 Back for another Recovery Monday, this is episode 80. Today, we're going to talk about the idea that many people in the anxiety disorder community struggle because they just simply cannot believe that what they're experiencing, symptoms or sensations or thoughts or potential feelings of doom or threat or danger, they cannot seem to get themselves to actually believe that it's just anxiety. Really, really common struggle. It's something that everybody goes through. So sort of let's get to it. Let us pop the chat overlay on. Now, last week, we had like the worst, there we go. Last week, we had like the worst technical, two weeks ago, the worst technical recovery Monday I've had in like two years. It was just, it was a hot mess technically. So we'll do better today for sure. I figured out my framing right away, like go me and I promise I won't accidentally get Chrome into full screen mode. So how's everybody doing today? Yeah, we're on YouTube. Hello, hello. Hey Jenny, hey B, Bessie's here. If you're in the Facebook group and you're watching, I'll only see you as Facebook user unfortunately because that's just what ReStream does. So nothing I can do about that if you want to say your name and you make a comment, that's totally fine. Hello, Kate, Katie from El Paso, nice to see you. Nice glasses, yeah, these are new. These are relatively new. I am working on those influencer skills. I banned it, I dropped the ball last time. I appreciate you guys hanging in there with me when I just made a mess of the stream for the first few minutes. But anyway, so today we're gonna talk about a really common struggle in recovery, which is I can't seem to believe that this is just anxiety. So if you're watching live, you can comment to each other. Of course, I always love how you guys interact in the chat together. I always put the chat up on screen so anybody watching the replay can see what the conversation was at least. Of course, if you're watching on a replay, feel free to comment and I will swing back through at some point on YouTube and answer all the comments that I possibly can. I really appreciate you guys doing that stuff. Just a couple of quick reminders if you will. Before we get started, of course, all the goodies. I would have to put this stuff up here. All the goodies, all the extra stuff, all the podcast episodes of the books, the courses, the workshops. I'll link over to Disordered, which is the podcast I do with Josh Fletcher. All the goodies are here. That's the anxioustruth.com. Go check out the website. If you're here on the live stream, odds are you've been on my websites. You already know that. And yeah, just throwing it up there is a quick friendly reminder. So let's get back to here. And yeah, it's actually a really common thing. So by show of hands here in the chat, who has had a problem with, let me call up the chat on this side so I can see what I got going on. Who has had an issue with that? Like I can't seem to believe that this is just anxiety. Like I've heard it again and again and again. Everybody's told me, my doctors have told me, my therapist has told me, Drew has told me, Josh has told me, Kim has told me, Jen has told me, everybody's told me, and I just can't seem to get myself to believe it. Just show of hands, who has that particular problem? A lot of you. There's 48 people in the room, I guarantee at least half of you either have that problem now or have had that problem in the past. It's not just you, not just you at all. You're not alone in that. It doesn't mean that you're doing it wrong or you won't be able to get better. It doesn't mean anything like that at all. It's just part of the journey. So that's what I'm gonna talk about. Yep, me, yep, me. It gets to be embarrassing. Yeah, and a lot of people say it will express as people often use the phrase, it all goes out the window. Like I've heard about it and I've heard this and when I'm calm, I know it's just anxiety, but when I get put right up against those scary sensations. And by the way, also thoughts, this has to do with thoughts, also not just sensations, but when I'm right up against those scary thoughts or those scary sensations, everything goes out the window and I can't believe it anymore. And then I run or I avoid or I save myself or I call for help or I do my rituals or whatever it happens to be. So really, really common. And yes, it is in fact also thoughts. So I wanna validate that also because if you're in the chat and you're saying or you're watching this on a replay and you're saying, well, it's not so much my symptoms, it's my thoughts. Same thing, you will probably have heard well, your thoughts are just thoughts. They can't hurt you. They don't come true. You're not gonna manifest them. Having the thoughts don't mean they're likely to happen, especially if you hate them or especially if you're afraid of them. They're not who you really are. So people will have a hard time believing that their symptoms are just anxiety, physical symptoms and that they're actually dangerous or that their thoughts are not just thoughts. They're not just anxiety. It's not just a presentation of anxiety that the thoughts are also dangerous or represent some sort of threat, right? So really common. Don't worry, if it's thoughts or symptoms, it's not just you, I promise. So just so somebody mentioned Dr. Claire Weeks, Dr. Weeks was the first psychoeducation and we're gonna talk about that that I ever accessed way back when when I first started struggling with repeated panic attacks and I was developing panic disorder and agoraphobia. We're gonna talk about that. Dr. Weeks was like psychoeducator par excellence and we're definitely gonna talk about the role of that, it's really important. So what I wanna talk about for a second is, let me look at the comments real quick. We'll do something a little different. Let me look. Yep, I struggled. Let's throw a couple of comments up just so that we can frame this a little bit. Heather says, hello, Heather D. I struggled with believing that DPR is just anxiety when I feel spaced out. I struggled with letting go of thoughts that the feeling is being caused by a stroke or I could die at any second. That's really common for sure. I'm gonna look for a couple others. Let's see here. I can relate to this a lot. Okay, here we go. Here's another one. We don't normally go over symptoms here but as you can see, it's not anxiety. PJ is saying that he continually interprets this as a physical threat of some kind for sure. Let's see what else does he say. We're not, that's not gonna be a thing. We're not gonna talk about things that you swallow and ingest. Let's see, tapering an AD. Let me scroll down a little bit more to see if anybody else, yep, proud of myself. I'm gonna deduct or what do you do about it when it comes to the symptoms? Okay, I still have it. Okay, here we go. Ready, let's put this up real quick. I just wanna put them up to begin with before I launch into like spewing a ton of words that you guys like I usually do. So you guys can see, especially if you're watching on the replay, like it's not just you. This is a really common thing, right? Sorry, I can't see your name in the Facebook group. Yeah, I have a hard time believing that anxiety can cause such uncomfortable symptoms. But it can, right? It certainly can. We know that. Here's the one thing that I think is kind of interesting is we're talking about what we talk about today. So it's not like, I can't really change the topic. Each of these has a topic. So it's kind of important that I throw that out there. So let's put this back up again. All right, so one of the things, that's really common, like I just can't believe it. One of the things that I wanna throw out before I get started too is the idea of mind-body connection. Like you hear people talk about mind-body connection all the time. How many people in the chat are watching live or even if you're watching on a replay? How many people understand the idea of mind-body connection or even will put your eggs in that basket when it works for you? Like, do you think there's no connection between your mind and body? Like, I don't think so. Most people are more, they're super happy to get on board with the idea of mind-body connection, mind-body connection, because they should. Like, you're mind and your body are connected. There's no doubt about that. I mean, we just see this again and again and again and again and again. It's studied, it's not even a question anymore. So when you're calm, many times people in our community will be all about mind-body connection but then when triggered, no, no, it can't be my mind, can't be doing this. So are you all in on mind-body connection when it's not scary but not in on it, when it is scary? That's one way that you can think of to challenge that. If you are a fan of the concept of the mind-body connection, which is great, nothing wrong with that, you know, use that, man. Like, use that, leverage that. Don't throw it away when you're scared and only try to use it for good and not evil, if you will. You know, it's a little joke there, but you can still use that concept for good. Just in an evil air quotes are scary or dangerous situation, you'll throw that out, completely throw it out. So let's get to this a little bit. Beginners, if you are new to this, right? If you are new to this journey, you don't really necessarily understand what's going on yet. You're new to chronic and disorder anxiety. Everybody starts by not believing. Every person starts that way, to some degree or other. Some people have no idea, like they've had no training, no psycho education, why would they? They didn't need it, right? It's a good thing in your life. You didn't need to know about these things because you weren't confronted with them. So most everybody will start not understanding that anxiety can cause these problems or that scary repetitive thoughts or intrusive thoughts or disturbing thoughts can be a function of an anxiety state. They don't get it. If you're new to this, this is kinda new and you're like, I don't even know what's happening to me. I'm just hoping that this guy on video here is gonna tell me how to fix it. What's wrong with me, I don't get it. I have this symptom. All you wanna do is talk about your symptoms and your feelings and your thoughts. I get it, it's okay. At that stage of this process, every single person starts by not believing and not understanding. I can't believe that this is just anxiety. Something must really be wrong with me, right? And that's totally okay because when we get to that part, especially in the beginning here, things like medical evaluation are always part of the process. In fact, a very well-known clinician that I respect and trust that you guys probably know at one point was reviewing slides that I was doing from one of my workshops because I always try to have those things professionally reviewed. And this person said, no, no, no. You have to say that medical being medically checked, it's not required. It's not suggested it's required, right? So yeah, and that was really good. I'm gonna take that with me as I practice naturally and that's been drilled into me in school also. So being medically evaluated is going to be part of the process for everybody. Like the first stop for most people that are beginning to descend into at a disorder or chronic state of anxiety would be a medical doctor, okay? Emergency rooms, medical doctors, your GPs. That's gonna be your first stop and that's okay because that's where everybody goes. And it's perfectly okay. In fact, it's sort of required to be checked out because there are certain things that maybe would look like anxiety, but aren't. So it's okay to get checked out. It's okay, it's required. You should do that. That's gonna be your first stop if not one of your first stops. And then the other thing that comes into this process hopefully early on, if you're pointed in the right direction, if you're new to this and you just sort of accidentally stumbled upon my YouTube channel, well, congratulations. You sort of got lucky, not because I'm awesome but just because of the material here. Psychoeducation becomes another part of the process that's really important to begin with. Psychoeducation is like the books that Dr. Clay Rieks wrote. A hope and help for your nerves, otherwise known as help for nervous suffering or self-help for your nerves. I can't remember which one in other countries. That is a psychoeducational book. Like the books that I write, The Anxious Truth, 7% Slower, the books that Josh Fletcher wrote and Kim Quinlan's books. Like the books that people like me write, that's psychoeducation. The podcasts that I do are psychoeducation. This is psychoeducation, right? You're actually partaking in psychoeducation right now if you're watching this video. Psychoeducation is a thing where you start to learn about the nature of what it is you're dealing with. Like, oh, I never heard of it. For me, it was like, I never heard of panic disorder. No freaking idea what panic disorder was. I kind of didn't even know what a panic attack was. To be honest with you, when it first started happening, I never heard of a panic attack. I didn't know that that's what I was experiencing. So I had to be taught that. So you get checked out medically, excuse me, and then you get checked out medically and then you indulge or don't indulge, you access psychoeducational material. Now, luckily in 2023 on the internet, as I'm recording this, psychoeducation is everywhere. Like if you went through this long ago before the age of the internet, you relied on your medical doctor to provide you with psychoeducation. Or maybe if you were lucky enough to have a therapist, you had to go to a library. I was fortunate enough to go see a therapist who I saw twice, who handed me a Claire Weeks book, said, read this, call me next week, tell me if you still want to see me. We could talk about it, but you might not need me after you read this book. And holy crap, he was actually right in the beginning. So, but if you want to read that whole story, you can read my first book. So on my website, you can get it for free. So psychoeducation is a big part of it too, where you're told by people like me, by therapists, by educators, it is just anxiety. Like yes, anxiety can cause this symptom and that symptom and this symptom and that symptom. When some of the most popular episodes I've ever done a podcast, whether it's the anxious truth or disordered with Josh, is the symptoms episodes. The most popular social media content any of us ever produce is symptom focused. I would have a much, much larger audience on social media. Thank you already. I have a pretty big audience, so thank you guys. If I was symptom focused all the time, everybody wants to learn about the symptom. Is this just anxiety? Is anybody else get? Is it just me? Is this scary? Is this dangerous? How did you get over this particular symptom? So everybody starts there. So it's medical evaluation and psychoeducation early on. As you start to get more familiar with this, this is where we get into the sticky part. You may wind up in a situation and many people in the community do and it's not a crime. This is not something to be embarrassed or ashamed of because a lot of people wind up here where I've been evaluated again and again medically, again and again, again and again, either by my GP specialist, ER visits, emergency room or A&E as you guys would call it in the UK. I've had that again and again and again and it always comes back as I'm okay. The medical professionals are starting to tell me that this is anxiety, this is an anxiety problem. I saw a therapist once or twice who said it's an anxiety problem. I read these three books. I'm listening to these podcasts. It says it's anxiety. I get it from a logical standpoint, from a intellectual standpoint. I'm understanding what all of these people are telling me and I get that every time I go to the emergency room or the A&E, there's nothing wrong and they tell me I'm having a panic attack or I get it that every time I have a storm of intrusive thoughts about harming people, I am told that's okay, that's not gonna happen even though that's disturbing and then it passes and it doesn't happen. So I get it, but I still can't believe it on an emotional level, right? So on a logical and intellectual level, I get it on an emotional level, I don't get it. Like I can't seem to make myself believe. I'm here to tell you that that's okay. You are in fact not going to believe it on an emotional level. So many people, and one of the key points that I wanna make today is if you've been told again and again and again and you're reading the books and you're listening to the podcast and you're watching the videos and you're in the support groups and you get it intellectually, but not emotionally, then you're not alone. And nobody gets it. Nobody believes it at first. And the biggest mistake that people in our community will make is trying desperately to find a way to believe it before they take action. So if you're watching live, show of hands, you know, I'll go back to the chat here and let's see what's going on. But how many people feel like you're in that situation right now? Where I get it intellectually, but emotionally, I don't get it. I'm not getting it at all. And I'm trying to find a way, we'll use a typical example of exposure, right? Here's talk about facing fear, going towards fear, doing exposures, doing ERP work with OCD with your thoughts. Like I get it, but before I am willing to do the exposures or face to fear, I need to find a way to believe that it's just anxiety. Who's, I see people raising their hand. Yes, yes, yes. If you are there, it's not just you. You're not alone in that. And you're not doing something wrong. You're really normal. Like you're super normal. And the bad news here is that we only believe it after we act. So let me take a second and let me repeat that. You are only going to actually fully believe it after you take action. And you take that action while you don't believe it. That's what makes the action. That's what makes acceptance, surrender, willfully tolerating, navigating, floating, all of the words. That's the part that makes that so difficult to start on and get the ball rolling. I'm sure that a lot of people in the room are saying, well, I hear acceptance all the time. I hear, you guys talking about willful tolerance on disordered, I hear about navigating and surrendering. I hear about all the things. But I can't seem to get myself to do that consistently because I don't believe that it's safe to do that. Well, nobody believed it when they first started doing it. You act and take that action toward acceptance, dropping resistance, surrender, willful tolerance, navigation through as opposed to running from or stopping or fixing. You take that action, which is super scary because you don't believe that it's safe to do that while you're scared and while you don't believe. So so much of the process that we talk about in these videos on my podcast or the books that I write and the workshops and all of that stuff is paradoxical and counterintuitive. You don't get it until you do it. It doesn't click until after you do it. Like so many people get stuck on, I just need something to make it click and then I'll start to go and do recovery. But it doesn't click until you start to do it. So essentially what you're doing here is you're acting before you believe it, right? So you gather as much information as you can and you start to understand that there is a limit to the amount of information you can gather, right? So you get medically evaluated, you gather all the medical information and it all points to you're okay. You're okay. You get all the psycho education. You read the books, you're watching the videos, the podcast, you hear it again and again and again. Okay, fine. I gathered all the information I can. I still don't believe it. I'm still really scared. So I'm gonna have to act now. Then act means I'm going to go do that exposure that intentionally triggers my symptoms. Remember, exposure is an intentional triggering of anxiety, fear and panic. That's what that is. It's not learning how to drive or learning how to walk or learning to go to the supermarket or learn to stay home alone. You're using those things to intentionally trigger those things you do not believe are safe or benign or just anxiety. You are allowing the scary thoughts when they come. You're actually going toward the scary thoughts. If you're doing ERP work with a therapist to be completely honest with you, if you're doing ERP work with a therapist that therapist is gonna say, no, I want you to practice hearing those scary thoughts. Go, you might do exposures like look into a mirror and repeat over and over the thought that you hate. Write it down, write a story about it. You want to be triggered. And that feels so dangerous and so risky and like such a gamble and such a roll of the dice because you don't believe that it's just anxiety. You don't believe that the thoughts are just thoughts. You don't believe that your symptoms are just a fear, adrenaline, cortisol reaction in your body until after you roll those dice and let them happen and not save yourself and not run from it and not try to engineer your whole life to prevent it from happening. That takes courage, bravery, it's a leap of faith. All of those things that we talk about all the time, it's really hard to do. You have to sort of find your own path to get to the point where you're willing to do what feels like jumping off a cliff into what seems like a bottomless pit, but it's not. Once you jump, you notice, oh, it's actually not a bottomless pit. There was a net down there, only a couple feet down and it was a, I made it, it was okay, I did it. Like all those folks were right. I was, it was safe for me to do that, but you get to the point and I use the cliff analogy where you tiptoe up to the cliff, a little bit closer, a little bit closer, you start to look over, today I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna jump and then you don't that day for whatever reason, you're sagging a little bit, you're not feeling very courageous that day, you back up, you go toward, you back up, it's okay. Everybody gets to the jump in their own way, but then when you take the jump, you are jumping even though you do not believe that it's safe to jump. So do not spend so much of your time attempting so hard and like beating yourself up because you can't get it. How many people in the room have said, I don't know what's wrong with me, why can't I get it? Why can't I just get it? Like a lot of people struggle with that, but do not beat yourself up because you can't get it. The biggest mistake that anxious people will make as part of recovery or one of the biggest mistakes is sitting passively and wanting to learn about recovery and talk about recovery and listen to the podcast and watch the videos and read the books and be in the groups, but don't actually do recovery is that they are hoping that all of that other action, the talking, the discussing, the asking questions, the listening, the reading, the watching videos, they're hoping that that will somehow make something click and that they'll be able to start to take action and allow those things and do and take this approach where you allow, accept, you tolerate your float. I can't explain the whole process that's in all of the things that I write about and talk about, but they try so hard to make this part, the psycho-educational part, maybe the online community support part, change how they feel and what they believe so that they can go into recovery and that's backwards. You gather information as best you can, you build that base of knowledge. If you are at the point where when you are calm and not triggered, you get it, you kind of believe it, you feel confident, maybe you feel courageous and strong, but when you're triggered, that goes out the window, that's the process, that's where you're getting. You're getting, that is the process that almost everybody goes through, it's okay. So it's okay to get to that point. It really is okay to get to that point, like to be in that. Everybody goes through that. And it's just really hard to, sometimes it's really hard to confront this reality that says, I have been trying really hard to find a way to believe that it's just anxiety and believe that I'm safe and believe that it's okay without actually testing that in the real world by allowing those things and letting it work its way through and seeing how I come out the other side. It's super hard. It is super hard to get there without actually taking the action, right? So that is the number one thing that I could tell you. The other thing that I want you to write down if you need to or I don't know, save this part of the video. I don't know what you do on a video, right? Write this down. Remember that everything we talk about here is about doing scary things, never dangerous things. So if you go all the way back to Dr. Weeks, if you go all the way back to the earliest pioneers in things like cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure work, every one of those people, be included now at this in 2023 and the people who sound like me, the other folks, maybe you follow on social media who are like me, we are always talking about doing scary things and difficult things. We are never talking about doing dangerous things. That is such an important thing to keep in the back of your head, especially if you're hearing me give this little talk today and your gut reaction right away is, okay, okay, mm-mm. But you don't understand, it's so scary. So how many people are hearing this today and are immediately, even almost involuntarily pushing back, even not specifically pushing back at me, nobody's pushing back, but how many, are you feeling a pushback, like emotionally? Yeah, I hear you, but nope, you don't even get it. Like I've heard people say, you've never had a panic attack, you're a lawyer, you don't know what it feels like because sometimes it will feel ridiculous to hear people like me say these things. You have to always remember that we are either a bunch of sociopaths who have banded together for the last 70 years to try and get people to do truly dangerous things, or we might actually be onto something, which one is more likely. So keep that in the back of your mind if you find yourself having that gut reaction that says, nope, hard pass, nope, and you could decide hard pass, that's okay. Like you could decide, no, no, I'm not doing it that way, and that's totally fine. Everybody gets to pick their path, there's nothing wrong with that and we all get to respect everybody's decision, but keep that in mind. Either we are all literally telling you to risk your lives on a daily basis or we're not. It's, we're telling you to do scary things or we're suggesting that the way out of this problem is to allow that fear and learn to work with it as opposed to running from it and trying to tamp it down and fix it all the time, right? So that's kind of what I have to say about I can't believe that it's just anxiety. Let me just see if I had any other notes here. I don't think so. It feels risky, feels like you're rolling the dice, but you're really not, it's scary, but not dangerous. And again, just, especially if you're new to this, if you have just literally today, like just Googled anxiety recovery and accidentally stumbled upon this video, if you're in that situation, this can't be just things, it's not possible, it's okay. Go through the process like everybody else did, it's okay, you'll get there sooner or later. At some point you will get there, okay? And everybody gets there, I cannot repeat this enough. Everybody gets there in their own way at their own time. So some people, it is true, some people will sort of get to that point. And this is my opinion here. At some point I could probably do a ton of research that will validate this opinion, but I'm gonna tell you, I would say it's my opinion. And it's just a crowdsourced opinion after having the privilege of talking to thousands and thousands of you over the years. Probably the biggest determinant of the time factor of recovery and the consistency or durability of recovery is found in this concept. Some people take a very long time to get to the point where it's like, I have nothing left to lose, so I might as well take the risk. Like then that's when you start to do things that teach you how to believe. I don't believe, but I can't do it like this anymore, I'm doing it. Some people get there sooner rather than later or some people get there sooner than others. I can't tell you why that is. I don't know why one person, and it's not consistent. I know that there are people that you would think, well, if you saw that person, you would say, oh, this person is so quiet or reserved or timid that it's gonna take them years to actually confront this fear. And they're at it in three months. And other people you would think like, oh, this person is one of those like, dare devils and super strong and like be out there right away and doing this stuff. And those people might take a year or two, you never know. You get there when you get there. When is the tipping point? I'm gonna return to certain things again and again in these videos a little bit more consistently because I think these are the threads that bind a lot of this information together. The tipping point between, I can't seem to believe it's anxiety and I can't act to believe it. I'm stuck, I refuse, I need more information. I can't, and actually taking the leap of faith and jumping, the tipping point is generally when the pain of avoiding is greater than the pain of facing the fear. So everybody gets there based on their own life circumstance in their own way. You gotta get to that point where the pain of not taking the leap, not testing it, not acting. The pain of running from your anxiety and being bullied by it is greater than the pain of facing it and doing something that feels like you're rolling the dice. However way you get there, you get there. That's very individual. Be nice to yourself as you're on that path because you're different than everybody else in the room and you're gonna get there however way you get there. Don't compare yourself to other people. So that's a common thread. So let's look at the comments here. I always like to go back and answer questions and stuff if I can, where are we? 26 minutes, very good. I always appreciate you guys hanging out and listening to me like just spew, just tons of words at you. I'm never, it's never short of words around here. Let's pop up here to see what I have in the comments. Last time we also had a huge candy corn, I believe, I believe, a candy corn discussion. So I hope everybody had a good Halloween or whatever, didn't eat too much candy. Let's see, butter pumpkin, proud of myself for going to the doctor today, my yearly physical. Find out I need pain management for the nerve block, okay? Well, hang in there, Mike, that's tough. I'm just reading some comments like medical things do actually happen. So that sounds like a real drag. I'm sorry that that's a thing. What do you do about it when it comes to the symptoms is the answer to just leave it alone no matter what the symptom is? Put it up here. Let's put it up, PJ ask a good question. Let's answer this question. What do you do about it when it comes to the symptom is the answer always to just leave it alone no matter what the symptom is? Pretty much, pretty much. So you've been medically evaluated. And by the way, if it's a new symptom, see, this is tricky. There's never a problem with getting a new symptom checked out, right? That's totally fine, no one would blame you for that. But over time, you start to recognize it like, oh, wait a minute here, this isn't a new symptom. It's a variant of the old symptom. And you start to get more comfortable with the process. But once you've had that medical evaluation, you understand all the psycho education. Yeah, yeah, this is that is it. Leave it alone, let it happen. And you guys have seen me, if you follow along on social media with me, you know, one of the most popular slash unpopular, both it's more than one thing can be true at a time. This is popular and unpopular at the same time is when I say no symptom is special. They're all the same. We're not gonna talk about specific symptoms. But why can't we talk about, but any tips for nausea, any tips for DPDR, any tips for this, how do you handle dizziness? But how do you handle heart fear? They're all the same. They are all the same. So we apply those same principles no matter what that symptom is. So yeah, that's hard to hear, right? Because you know what the scare, by the way, scariest anxiety symptom there is, is the one you're scared of the most today. So it's super hard to apply that advice to that, the one that you're most afraid today. So, but yeah, that's how we do that. Generally speaking, these are big, broad brush answers, by the way. Just keep that in mind. These are big 50,000 foot, yeah, 20,000 foot views. Let's see here. This is good. Let me put this up. It's really important. Sorry, I can't see your name, but I resort to reassurance seeking, which I know isn't ideal. So when you can't seem to like, I can't seem to believe that it's really just anxiety and that I'm safe, this is the common action. So instead of like, I'm going to allow this, I'm gonna drop my resistance, I'm gonna be really scared when I do that. I'm gonna do something really hard to test this theory and let this happen. That would be the action you're hoping to be able to take at some point, but instead many people will either just back away completely and go back to the safe bubble, the safe place, the coping, whatever it is to tamp it down and get away from it. Other people will resort to this reassurance seeking. Now remember I talked about in the beginning medical evaluation and psychoeducation, that's assurance, like everybody needs that. Assurance, like healthy, helpful assurance is literally baked into this process. If you ever read a book that I wrote or Claire Weeks wrote or anybody, anything else like that, you are getting assurance and assurance is part of it. It's part of psychoeducation. Yes, that's an anxiety symptom, says your doctor, says Drew, says your therapist, says this person. That's an anxiety symptom. We've seen 10 to 50,000 people in the social media community have that symptom right now. That's anxiety. Okay, cool. That's assurance. Reassurance is, I know you've told me 60,000 times, but I'm gonna loop back again and ask again and again and again and again. So that's a common trap that I can't seem to believe it emotionally. Sometimes it's better, well, I can't seem to believe it right now, but asking somebody to tell me again isn't gonna make me believe it anymore. That brings up a good point, so I appreciate that. Appreciate the comment, by the way. No amount of asking again and again. Pause this and rewind it if you have to. No amount of asking again and again and again and Googling for that symptom and searching and going into your support group and asking again, does anybody else, oh, that fear is so terrible. Oh, my heart fear. Oh, let's talk about heart fear. No amount of that will ever, ever get you over the hump of believing emotionally that it's just anxiety, none, zero. There's an infinite amount of that and it will never be enough. Like, so that's why you hear people like us, people like me, people who sound like me, my colleagues, my peers, whatever. We will refuse to provide that reassurance and sometimes that makes people angry or it feels like, oh, he's so cold, he's not gonna answer my question, he's not gonna reassure me again. I lose audience, but we try and do things helpful ways, not soothing ways. It's okay to get off the reassurance wagon and there's, I know you think if I could just hear it one more time, anybody who's in the room who has listened to six podcast episodes that I did on the anxious truth about sleep and the one that Josh and I did on disordered and has maybe followed, say, Daniel Erickson on social media and sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, sleep, have heard all those or heard the health anxiety episodes of the podcast and still wanna say, can you talk more about that? That's a clue. What else would you have me say about some of those things? It will keep you on the hamster wheel. No amount of that will ever be enough. So it's important to say. Let's see here. My mind, let's see. Bunch of time, been anxious this week. Welcome from Twitch, by the way. I think I saw two Twitch people. That's a big deal. No, no, no. I feel like I won't be able to calm down once. I was so anxious that lasted for days. And again, that's what makes it feel. I'll put this up on the screen real quick. Oh, that's a Twitch person. Hello, Jacqueline from Twitch. Welcome. You gotta go up on the screen if you're from Twitch because, you know, like my massive Twitch audience of three people. But yeah, I feel I was so anxious that lasted for days. It can undulate for days. There's no such thing as a three-day panic attack. There's just not. But part of it is I can't believe that this is just anxiety. It feels like danger. And so I will keep triggering it again and again and again by fighting it, resisting it, trying to fix it, make it go away and be saved. It's very paradoxical because when you're frightened and feel threatened, it seems like the common-sense approach would be get saved, get soothed, get reassured. But that's, it brings you a temporary feeling of okay. But then that reassurance can literally wear off in a minute or an hour or a day or a week and you're right back at it again. Let's see here. Hard to believe it's just anxiety. I could go through. I did an anxiety. I did an episode. Josh and I did an episode of Disordered About Symptoms and we played a silly like game show where we had like a rapid fire. Symptoms, symptoms, symptoms. So we had silly music in the background. Most listened to episode of Disordered. Most episode, most listened to. We've only done 35 of them. It's the most listened to episode. Why? People want to hear that again and again and again. And I did an episode of The Anxious Truth not too long ago where one of the things that I did tongue-in-cheek was to look at to the camera for like a good six minutes straight and just say anxiety symptoms. That's the most replayed part of that video, by the way. So yes, anxiety can do that. It can do that. Let's see here. I'll put this up real quick here because Viola's talking about his son. And by the way, thank you for advocating for your son Viola. I appreciate that. I assume you're here to try and help him, which is great. I appreciate that. He knows it's anxiety, but still afraid of it. His main complaint is breathing. This is very common also. People will say, and whatever your particular scariest thing is for Viola's son, it's breathing. For other people, I see comments rolling by about heart anxiety. He thinks that's, but it's breathing. If you don't breathe, you die. Of course, that's important. I can't take a risk with breathing. Other people with heart anxiety will say, but it's my heart. If there's something wrong with my heart, I die. I can't take that risk. Other people, interesting would say, but nausea feels the same way as risky to them as a heart issue feels to somebody else. Dizziness feels as scary to them as breathing does to Viola's son. So you had to remember that the argument that, but this is so important. Somebody who's dealing with, say, harm OCD would say, what a thought about harming my kids or my family. How could anything more be more important than that? So you had to remember that your state of anxiety will always tell you that the thing you are afraid of is in fact the most important thing worse than anyone else's and is worthy of evasive action and you can't possibly be. Can't possibly be, right? So I get that, just keep that in mind. Let's see here. I've looked a lot into mind-body connection with critical understanding and not resisting. Okay, good, thank you, Trevor. I appreciate this. Let's put this up on the screen. Looked a lot into mind-body connection and sometimes it's been critical in my understanding and not resisting physical sensations. Like remember that scared humans have scared feelings. Like scared bodies and minds do scared bodies and mind things. It's the way it works. So understanding that like all the things you're feeling and that storm of thoughts and the doubt that you feel and that impending sense of dread or doom, that's bodies and minds, scared bodies and minds doing scared bodies and minds thing. Like it's predictable, it's measurable, it's the same across a huge giant segment of the population. There are cultural difference in the way these things present from one culture to the next, but there are also physiological and even thought themes if you will that persist across cultures because we're all human, okay? Let's see here. Let's see, I'm doing a mind-body connection practice on com right now about happiness as science is fantastic. Yeah, I mean, you know, there's a lot of good work being done in that, but that can help us. So when you have a lot of really smart people talking about the connection between body and mind, that can help us. Well, if my mind is scared, if I'm scared, why wouldn't my body be reacting that way? Why wouldn't it be? The something would be wrong if you didn't react that way. If you were terrified and did not have that storm of thoughts, that doubt, that dread feeling, all those physical sensations, something would be wrong with you. It's actually correct to feel that. You're just scared at the wrong time, right? And there's no actual threat there. But what you feel like can't possibly be anxiety, but what else could it be? It's completely normal to feel that way. It's expected. Okay, let's put this up on the screen. This is Governor from Bethany. Appreciate this, B. Bethany is talking about how like what have a thought and then it would cause a sensation in my body. Thoughts cause sensations. They will trigger reactions. Memories, this is a huge comment that I have to look over the top. But until I stopped worrying. And like, okay, the next step and that would be, well, how did Bethany stop worrying? Well, she had to leave it be. I'm gonna have to leave this concern. I'll just let it be there. I can't solve it. I'm gonna have to engage elsewhere. And wouldn't you know? Like it starts to fade into the background. Who knew? Who knew? Let's see. 34 years didn't need it, but boy, I did. Let's see, I didn't believe. Wow, I am so far behind in comments here. Yeah, Levi is talking about like those really super expensive like ER visits. Those are, and listen, there's truth there. These are, especially if you are in the United States where healthcare is not free. You can debate that all forever. You know, probably should, but not here. But if you're in a place where you pay for your healthcare like we do here, these are expensive lessons to learn. So Levi, I hear you in a big way. Thank you for sharing that. Let's see, any panic attacks are linked directly to a lessened ability of absence of ability to believe it is only anxiety. Oh, okay, this is good, Daniel. This is very meta with Daniel saying here, but I'll leave it up on the screen for a second because you're gonna have to read it a couple of times, but what Daniel's saying here is actually good. Any panic attacks are linked directly to a lessened ability to believe it is only anxiety and panic. This is a really great, super useful, helpful comment. Daniel, I appreciate this one. This one might win the internet today. This is very meta, but it matters. Why on some days, I'll use Daniel, hang in there, Daniel. Thanks for letting me use your comment here as a lesson point, but why on some days can Daniel believe less that it's just anxiety? Because he's a human being, because he's stressed, because he's tired, because he's overworked, because he had a fight with his partner, because he's having money problems, because his kids are making him crazy, because his neighbor keeps parking in front of his driveway and blocking him in. Like human beings will vary our ability to be resilient and flexible or strong or courageous is gonna wax and wane from day to day and hour to hour, and that is normal. When does somebody who is doing much better in recovery who will say, I haven't really been anxious for a long time, or I haven't had a panic attack in three months, and then I have one yesterday? Okay, a lot of times it's because you felt the thing and you were just not resilient enough that day to do it the new way, so you fell back into the old way. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, and poured gas on the fire. That's gonna happen. It happens to everybody. It's part of being human. Thank you for bringing it up, Daniel. It's really important. That's where like self-compassion comes in. Like some days I'm just not gonna be as courageous or as flexible or as resilient as I am on other days. That's gonna happen. Let's keep going. So far, I'm never gonna get to all of your comments. You guys are killing it here. Thank you, Maniacs99. I'm putting it up on the screen. Very self-serving, but I'm putting it up anyway. 7% slower, so underrated. 7% slower is a book that I wrote about how to use slowing down as a way to enhance your surrender, tolerance, floating process. 7% slower, I actually love that book. I had a great time writing that book. It's friendlier, it's shorter, it's funnier than the anxious truth. So thank you. Appreciate that. It took me three doctors, the ER cardiologists and family member experiences. Let's put this up. Terri, I'm a big fan. You know I'm a fan of you now. Always good comments. I followed you, then unfollowed you, then followed you. I cannot tell you the number of people who will tell me this. I get it. It's hard, that's what I said before. It's hard to hear these things. It's hard to hear people like me, like Burt, like when you say, but my heart anxiety and I basically shrug my shoulders and push back against your fear, not against you, against your fear with this information, this approach. You are safe. Okay, like you have to learn to tolerate that. It's really hard to hear. And it's normal to say, yeah, I'm all in on this method or this approach and then I'm not tomorrow and then I am next week and then I'm not very normal. If you're vacillating, if you're back and forth, if you're in and out, that's okay, it's gonna happen. Let's see. The education is great, but it takes time when triggered and sometimes it goes out the window. That's what I said before. Like everybody uses the phrase goes out the window. It goes out the window. Well, I was so afraid that what I know intellectually goes out the window and I didn't feel like I should let it ride and take the chance. So I went back and did the old ways, which is the, oh my God, oh my God, porn guest on the fire, running, saving, rituals, compulsions. I get it. That's what happens when you say it goes out the window. It seemed like a better move. Think of this too. Like in that I can't seem to, I can't seem to let it ride. I can't seem to take the action that leads to more lasting or concrete belief. Think about in that moment and bring this with you tomorrow as you wake up. Think about that. Hey, today when I'm triggered and I'm in that moment of choice where I can either roll the dice on it being just anxiety and just let that happen and let it peek and come down on its own. Or I can go back to the old way and run and save myself and do my old way. What feels better in the moment, but how does it feel after? Now, especially if I've been at this for a while, if you're new to it, this question doesn't help you and that exercise doesn't really help you. But if you've been at that for a while, how do you feel two hours after you hit the panic button and eject it away? Like, you know, I got to get out of this. So like, I'm going to run. I'm going to call my safe person. How do you feel two hours after you did that? Probably like you failed. Damn it, I did it again. I got fooled again. Take that with you into the experience next time. How did you feel two hours later or the day after? And you had to say, ah, I knew it all. And then I bailed. That can be helpful sometimes to help motivate that leap of faith or that additional courageous act if you will. Clearly it's the topic that matters that the view numbers are not there's 106 people in the room right now which is a relatively high number to stay consistent. Welcome everybody. Hope this is helping. I always love this. My wife is a nurse. She told me that she'll tell me, she'll tell me if I need to go to the hospital. Sometimes that's where the, you know, that's where we get psycho education or we can be role. We could use other people in our lives as role models. In this situation, Grease Belly-Garageation's wife is literally providing him with, she's actually being a role model there. She's literally providing a bit of psycho education for him accidentally, which is really great. Let's see here. Well, let's put this up real quick but he's talking about how she was kept for a couple of nights. The side effects of panics had some crazy symptoms. Sure. And that's okay. Like I remember that a doctor is there, a doctor is not there. I know this is also debatable. Medical gaslighting is in fact a thing. And I know that there are people who have been harmed by doctors. That's assuming it was accidental. So yes, let's validate that. But generally speaking, you would say that the medical profession is probably there not to dismiss you but to try to fix you. I mean, we argue over the medical model of anxiety, right? But their job is to try to fix things. And sometimes a doctor will try to err on the side of extra caution like this. You know what? We're gonna keep you and watch you just for a day or two just to be 100% sure. And there's nothing wrong with that. That's a good thing, right? In that situation. Doc was just being thorough cause COVID. Yeah, thanks Becky. I appreciate you following up with that for sure. That can happen, right? Let's see. My mom was a nurse and says the same thing about I'll tell you when you have to go to the hospital. Very good. As I got through it, had major panic. I got through it. I was like, holy crap. All right, this is cool. Let's put Kailin up on the screen this. I love this. I had to go through it, major panic got through it. And I was like, holy crap, I get it. That first leap, that first time that you decide to roll the dice can be a game changer. It doesn't fix everything permanently. So Kailin, huge fist bump to you for doing this. That was super hard. And I'm super happy that you're taking something good out of that experience. That's really great. Just remember that doing it once, I wish that was enough. You have to keep doing it again and again and again. And some days you'll find it hard to repeat that. But that's okay. Huge win, huge win. But that first time is always the most difficult time I think. So let's keep going. I'm gonna scroll. Yeah, let's see how far down I am. This is crazy. A lot of comments here. And I am 46 minutes into it. I'm gonna end it in a couple of minutes, unfortunately, guys. I can't get to all the comments. Currently sitting at a park, but I have faith in the process. Yep, you have to take a risk and come to a place where you'd rather take a risk. Yes, this is that thing where I was saying that you get to the point where you're more willing to take the risk when the pain of not taking the risk outweighs the pain of taking it. It's a lot of people suffer in the right direction, choose your hard. Like there's a bunch of different ways that people say that stuff. It's gonna suck if you do it. It's gonna suck if you don't. Which one sucks more or less for you today? And how does that change over time? Yeah, this is good. Let me put Shannon up on the screen real quick here. I get it sometimes, then I'll overthink and think again, what if this time, what if this time is 100% what your anxiety is gonna say to you? 100% it is there to say, yeah, but this time. Okay, last time was luck. Last time you were right, it was just anxiety, but this time, this time might be different. You have to expect that. That's gonna happen. Truly leap of faith, I'm gonna keep going. Explain the actions to take, Robin. I don't recognize your name, so I'm assuming you're kind of new. I have 400 pages that I wrote in the anxious truth that talks about all the actions. All of these videos, I know I'm telling you that go and read a lot or listen to a lot of stuff, but it goes beyond this. Essentially, I tried to give you a rough idea. You're going toward what you fear, you're accepting it, you're allowing it, you're dropping your resistance, you're surrendering to it, you're working with it, not against it. That's the action that you take. It's just a lot to say. I can't really say in just one video. Yeah, it is normal, Julie, 100%. Like it's super normal to not be able to force yourself or read or discuss or video or podcast yourself and to believe you can't, only action does that. Everybody's in the place that you were in right now. Everybody was there, I was there. Everybody in the room was there and still might be there. So no, you're not alone in that. I'm going to scroll past some. It's just kind of rough. Let's see here. Yeah, I got only a couple more minutes. Taking a leap of faith. Thank you, Bessie. Episode 58 of the anxious truth podcast. You can get there by the anxioustruth.com slash 58. So all the podcast episodes have numbers and you can always get to them by going to the anxioustruth.com slash and then the number. I'm glad that you found that helpful. Trevor, I'm gonna put this up real quick too. Talking about recovery is just a way of avoiding anticipatory anxiety, but it just keeps looping. Sometimes talking about recovery can be a way, listen, nobody wants to feel passive. So I appreciate this comment too, because it sparks another little thing that I can give you guys to maybe view yourself a little more kindly. Everybody wants to get better, right? And nobody wants to, holy shit, Holly. Hey, Halls, good to see you. Holly Lowe, who is in the comment section did a bunch of podcast episodes with me. So you guys might recognize Holly. She was the one that did the Claire Weeks Hope and Help for Your Nerves. We were doing like book review of that. So good to see you, Halls. I haven't seen you one of these in a really long time. The point I was going to make was none of us wants to just sit passively, right? One of my very earliest podcast episodes was about hope. And I've written about that in the morning newsletter that I did last year. Hope is not a plan. Hope is okay to have, but hope isn't a plan by itself. So sitting passively, that was the whole like anxiety recovery is an active process. Sitting passively and just hoping that you get better isn't a good plan. Nobody wants to just sit and hope to get better. Sometimes you try that, it doesn't work. And sometimes because the actual action is really scary and you haven't hit the point where you're ready for that action, you will substitute talking about recovery, reading another book, buying another book, taking a workshop, listening to another podcast. That becomes a substitute. Like, well, then I'll read more and I'll listen more and I'll watch more. That's really common. So it's pretty normal. Uh-oh, something else coming in. That was a notification that says, you got a thing going on in 10 minutes, which I do. You give in and say, oh, fine. All right, I think I'm about done. I would love to be able to answer all of these, but I just can't guys, I'm really sorry. I gotta wrap it up because I do have a call starting that I have to be ready for. So thank you for hanging in there. 105 people in the room, not a lot of people left. Clearly this is a topic that resonated with a lot of you guys. Thanks for hanging in there with me, I appreciate it. And if you want to see these again, which a lot of time people do, let me put this up on the screen, they always stay in a playlist on my YouTube channel. Some of you are on Facebook, watching on Facebook, couple on Twitch, you can find, I think they disappear on Twitch, I don't know. But if you want to come back and re-watch this or any of the live streams, there's a Recovery Monday playlist on my YouTube channel. If you subscribe on YouTube, you can go through all of the old live streams anytime you want. And yeah, I do these every other week. So I'll be back in two weeks with another topic. Next week, there'll be an episode of the Anxious Truth podcast. And of course, every week, there's an episode of Disordered with Josh. And again, just a quick reminder, all of the links to all of the things, all of the goodies are there on my website at TheAnxiousTruth.com. Thanks for hanging out. I appreciate it. Thanks for asking questions. Thank you for being supportive of each other. I dig you guys in a big way. I will see you again in two weeks. We'll see you on Disordered on Friday. We'll see you on The Anxious Truth next Wednesday. And I'll see you in two Mondays here again. We're out.