow believe that you are safe First before you do the things you're probably getting really frustrated into wondering. Why am I not getting this? Why is my brain? Why is it not clicking with me? Super common and like I said not a crime, but let me explain why this is backwards Why you're putting the cart before the horse and if you really stop for a second and think about it and take away the I don't want to be afraid part. You'll understand what I'm saying You cannot and I've done full podcast episodes. I write about this in my book You cannot tell yourself that you're okay Like I've done some very popular podcast episodes one is called by positive self-talk is bullshit one of my most popular episodes and it's got a funny title but there's truth in it because I did another Podcast episode entitled how can I talk to my anxiety another really popular podcast episode? That's all about how we cannot Talk to our fear centers. You cannot talk or logic or think your way into not being afraid So if you're trying to first lose the fear so that you could do the recovery stuff If you could do that you wouldn't have to do the recovery stuff When you stop being afraid of your anxiety and your panic and the symptoms and the sensations and the thoughts When you stop being afraid of those things you're recovered So you wouldn't have to do the recovery things if you could just decide or somehow Find a magic way to click in your brain that you're not afraid anymore Like you have to do the things first and that's how you learn to not be afraid So if you are trying to find a way to get it to click somehow in your head that you're safe Or you're okay, or you don't have to be afraid if you're trying to get rid of the fear First before you go out the door to do the scary things You're going to wind up very frustrated because you're putting the cart before the horse and you're trying to be recovered Before you do the recovery things and if you could do that you wouldn't have to do the recovery things, right? So think about that for a second. I totally understand why you are trying so hard to find a way to not be afraid. I Get it. I really do everybody would start that way But in the end if you could just find some way through listening to podcasts or what looking at Instagram posts or reading books Or taking online courses on anxiety if you could find a way to do that Just by doing those things then you wouldn't have to do the recovery stuff So again, I've written and talked about this extensively. You can't talk yourself out of this You can't think your way out of this. You can't logic or reason your way out of it You can't use inspirational memes. You can't use quotes. You can't use Instagram posts You can't use books or training courses. You can't do any of that stuff. This is a doing Recovery is a doing exercise We have to take action that is that recovery is an active process It requires that we learn some principles. We start to understand them We do what we can to really take them on and then we begin to apply them by taking action So we can learn all kinds of stuff. We can have a lot of very smart people tell us things Experience people people who have recovered down been down the road before us We can hear all the things and read all the words, but in the end we have to actually do the things So if you're trying to learn how to not be afraid So that you could do the things that you hear me tell you and that other people tell you to do It's not going to work. You're trying to recover before you do the recovery stuff Right. So another thing that I've talked about all the time is that you will not find Recovery in the scroll like recovery does not exist in the in the scroll the social media scroll It doesn't exist in facebook. It doesn't exist in your instagram feed. It doesn't exist on youtube It doesn't exist in the podcast you listen to Recovery is a thing that we do we learn through action through behavioral activation and doing things or changing the way we behave in relation to our anxious thoughts and sensations We change the way we behave and react and those Experiences teach us the lessons we need to learn so that over time We are not afraid of being anxious anymore That's how recovery works But we need the experiences to teach us those lessons. Only experience can teach you the lessons Books cannot teach you the lessons they could teach you why you need to have the experiences But the books can't give you the experiences you need to have them Because your amygdala your fear center your lizard brain that I wrote about in seven percent slower Which by the way, if you don't have that book check it out seven percent slower.com But if you you cannot communicate with your amygdala and your lizard brain your fear center with words and logic and reason It doesn't you know this because i'm sure at least once in your life you thought You know, I know i'm okay But as soon as I panic that all goes out the window, right? We've all said that I hear it all day long in the community And it's a little bit heartbreaking because I understand how it can make you feel stuck But if you've ever said All my logic goes out the window when I get afraid then that's correct So you can't logic you can't read words. You can't listen to songs. You can't do lyrics can't do memes And I won't be the dead horse here The bottom line is all of those things Excuse me can teach you Why you need to have experiences, but then you must have the experiences So all of the things that I talk about All the things I try and teach in this podcast all the things that I've had I've written in my books are all about that This is why we do these things. These are the lessons we learn from them And this is how we learn that over time we can habituate to these things So our fear level goes down and we can learn that rather we panic or we don't panic. It's the same We're always okay. I might have more anxiety or less anxiety. It's okay My intrusive thoughts might be more powerful or less powerful more intense or less and says either way I'm okay So we are using you know habituation inhibitory learning models to to To go down the path of recovery But those require action whether you're involved in ERP with a therapist for for your OCD Or you're doing exposures incremental exposures for your panic disorder or dwarf phobia or you're practicing being home alone Whatever it happens to be these are behavioral things We behave differently in the face of our discomfort and our fear and those different experiences Fueled by those new behaviors or what teach our teach our fear centers the lesson they need to learn It's the only language they know So you must do the recovery stuff first Then you will not be afraid of it So if you're trying to not be afraid so you can do the recovery thing you got it backwards You're gonna have to do it scared I probably should have just said that right in the beginning of the episode And I maybe would have saved you 10 minutes and 41 seconds of your life But in the end this is what it comes down to You cannot just decide to not be afraid so that you can do the hard things You must do the hard things while you are afraid and while you are uncomfortable We intentionally go into fear to learn how to be better at being afraid which leads to not being afraid That's how this works So I've said many many times Similar principle with like I just don't get it. I'm waiting for it to click You might be thinking of it that way some people will will just overtly say Tell me how to not be so afraid or tell me how to believe this is only anxiety You can't you can't just decide to not be afraid. You can't just decide to believe You can only have experiences that teach you that it's only anxiety You can only have experiences that teach you that you don't have to be afraid Some people it's a little bit more amorphous. They don't know why they're stuck and they'll say things like I'm I just can't seem to get this to click I need some way to get it to click and the symptom there or or really the way that manifests is Going from book to book to book To to guru to guru, you know, I don't know guru. I shouldn't say guru. It's a bit of a derogatory term But from from teacher to teacher to book to book to podcast to podcast to video to video to discourse that course Like those people and you might be one of them. I just can't seem to get it to click I'm looking for the thing that will make it click Here's the thing This thing that we do is so paradoxical. You really don't get it. It doesn't click until after you do it Like on a logical level, it's probably already clicked But you're looking for it to somehow click into place on an emotional level so that you'll be willing to take that first Those first steps forward into that really scary and difficult territory And you're trying to make it click before you do that But the reality of it here is you can't you're only not afraid After you do the stuff and it only makes sense to you on an emotional level after you do it So you can't wait to get it. You can't wait to be ready. You can't wait to be prepared You can't wait to be less scared. You can't wait for it to click All that stuff happens after the doing So the bad news about this the good news is that when you do it recovery is a hundred percent possible You'll get there like you can do this. I know you can you might be doubting it, but I believe in you I know that this is a hard ask and I know it's really difficult and you don't want to be afraid I didn't want to be afraid either Nobody who is who is recovered Wanted to do this So take heart in that nobody who is recovered Wanted to do this hard work none of us did But in the end we did it and we learned the lessons and we struggled along the way You might be struggling too. We all did but it's very possible The thing is you have to do the recovery things first Before you get it before you are unafraid. You're gonna have to do it Not being a hundred percent sure you're gonna be a little bit uncertain You're gonna be uncomfortable You're gonna be afraid But you have to do it while you are uncertain Not necessarily believing it and afraid And it's in the doing where you get that that faith in the process The doing is what builds your belief in the process and builds your belief in your ability to recover If you podcast episodes back I did the three C's courage is what What moves you forward? There's a reason why the first C was courage You have to do these things while you are afraid And when you do it then you start to build feelings of competence in your abilities And confidence in your ability to recover overall So are you trying to be recovered before you do the recovery stuff? Maybe if you've been trying to find a way to not be afraid or trying to find some magic thing Words a book that will make it click so that you can actually start to do recovery Then yeah, you're trying to be recovered before you do recovery You're putting the cart before the horse And if you're freely frustrated that could be why So that is this week's episode Are you trying to be recovery? Are you trying to be recovered before you do recovery? Are you putting the cart before the horse? Hopefully this has been 15 minutes That explains what that means and you may see like oh boy. I'm doing that I'm doing that you might feel that you are actually doing that and if you are it's okay Like I said cannot really iterate enough very very common mistake very common misunderstanding And and misconception especially in the early stages So consider this for a little while if you're feeling frustrated or stuck then this might be why just think about that for a little while Anyway, thanks for coming by as always I'm going to play you out with afterglow by my friend ben drake You can find ben and his music online at ben drake music com And if you are listening to the podcast on spotify or itunes or anywhere where you can rate and review Leave us a five star rating take a few seconds write a review of the podcast It will help other people find the podcast if you're watching the podcast on youtube then like the video leave a comment Subscribe to the channel all that good stuff. I appreciate it. I appreciate your time your attention your support Always always always. Thank you guys and I will see you next week. Enjoy afterglow and remember This is the way