 Welcome to The Anxious Morning. Every weekday morning, we'll take a few minutes to go over some important lessons that you can use in your anxiety recovery journey. Away from the endless noisy scroll of social media, The Anxious Morning brings you support, education, inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment. For more, visit us at TheAnxiousMorning.com Are you trying to recover while also keeping everyone around you happy? The need to belong and be accepted in family and social groups is a core human need. Being part of something bigger than ourselves has historically signal safety and increased chances of survival. It's natural to want to be accepted. Sometimes, this can get a bit twisted by the dynamics of the group we are hoping to belong to. Dysfunctional family systems that use negative reinforcement to encourage conformity are good examples of this. Groups like this can teach us that our actions must always take into account the reactions of those around us. We tiptoe around on eggshells hoping to never make waves lest we be punished, or even worse, expelled from the group. In this context, we can sometimes wind up trying to engineer a recovery by committee, where the goal is not only to improve your relationship with anxiety, but to keep the group happy and off your back at the same time. This can present a real problem, especially when the role you've been given by the group includes staying quiet, not making waves, and not screwing up. If you've been taught that what you do is a primary factor in everyone else being happy, this can really gum up the works when it comes to your recovery. Let's look at three examples. Anxious, frightened people are often unsure of what to do next. If the group is making choices for you based on the role you must fill, the group may not be pointing you in the direction of recovery at all. The committee may be steering you deeper into the disorder, or at least encouraging you to remain stuck. Recovery involves intentionally being afraid or anxious on a regular basis. This is difficult work that involves being anything but calm. Inviting panic when the committee demands that you never make a scene becomes a no-win situation. Get better or be punished for being too much. This is not a helpful choice to have to make. An effective recovery means that you must make yourself and your recovery work a bit of a priority. Scheduling exposure sessions and having space to sometimes work through intentional discomfort can disrupt group routines and schedules. If your committee can't tolerate that and threatens punishment for being too disruptive or labels your actions as selfish, you're going to find yourself struggling to serve two masters, recovery and the group dynamic. This is another no-win situation that will make recovery more difficult than it otherwise might be. If you find yourself sometimes stalled or even paralyzed in your recovery because the act of getting better means risking the wrath of your tribe, then you may be in a recovery by committee situation that can at least partially explain your struggle. To be fair, a committee is not always a bad thing. A strong support system that works with you in recovery is really helpful, but a group dynamic that works against you and threatens punishment for the act of getting better is going to be a problem. We can't solve that problem in one short email, but for now, please know that it is not your fault if you find yourself in that situation. We'll return to this topic from time to time because I know it's important to many of you. Tomorrow, we'll have a little fun by looking at how one of my favorite movies teaches us about the irrational nature of anxious fear. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast and you'd like to get a copy of it delivered every morning into your email inbox, including a full text transcription, head on over to theanxiousmorning.email and sign up for the newsletter. And if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify or someplace where you can leave us a rating or a review, take a moment and rate the podcast and maybe write a small review. It really helps us out. Or just tell a friend about us. Thanks a lot.