 This week on the anxious truth, we're going to talk about the fact that sometimes you have to learn to not listen to this podcast. Hello, everybody, welcome back to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 218 recorded at the end of July 2022. I am Drew Lynn Salada, creator and host of the anxious truth. This is the podcast that covers all things anxiety, anxiety disorders and recovery. If you are a first time listener or viewer on YouTube, welcome, I'm glad you're here. And if you are a returning listener or viewer, welcome back. So this week, the topic seems a little bit strange, a guy that does a podcast and has been doing one for 200 and somewhat episodes over seven or eight years is telling you that you have to learn to not listen to his podcast. But there is a method to my madness. Hang in there with me and I will bring you around to the lesson as I hopefully always do. This is a thing that sort of gets stronger and grows more as we progress in our recovery. So it's not apparent in the beginning. So this episode is going to hit a little bit different depending on where you are in your recovery process and the recovery journey. But before we get to this, just a quick reminder that the anxious truth is more than just this podcast episode. There are well as of this recording 217 other completely free podcast episodes. There's all of my social media content which is completely free. There is the morning newsletter which is called the anxious morning. That is free on my website. And there are as of this writing three most excellent books on anxiety and anxiety and anxiety recovery that I have written that are legitimately helping over 10,000 tens of thousands of people worldwide. You can check all of that out on my website at the anxious truth.com. So avail yourself of all the resources. And if you're enjoying my work and it's helping you in some way and you would like to help me keep it free of sponsorships and advertisements, which is what I really want to do all the ways to support the work financially and otherwise can be found at the anxious truth.com slash support. As I say every week, always appreciated, never required. But thank you very much. Any way that you are supporting my work. So let's get into this. Sometimes you have to learn to not listen to this podcast. Let me tell you a little story about my relationship with Dr. Claire Weeks. Yes, I had a relationship with Dr. Weeks. I bet many of you listening had a relationship with Dr. Claire Weeks. I'm joking. But this is a this is a story to illustrate the point. When I was early on in the recovery process, and I had really gotten down to brass tacks and I decided I'm gonna have to do this work and fix this problem once for all once and for all. Then I was getting up in the morning and I was doing my exposure work and I was going towards scary things. And I was immersed in panic all the damn time and it was a really difficult time for sure. I formed a relationship with Dr. Weeks that involved me dragging her around everywhere I went. Right? So generally speaking, her audio, right? So for me, hope and help for your nerves, which has got multiple different titles, depending on where you get that book was the book that I had. But I also had recordings called passed through panic. And I think I forget the version that I had of one of her audio books. And I will tell you that I dragged those audio books around with me everywhere I went everywhere. Now back in those days cars had CD players, it was before the days of streaming and Spotify and things like that. So your car had a tape deck or like a cassette tape in it, or it had a CD player. And I literally burned all of that Claire Weeks audio onto multiple CDs and whatever vehicles I owned at the time, there was always a copy of all of that audio in those cars. So no matter where I was, I always had a copy of Claire Weeks in the car. I even got to the point where this is in the very beginning of like MP3s they weren't in the beginning, but you know, those are like the LimeWire days. I don't know if you guys remember LimeWire. I burned them all onto MP3s and I would have them on my silly iPod. Those are the iPod days before there was an iPhone. And I would have my iPod and my ear, earbuds, my headphones. And so no matter what I was doing or where I was, I always had Claire Weeks that they're ready to listen to. Now this might sound familiar to some of you. That was my relationship with Dr. Weeks. I was in a bit of a toxic relationship with her 50 or so years after her death. She was so incredibly helpful to me. There was so much good information. There was so much good direction to be found in her content. The books she wrote in the 1950s and 1960s were groundbreaking. She absolutely was a trailblazer. She got, she was very good at explaining the mechanics of an anxiety disorder to regular people like me, like you, that was her claim to fame. And she was outstanding at it. And I owe her a debt that I would never be able to repay repay if she was alive today would not be able to repay Dr. Weeks. And I have said many, many times and I will continue to say forever that you can draw a direct line from her work directly to mine and converse and also I believe to just about anybody whose work sounds like mine. So I am in no way dissing Dr. Weeks here. She was a huge part of my recovery and she is clearly one of my professional heroes at this point. But I got to the point where I was using her as a crutch. Okay, when I felt that I was going to go into a scary situation, I would make sure that I had some of her audio available to listen to. I don't know why. Now, before I started recording this episode, I thought, What did I actually think was going to happen here? Now, if I really think about it, there was probably two things going on there. Number one, to a certain extent, Dr. Weeks was instructive, right? She never got down to the nitty gritty. To me, she kind of operated at the 10,000 foot level. She never maybe she didn't live long enough. She didn't have the benefit of the feedback that people like I have in this day and age. So she didn't necessarily hear what her audience was looking for, possibly. So she never got to the point where she wrote a book like The Anxious Truth, for instance, that was a little bit more descriptive or instructive. Really kind of got down in the dirt step by step. And these are the things that you should probably actually do. So she was really great at explaining concepts. But even that was helpful, right? So I think I would take Dr. Weeks with me everywhere that I went because I did understand that if I got on the rocks, you know, if things got a little bit dicey, if I was in the weeds, if I kind of fell off the path, some of her stuff was instructive and can help me adjusting it back on the path. That's true. But I believe if I'm really being honest with myself, and it's a little bit embarrassing now, but I could tell you guys, if I'm being honest with myself, that was probably only 15 to 20% of the reason why I always had her in my ears, always had her available to listen to. In the end, I somehow felt that listening to her talk was saving me. It was a safety thing. It was a soothing thing. Like if it got to the point where I was going to be full blown panic, completely derealized, convinced that I was either dying, having a stroke, slipping away, going insane, that somehow rather listening to Dr. Weeks would make that better. So I know now that that was not correct, but I did that for quite a while, and then I realized what I was doing. And it got to the point where I remember getting in the car one day, and I believe the car had been cleaned. If I'm we had a Hyundai Santa Fe at the time as a SUV, and I believe that the car had been cleaned like thoroughly clean. My kids were small. So you know, sometimes kids can really gross up a car and the car had been completely cleaned, you know, was looking good and everything. But I think that my my little vinyl folder with all the CDs that were in every car was not in that car. And I remember going out one morning and starting to do my exposures. And I was good. I knew I'd be out for about 40 minutes or so that day. And it was I was feeling terrible. I hadn't slept. I was feeling really vulnerable, really shaky. It was super challenging that morning. And about two minutes into and I'm like got to pop in a CD and the CDs weren't there. And I will never forget the realization that like, holy shit, where are the CDs? First of all, I got instantly angry that somebody had taken them out of the car. Right? Nobody was trying to do anything to me. But I got instantly angry that that the CDs were not in the car. I got visit. I was frustrated and annoyed. And then I was even more scared than I already was. And I turned that car around and I made a beeline back to my house. Because I was convinced that I could not complete that morning, the exposures that morning if I did not have those audio CDs in the car so I could listen to her as I drove. And I remember I did come home. I found the CDs. They were just in the garage. The car had been cleaned out. There was some stuff in the garage. I had to go back in the car and I got back in the car and my legs were shaking and I was angry. I was still angry, which to this day, I mean, it's weird how that expressed in that moment is that I was angry, but I was angry and my my legs were wobbly. And I was I was breathing really heavy and I was feeling super dizzy. I'm like, I just had such a strong reaction to that. And I got in the car and I kind of settled myself or tried to for a minute or two and then I'm like, I'm going to finish and I'm going to go out and do this driving that I plan to do today. And I popped one of the CDs in to be honest with you. I don't even know what I was listening to. I have no idea what part of her lectures, what part of the audiobooks it got to the point where it didn't matter. And that's why I say that the instructive part of it was probably less than 20% because a lot of times it didn't matter what I was listening to it just so long as her voice was on could have been anything. And I and I went and I finished my exposure with Dr. Weeks playing and only later on that night, did it really kind of dawn on me? Oh, wait a minute, that that's probably not okay. And at that moment, I realized that like, Oh, I have turned this into it from a tool and something useful into a ritual and a safety behavior. And I had to stop doing that, which was super difficult. It was really unnatural for me to get out and drive or go into scary situations. And I would use them in any situation, not just in exposures, going to Thanksgiving dinner with the family, like heading on over to my in-laws house, I would have my headphones on because I wouldn't play them out loud in the car, the kids are in the car and stuff. And I would be listening. So I was completely disconnected from the rest of the family at the time. And I had my headphones on and I was listening to Dr. Weeks driving to Thanksgiving dinner. So I would use her as a crutch in all of those situations. I would have to go see my doctor and I have to sit in the waiting room and I'd be panicking in the waiting room and I'd be listening to Dr. Weeks. So I used it everywhere, everywhere as a crutch. And I had to come to the realization that like this is not helping me now. I actually am basing my OK-ness. And those of you who follow me now have heard me use the term unconditional OK-ness. I didn't know I wasn't doing that at all. I was probably going to be OK as long as I can hear her talk. So I just had to start taking steps to not do that. Like, OK, I'm going, I used to promise myself, I'm not going to put in a CD for five minutes. I'll wait five minutes before I put it in. Then it was I'll wait seven minutes. Then it was I'll wait nine minutes. And then after a while, and that was a tough few weeks to break that habit. There's no doubt about it. I'm not going to say it took me months, but it did take me a few weeks. Then I started just I will leave the iPod. I have a silver iPod. Like, I don't know what it was called at the time. It was super thin. It was one of those, but wasn't a phone. But I remember thinking now I'm going to leave the iPod home. If I went out in a short trip, I would leave the iPod home. It took me longer months before I might go, you know, 40 minutes away, like with my family, because I could do that as long as like my wife was in the car with me at the time. I where I would leave the iPod home for those things. It took me months to do that. So that safety behavior hung on. But in the end, it helped because even without Dr. Weeks, I discovered I could do this. You know, I can get through these uncomfortable feelings. I can navigate through this. I didn't I learned that I didn't need her. I appreciated her. I wasn't abandoning her. I didn't stop appreciating, respecting, you know, and valuing her. I just just didn't need her the way I thought I needed. So that was a valuable lesson to me. And that's why I'm recording this podcast today. So so many of you are so kind with the words you say to me and the feedback you give me about this podcast. So much great feedback, much of which helps shape the content of the podcast. And I certainly appreciate that you guys are participating in making the anxious truth kind of what it is. And I dig that. And I love that you guys do that. Some of it is just praise, which, you know, I cringe at, but I get it. And I appreciate when you say nice things to me and nice things about me, I really do. And sometimes I hear very common statements like I put on, I, you know, it's okay, I just pop in a podcast and I feel better. I hear people describe very clear situations where when they get anxious, they will pop in a podcast episode and listen to me. Or if you have the audiobook version of any, any, either my three books, people will literally just turn on the audio, one of my audio books, doesn't matter which sometimes, and they will listen. Sometimes they do it instructively, like I would do with Dr. Weeks. So I've had people will say like, Hey, I was really challenged with XYZ. And I remembered podcast episode number, blah, blah, blah, and you really got me through that. Like that was so applicable to what I was doing. That's great. Love that. Like it was, you use me as an instructive tool, which was great. But many times I just get you calm me down. I pop in a podcast when I do my exposures. I had to do a long drive. So I made sure I had your audio book in the car or whatever it happened to be. And, and I can see that I've become a soothing be a soothing tool. I've become a crotch, a ritual, a safety behavior. I know some people who say they fall asleep listening every night, they put their earbuds in and they listen to me as they fall asleep every night, which is always, you know, we always joke about that like, you know, that's weird. Don't tell me that you do that. But I understand. I totally get that. I used to do that with Claire Weeks too. Just listen at night to fall asleep because I was having such horrible sleep problems. But in the end, one of the things that as you progress in your recovery now in the early stages, I completely understand that. Alright, I totally get that. Like in the early stages, you're just grasping for anything that you think will get you through because you don't believe that you're capable. You're starting to take that leap of faith to learn that you're capable to learn that you're okay to learn that you can really do this. But you don't really believe it. I understand that we all start that way. And so you'll grasp it almost anything that helps sort of buoy you and keep you afloat in those situations. A little bit of crutch. That's okay. Right? It's like people who start doing their exposures and they bring their safe person with them at first. I get that. People who maybe they can't bring themselves to start to do their exposures or do the scary things and maybe they'll use a little bit of medication to get the ball rolling. I get that very common. That's okay, like whatever gets you out the door and gets you moving in the right direction is always a good thing. So if you're stuck and not moving in the early stages when you're just starting to move forward on the path to recovery, whatever tools you got with you that get you moving and get that momentum going, I'm 100% behind that. And if listening to me talk about random topics on your stereo in your car stereo listening to me dating myself, but on your car speakers or in your earbuds or whatever it is like if if I'm one of those tools to to get you started, I'm happy to do that. I'm honored to be able to do that for you. But as we move down the road, we start to realize that it becomes sort of a habit. Like it's a ritual, it's a crutch. When things get dicey, we put on, you know, an episode of the anxious truth or we listen to a chapter of, you know, Drew's book or we listened to 7% slower or whatever. Or I go, you know, I wake up every morning and boom, I immediately put a podcast on I don't even know what the podcast is that I'm listening to it's just his voice in the background. Now I'm not saying that's just me because I'm not unique or special in this situation. You might do that with Kimberly Quinlan's podcast. You might do that with Josh Fletcher's podcast. You might do that. Excuse me. You might do that with I don't the anxiety chicks or one of those other podcasts that if you like them, I don't know. So I get that it's not just me. I'm not unique here. You might do it with Claire Weeks like I did. Very possible. I bet you there's a fair number of you listening that actually do with Claire Weeks what I used to do with Claire Weeks. So I get that. So I'm not talking necessarily about just me, but I can't do a podcast that says stop listening to Josh Fletcher. Like he would probably not like if I did that. But he would, you know, everybody that I'm talking about and I think I could probably I say with some confidence to that Dr. Weeks would agree with this too. She would probably say, please don't use me as a crutch. Right. And I'm pretty sure Josh and Kimberly and all those people would probably say the same thing. Please don't use this as a crutch. They know that. Right. They know that Jenna Overbaugh does all the hard things. That's a great podcast too. She would probably say the same thing like no, don't listen to me as a crutch. So I think the moral of the story here or the lesson that I want to bring about here is as you go down the road, one of the things that I want you to be able to do is to learn that you are you are the capable one. Right. So nothing but you gets you through those uncomfortable, scary feelings, anxiety sensations, sensations of panic. Oh my God thoughts, catastrophic thoughts, intrusive thoughts. Only you in the end gets you through that. That is the core and most valuable lesson in recovery. It wasn't the cold water. It wasn't the ice pack. It wasn't the sugary snacks. It wasn't the rescue meds. It wasn't the lavender that I sniff. It wasn't calling my girlfriend. It wasn't any of those things. It certainly wasn't listening to drew while I was anxious. So the most valuable lesson you can learn is that you alone are capable of handling all of this. Even when you're certain that you cannot. And the only way that we learn that lesson in the end is we leave our safety behaviors, our crutches and our rituals behind probably not all at once, probably little by little. And as we go down the road and progress in our recovery, we start to leave, leave them behind more and more. For me, the very last crutch that I let go was when I had a stupid bottle of Xanax in the console between the seats of my car that had been there for two years, two years. It had baked in the summer, frozen in the winter. It was expired. It probably did nothing. It was probably worthless. But man, I kept that bottle of pills in that car for two years. And I remember cleaning out the car one day and deciding, I guess it's time to get rid of these. And I did. And that was the last one for me. You know, but those first few times that I went out without Dr. Weeks was really tough. The first few times I went out without a bottle of water was a little bit tough. Sometimes they were mistakes like I didn't mean to leave without a bottle of water and you may find yourself doing the same thing. Right as you get a little bit better and you start to progress, I started to forget. Oh, that's right. I need a bottle of water. I need a granola bar. I need my mints. You know, I need to make sure I have the little at the time, the little digital camera with me, because I might want to film something from my old YouTube channel. But really, it was a crutch. That was another crutch that I had to stop. I had to stop filming myself and that I was going to show it to my friends on YouTube that I had at the time. Like I had to stop doing that. So little by little, you leave your safety behaviors, your crutches and your rituals behind, including me. And I know I've said this before, if you if you're in my Facebook group or you've followed me for any length of time, really and truly the happiest day for somebody like me is the day that you want to follow me. That is the best day for me. The best day for me is not the day that you start following me. I'm not trying to grow an audience here. Unfortunately, there's a lot of anxious people in the world. So the audience does grow, but the best day for somebody like me who does what I do is the day that you leave me. And one of the first steps toward leaving me is understanding that you shouldn't use shouldn't use me as as a crutch. Right so when I entitle this episode, sometimes you shouldn't listen to this podcast. That's what I mean. You have to learn to use it as a tool. Use it to instruct, use it to inspire to encourage, use it to inform an action and then take that action, but without me in your ears. In the beginning, you may listen to me during every working hour and I would not I get that I understand that makes me weird me out a little bit to think that people are doing that, but I know that you are and it's okay. It's fine. I'm happy to help that way. But as you go down the road, you have to just start to use use this podcast more and more and all the materials, my books, everything, social media content, people like me, content creators like me, you know that you know the usual suspects. You got to start to use us more as instructors as people who can keep you on the path. Maybe people who can bring you together in a community that inspires and encourages you and cheers for you, but then you have to slowly start to drop us on the floor and don't let us become rituals, crutches, soothers or safety devices for you. Right. So that's pretty much all I have to say on that. It's weird to put all the effort that I put into making a podcast like this and do an episode called You Have to Learn to Stop Listening to Podcasts. I'm not telling you to never ever listen again. If I'm producing content that you're finding useful, again, as a tool, as an instructive tool in some way, shape, or form, then by all means, listen forever, I guess, if I'm helping you in some way, if you're enjoying it, but just learn to not use podcasts like mine, books like mine, content like mine, as a crutch. As you go along, really work on recognizing when you're doing that and starting to leave that behind. Right. So that's it. That is episode 218, a little bit of a strange topic, but I've been meaning to talk about this for a while and I wanted to do it in a way that didn't sound ridiculous. Hopefully I've accomplished that. I don't know, but that is it. That's my message. Don't use me as a crutch. Like I promise you'll be able to fall asleep even if you don't have me in your earbuds. And that is episode 218. It is over and you know how you know it's over. Music. So I will play you out with Afterglow from Ben Drake, as I always do. That is a song you hear at the beginning and end of every episode of The Anxious Truth. Ben was gracious enough to let me use the song every week and I've been doing it now for several years. You can find Ben and his music at bendrakemusic.com so go check him out. I will ask you the same favors that I do at the end of every podcast episode. If you're listening on iTunes, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any platform that lets you rate or review the podcast, leave a five star rating if you dig the podcast. Maybe take 30 seconds and write a short review because that really helps other people find a podcast. And if they need help, like you needed help, if we can get them here, that's great. I really appreciate that. If you're watching on YouTube, subscribe to the channel, like the video, leave a comment. I'm digging interacting on YouTube now so that's been great. And that's it. I will be back next week for another episode of The Anxious Truth. Don't know what I'm going to be talking about, but I will be here and remember, as always, this is the way.