 about the idea of believing in yourself and how sometimes that's really difficult to do and some things that you could take into account when you're having a hard time believing in your ability to face fear or face panic or anxiety or even get better. So we're gonna go into all of that stuff before we get started. I'm just gonna ask a favor here if you're watching on YouTube and you're not subscribed to the channel. Maybe hit the subscribe button and definitely like the video. I never asked that and everybody's like, you should really ask people to subscribe. So here I am asking people to subscribe. If you're in fact, you're watching on YouTube which I think is the best place to watch these videos because they're easy to find afterwards. If you're coming from any other platform, hello, Twitch. There's always at least one or two Twitch people in the house and if you're coming from Facebook, that's fine if you're in the Facebook group. That's also fine, welcome. Just remember that I can't see your name if you're in the Facebook group. The chat will only say Facebook user. That's just a limitation of restream. There's nothing I can do about that. So yeah, so that's the deal. Subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. And of course I have to remind you that there's more than just these videos. There's the podcast that comes out every other week and there's podcasts that do with Josh Fletcher called Disordered and of course all the goodies, books and workshops and stuff that are on my website at theanxiestruth.com. So go check that out. Anyway, hello everybody. Let's see who's in the comments today. Hey, Bessie, what's going on? How you did cold in the UK according to our UK contingent. It's getting to be kind of fall and wintery here too for sure. Drew the influencer. I'm such an influencer. Now see, I asked you to subscribe so I'm following the influencer manual for sure. Do I believe in myself? Maybe. Yeah, we'll talk about all this stuff. We're gonna go through all of that stuff. Let's see what we have here. Might that be strudel or copper as superdog? That I guess is referenced to, I don't know what I have going on here. I just somehow moved, come on, back to the desktop please. I don't know what I just did. All right, there you go. I went to full screen. Stick with me here. We're gonna fix this because I went to full screen on Chrome and I don't wanna be in full screen. So stick with me here. This is the exciting part where you get to watch me like muck around with stuff. I don't know why I'm in full screen, but all right, we'll just stay there. That's totally fine. Full screen is a little bit difficult because hang on, I don't wanna be in full screen. I do not want to be in full screen but all right, it is what it is. I'll have to deal with it. It just means I have to look far away to see your comments. But that's okay. I'll have to look way over here to see your comments which I kind of don't wanna do. So why will it not let me get out of full screen mode? I don't know what I did, but come on guys. Oh well, it is what it is. All right, so let's go through some comments real quick and then we're gonna get into today's sort of lecture if we will. First live recovery Monday. Welcome, glad that you're here. I've watched 78 episodes multiple times. Well, I'm glad you made it for a live one. Let's see here. You also get lagging stuff on Facebook. I watch on YouTube and comment here. Excellent. Hi from Long Island. Hello, fellow Long Islander. How you doing? Okay, so we're all good. Might it be strudel or copper as the flying dog? No, it's not strudel or copper as the flying dog. It would be probably closer to strudel. That's Josh's dog than copper because it was kind of a little dog. I just thought it was a funny reference. So okay, F11, yes, you are correct. That is true, but actually I'm on a Mac so there is no F11. There is actually, there you go. Boom, nope, didn't work. Sorry, we'll figure it out. I can get full screen, but this was full screen and now it's in its own Mac desktop, but that's all right, we will work on it. So let's talk about this whole like believing in yourself thing. Believing in yourself is kind of a big part of recovery, right? There's two concepts here. One is I believe that I can actually get better. And this is by the way the worst live stream than a long time. So apologies if you're watching on the replay, but you have two choices. Two things that we deal with in terms of believing in yourself. One is I believe that I can get better or I don't believe I can get better. And underneath that is kind of the premise that I don't believe that I can possibly face fear. I cannot possibly face panic. I can't possibly face anxiety. I can't possibly face my anxious thoughts or scary thoughts or my health anxiety, whatever it is. So one is kind of a base level thing. And the other one, I don't believe I can get better. It sort of sits on top of that. And sometimes it's really hard to find belief. Like that's just normal. So I kind of have two messages for you today in terms of believing yourself. One of which is, and it has to do with the reel that I posted today on Instagram and on TikTok. If you don't necessarily believe that you can face your fear or your anxiety or you don't believe yet that you can get better. You might understand the concepts that I'm talking about. Maybe you're a big Claire Weeks fan or you listen to other podcasts like mine or whatever it is and you dig the concepts, you get it. But you really don't believe that you can do it or you don't believe that in the particular moment of the height of panic or anxiety, you don't believe that you can possibly tolerate that, handle that, navigate through it, whatever it is. You're not alone in that. It's so important to understand that that's almost a universal experience. Thinking that you can't do it is an almost universal experience because this is opposite action. It goes against survival instinct. It goes against wanting to be comfortable or feel safe. It goes against all of those things. So it feels really hard to do and it can be very difficult to believe that you can actually do those things. In fact, I would say, and I said it in my reel today, like most people who've ever gotten better, who've recovered or have started to make forward strides in recovery or got themselves unstuck, generally say, I didn't think I could do it either. So if you've seen some of my podcast episodes that are success stories or if you listen to Disordered and you hear a student did it anyways that people send in, they often will say, I can't believe I did it. I didn't think I could do it, but I did it. So everybody has a difficult time conjuring up belief. And I think there's an important distinction here. There is, I'm afraid I will never get better, which I will always say is a thing that I didn't really struggle with. And then there's, I'm having a hard time believing that I can handle this, which is something that even I dealt with, right? So I know I always say like, yeah, I didn't really struggle with the thought that I would never get better, but it's really hard to believe that you can tolerate that level of fear or anxiety or discomfort or uncertainty, whatever it is. So the fact that you feel that you can't do it or you don't believe that you can tolerate that or you don't believe that you can get better doesn't mean that that's true and it doesn't mean that somehow or other, you're worse or you're unique or you're special or you really can't ever get better. Pretty much every recovered person went through that. So it's super important to connect to that as almost as a really common experience because sometimes the idea of changing your beliefs, we know that we can't just decide to believe different things when we snap our fingers. It doesn't work that way. And action has to happen to solidify new beliefs and help to cement new beliefs. But sometimes opening ourselves up to changing new beliefs starts with the idea that, well, my current set of beliefs might not necessarily be unique to me or isn't necessarily indicative of reality or reflective of reality. Everybody that's ever got better. Everybody that's ever shared a win. Pretty much started, whether it's that one like exposure win or complete recovery started with like, I don't think I could do this. I don't know if I can do this. I don't believe I can handle that. It just seems like it's too much. So I think that's really important to understand the commonality of that experience can be really helpful. You can lean on that. Because what it tells you is, I believe that I can't handle this but I'm surrounded by people who also believed for sure that they couldn't handle it and then they discovered that they could. So there's hope in there. There's encouragement in there. There's inspiration in there. There's a lesson there. Like, why is your belief that you can handle it more valid than maybe my belief that I couldn't handle it that turned out to be wrong? So it can help us question or challenge those old beliefs or those old narratives, right? And I think the second thing is that I wanna sort of impart in terms of the, I can't, do I believe in myself is, again, you can't just decide to believe in yourself. There are times when your motivation will get a little bit up. You'll get a little bit more pumped up. You're feeling maybe a little stronger in your recovery and you will feel that sense of belief. I know I can do this. I'm determined I can handle it. And that's great. Those are good days, right? But we can't rely on that because we cannot create that state. When it happens, that's great for whatever reason. We can start to try and capitalize on that. But recognize that that is a state that sort of waxes and wanes. And if you guys wanna kind of talk about that a little bit, you know, in the comments, I'll take a look at the comments for sure. But in those situations, if you find that it sort of waxes and wanes, you know, by show of hands, raise a hand or whatever, like how many times have you woke up one morning feeling all pumped and like, I can do this and you're ready to conquer the whole thing. And then maybe three days later, for whatever reason, that feeling is gone. So you can't just decide like, okay, today I believe in myself and everything changes. But what you can do is to say, well, I can look at the other people who believed, didn't believe and then managed to get it done. And I can sort of lean on that a little bit for some hope or some encouragement or some inspiration or to allow me to challenge my own narrative that says I can't possibly do this. I don't believe I can do it. But I also am going to just slowly bit by bit open myself up to this idea that maybe that belief is wrong and maybe I actually can do it. So finding that belief only comes after you take action before you can believe things, but it's really hard to take that action if you absolutely glue yourself to the idea that I can't and you wanna argue why you can't or why you shouldn't. So I think it's really important to connect to that as well. So let me just sort of recap that just a little bit because sometimes this gets a little bit esoteric. And we're looking at the comments and see what you guys are up to. Again, this giant screen means I have to look 60 feet to the left to see your comments, but that's okay. So sometimes what happens in that situation is people think that they should just be able to change their belief or their mindset, air quotes and everything will be better, except we cannot create that belief emotionally. We can't demand to feel that it waxes and wanes. And then when it's up, you use it, but when that belief starts to sag, you go back to like, I can't, I can't and then you get stuck. So we can't just decide to believe a thing and we can only cement the belief when we act even when we don't believe it, right? Even when I don't believe I can do this, I have to act as if I can and at least try. But what I can do little by little every day is to open myself up to the possibility that the story that I tell myself about myself and my ability to handle this might not be right because I have a bunch of other people here in the community that had that experience, they weren't right about not being able to handle it. But bit by bit, I can at least say, well, what would happen if today I just considered a little bit, just a little bit that I should stop arguing about how I can't and maybe try to act like somebody who can just to see what happens. So it's almost a series of little experiments that happen on a cognitive level and on a bit of an emotional level. And then maybe you take a little bit of action toward that even though you don't feel like I can't do this. Well, I'm gonna have to try it even though I believe that I can't. So it's just sometimes a very slow gradual process. Everybody starts from I can't, everybody starts from I can't. And it's kind of a slow gradual process to get to the point where it's like, well, I'm gonna start to, I'm gonna start to at least consider that maybe I can't, isn't correct or doesn't have to be like this forever. What can I do to open myself up to the possibility that maybe I'm wrong and maybe I can do this? And what can I do a little bit differently today to start to act a little bit more like I can and test that theory and test that theory? There's a lot more that goes into this, a lot more that goes into this. You can't just like, okay, just take this one topic by itself and this is gonna change your life and make you recover because you have to recognize that if I am going to start to act like I can, I'm gonna intentionally trigger myself, I will be uncomfortable, I might panic all of those things. So a lot goes into this. But that's a little bit of a gentler, kindler way, kinder way to start to cultivate that belief in yourself when you think that you cannot, you can't seem to find it. Well, let me open myself to the, let me open myself up to the possibility that maybe my lack of belief in myself is incorrect. So I think those are the two big things. Universal experience and you're gonna have to start to at least consider the possibility that maybe you can because, well, those other people could too. Here's the pitfall on that. I promise I'm gonna go into the comments. The problem with that, the flip side of that is if I look at all the people who believe they couldn't and they could, I can begin to negatively judge myself and compare myself to them and then decide this is backfired because they must be better, smarter, stronger, more dedicated than me. That's why. And that's a narrative that you have to be super careful about because that's not kind to yourself at all. And that's just the same that, the same I can't turned on its side, right? So, hang on, I gotta get rid of this person. They're so good at promoting that they have to spam a YouTube live. It's great. They're so good at promoting that they have to spam the live to get me to hire them to promote me. So anyway, that's a thing that you can really think about when you look at it that way. It's like, okay, well, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, a little bit at a time, but be careful about saying the success stories I see, that's because those people were better or smarter or stronger or more dedicated or I'm worse than them. That's, you might as well not even bother looking at them because you're literally just still arguing as to why you can't. I have to argue on behalf of why I can't. Hey, big red dog just walked in, he wants to be on the stream. Okay, so let's look at the comments real quick. I didn't have a lot on that today, but let's see what we have. And sorry, I'm here in the freaking looking all over the world here. But let's see, hope this week is, what does it say here? Somebody said something about, hang on, I'm just going to look here. Ah, there you go. Sorry dude, you're stuck for a little while. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Must have been tough crawling in those leaves. No, that was the camera like literally held upside down at a tripod, but I appreciate the funny comment. Long time listener, first time caller, welcome Alan, glad that you're here. It's 81 degrees in Georgia today. Really? Seriously? That's tough. Hope this week is starting well and thank you for your support. You're welcome, Kisi. Welcome, Albania. And let's see. Hello for the Netherlands. Excellent. Hello, Netherlands. I did it scared for a while. Let's put this up. This is a good one to put on. I did it scared for a while, so much easier now. So when I'm talking about the fact that you have to start to act, even when you don't have the belief that you can act this with what Sammy's saying here, I did it scared for a while, you have to expect that that's part of it. That's what I was saying. There's much more than just, okay, I'll pretend I believe and go do it. You have to recognize what's gonna happen when you do that. And this is gonna happen. You're gonna be scared. It's gonna be uncomfortable. You're gonna be challenged. So that's really, really important, right? They will say you disappointed, but I've never met a hero, so not sure. Never meet your heroes. That is a saying, we'll put that up on the screen. That's the thing that I was saying though a little bit also that you have to be really careful. If you do look at other success stories, sometimes that can backfire on you. So Rebecca is sort of making a joke about never meet your heroes. But again, what I said is still valid. You have to be really careful about not going into comparison mode or getting emotionally attached to that story. It's just taken as facts. There's a person who doesn't appear to be any different than me, who didn't believe, but then found out that they were wrong and they could actually do it. And if it's only one person, you would say, well, that's an anomaly. That we're clearly very different people. If it's two people, if it's 10 people, if it's 1,000 people, well, it's hard to argue against that evidence then, right? It's important. Let's put this up here. Doubt and self-esteem is horrible. It constantly tricked me into believing I can't handle being anxious. That's what I think Islaine is saying. Yeah, doubt is a big deal and self-esteem is a big deal. This plays into that, right? This plays into that. I see myself as a weak person. I've always been told I'm a weak person. I've always been told I'm incapable. I've always been told that I can't handle things. And so when I feel big emotions or I feel afraid, I see it as a sign of failure and confirmation of my weakness. That's where that non-belief in yourself might come from. That's absolutely possible, but you still are in a situation where there may be additional things to address in terms of where those beliefs came from. It's important to acknowledge that, of course. On the anxious truth, Josh and I did a podcast episode a couple of years ago about the inner critic and introjected beliefs. That would be a good one to go check out if you go to my website and just search for inner critic. You'll find that episode. Some of these things could come into play, but then once we have an awareness of, yeah, well, I guess I'm gonna have to work on some of those experiences that brought myself esteem levels or my sense of self-efficacy weighed down. Now what do I do? Now what do I do with that knowledge? Well, this is where today's lesson starts to come into it and you can incorporate those sort of things. So I get that lane. It's not just you that has that problem for sure. I have that foundational undying belief in myself that I can do anything. Yeah, so, okay, this is good. So let's put this up from Ryan here. You got to look over the top of that comment. I feel like maybe I'm lucky. I still have that foundational underlying belief in myself that I can do anything. Okay, that makes it a little bit better, but it's a tolerating of doubts and uncertainty that I'm getting confidence in. Okay, I dig it, because that is a big part of it. I doubt that I can tolerate. That's the big picture. I don't believe I can get better. So Ryan's saying, no, I believe I can get better, but the individual minute by minute, I don't believe that I can handle or tolerate these feelings. That's the struggle for Ryan, which is really common, like I said. It's accepting those down moments and not get discouraged. Also, those moments when you're like, allow those moments. This is good from Robessi who says allow those moments where you're like, I can't do this. I think this is super important because like I said, you're almost always going to have those moments where it feels like I can't do this. And maybe on certain days, depending on what's going on in your life, the context on that particular day, might mean that you are challenged and you're under a much heavier load for whatever reason, emotionally, physically, financially, in a relationship, whatever. And those would be days where maybe it really would be harder to do it, but you have to expect that as well. And on those days where it's like, this is more of a struggle today than it was last week, there's a lot going on for me, I'm exhausted, I'm sick, I'm whatever, I'm stressed out over what's going on between, say, me and my partner, or I had to fight at work with my boss, whatever it is, today is harder. But you have to, what Bessi's saying is, you have to allow and expect that those moments are going to come. And instead of hitting the eject button every time you have one of those moments and deciding it's all over because I'm having one of those moments, you have to recognize that sometimes this is going to happen. And even in those moments, this is going to be weird coming from me, you might decide, today is not that day because I'm just under the gun and I need a break and I'm not going to do my exposure today. Or I am going to go and kind of retreat and lick my wounds a little bit because there's so much other things going on in my life today than just a stupid exposure. That's okay, as long as you recognize, I'm allowed to do that. And just because I feel this today doesn't mean that I'm wrong or can't ever get better or I am weak. I can see if I can get back at it tomorrow or next week or whenever that's going to be. It's important. So I love this comment, thank you. Let's see, I was pretty much a gorophobic last year, living pretty normal life now with a few symptoms. Once my successes have become routine, they give me less satisfaction. Oh, this is a good, this is a good comment too. Thank you, Ryan. I've actually felt that once my successes have become routine, they gave me less satisfaction because they don't feel like anything anymore, right? When you start to have a little bit more of a belief in yourself, that is true. It becomes rote. Sometimes it becomes boring. So the lack of belief is really most important, I think, in the beginning stage when it's like, okay, I hear what this guy is saying and I've read the books and the Claire Weeks and all that stuff, but I can't seem to get started. So I don't know how many people want to say, like, you know, if you want to show of hands in the comments, that's me. Like, I hear what you're saying, I get it. I'm reading all the books. I've watched all the videos. I've listened to all the podcasts 10 times, but I can't get started. Or I did get started. I experienced maybe a difficult situation, which I'm calling a setback and I've been in retreat for two months and I can't get unstuck again. Those are the two instances, I think, where the self-belief thing plays the biggest role. Once you get rolling and you kind of get passed and you start to build a belief, crazy as it sounds, that's when you're in the slogging through the mud part of recovery where it's like boring and rote and routine and you don't get those big hits every time that like, yeah, this is awesome. Like I did it, sometimes you don't get that, right? So this is where I think those two situations, I'm just getting started and I can't seem to get out of the starting gate because I keep, I know what you're telling me to do, but then I hit the fear and I boom, I retreat back. Or again, I've had a setback and I've decided to act in accordance with that setback and retreat for the last two months and wonder what's going on, that's pretty normal. That's when you need that belief thing to kick in a little bit. Ooh, this is really good, really good. Thank you for saying this, Carol. Other people have much more belief in me than I do and that scares me too much expectation and responsibility. There's two things in this that I wanna point out. Number one, we are our own worst critics and our own worst cheerleaders. So we are our harshest critics and our worst cheerleaders. Often this is 100% true because the people around us will be able to see things about us that we often can't see. That's another universal experience. We suck at evaluating ourselves fairly and objectively. We're much better, this is that thing where like we say, well, how would you talk to like your child about this or how would you talk to a friend or someone you love about this? You would never talk to them about it the same way you talk to yourself about anxiety recovery. So that is a big deal. So the first part of that is important to recognize, but the second part too much expectation and responsibility is the part where I say I can't. My partner who believes fully in me and sees me from the outside, things I can't see, things that I can and I don't like that they say that I can because I am still in a mode where I wanna keep telling you why I can't. So in that situation, if you are still emotionally glued to the narrative that says I can't, you might say to stop telling me that I can. And I've said this many times before also, everybody people will say, well, how did you get to the point where you took the leap of faith where you started to allow and accept and tolerate everybody gets there in their own way at their own time for their own reasons. So if you find that you have your heels dug way in to the I can't and it actually bothers you like Carol is saying if people dare to say to the contrary because you don't like to hear that because you think it means, well now I have to challenge my narrative, correct, that will bother you. You might just not be at the place where you're willing to accept that point of view yet. I don't know how you get there because it's individual, there's consequence, there's negative consequence. There's the pain of not doing it at waste the pain of doing it. There's a zillion different variables there but you can't force it. And so if you're in a situation where people around you are saying, I think you can do this and you're getting angry at that or you don't like that. Don't you dare challenge my narrative because it's still my narrative and it's important to me to hang on to it. That's a clue that says, well, you might need a little more time to get there. That's okay Carol, it's really, really common. Let's see here. I'm growing weary of the defending of reasons why people can't do this. And I could have put comments on the screen but I'm gonna tell you right now that if you continually go back again and again and again to explain to anybody who will listen the special reasons why you can't, then that's what you're gonna get. At some point, even when you're dealing with negative past experiences, even then there is an element that says at some point I must unhook myself from that and decide that I am going to learn to deal with it in a new way. And if you don't wanna go there, you don't have to go there. But do not put yourself in a place where you are insisting that I have to keep telling that story but I also wanna get better. I hate that because I see people get themselves stuck and then discouraged and upset and frustrated and feeling isolated and there's no reason to be there. Decide at some point that that narrative has to change or it doesn't have to change. I know that's really aggressive to say that but I'm just sometimes it's just seeing the same things again and again and again and again. Who is that serving? At some point it stops serving you to keep telling people why you can't. That's okay. And if they wanna listen and accommodate that's totally fine. If they don't, you go your own way and you do your own thing. But this is a live stream about learning how to believe in yourself and challenge those old narratives and open yourself up to the possibilities that they might not be 100% correct. So if your response to that, a suggestion is no, no, no, you don't understand. Okay, I get you, I respect you, I care but it puts you in a really hard position. That it's really hard to reconcile I think. There you go. That was my mini rant for the day. Let's see here. Let's keep going. I think I look crazy if I have panic attack in public. Let's see. I wish we could have mini skits that act out total scenario sounds silly. Well, this is, let's put this up here because what you're looking for is, I think I look crazy if I have a panic attack in public. I wish we could have mini skits that act out different scenarios. It sounds silly, but I learned by watching. It's true, you can learn by watching but just be careful because that's one of the ways we learn. We learn by reading, we learn by listening, we learn by modeling the things we see. Just be careful that you're not looking for I want panic attack skits so I can be proven untrue that, oh, look, I can watch these skits so that I can prove my scary, my fear untrue that I don't look silly. This is where it gets tough in a panic attack. Yeah, you might, people might be able to tell you having a panic attack. They might notice that you're acting a little bit different. So that's important, right? It's really important. So just be careful about why you want that. It's okay to want this stuff and I think this is a good idea. Just watch your reasoning for wanting it. Like I want to look because I want to see videos so that I can be sure that I don't look silly and you can't ever get that because what will start to happen is you'll say, well, the video says one thing, but I'm different and it didn't totally satisfy me for more than a day or two and I want to see more videos to make sure that I don't look silly. So just be careful about that. Let's see here. I believe I can't, I believe I could do it but anxiety came, blah, blah, blah, blah. My therapist points out that brain damage doesn't tend to come and go. Oh, okay, this is solid too. Brain damage doesn't tend to come and go, right? And again, if you have situations where it's like, I some days I feel like I can do it and some days I can't. Well, again, what does that tell you? Like brain damage also, like if you truly can't do it wouldn't that just be almost the constant state? So I dig this comment. Thank you for telling me, I appreciate it. Let's see here. I will just like copper out. He's really like, he doesn't, I promise he doesn't have to go out. He just hears me doing this sometimes and he likes to get super vocal and get involved with like, are you on the phone? Are you talking to somebody? He loves it, he likes to be involved. Let's see here. Let's see. Dedicated influencers crawl on the leaves. I tried, it just didn't work out. Always been made to feel like I'm not good enough. Struggling with differentiate between anxiety attacks and general health anxiety. I would say what's the difference? What's the difference? Right, so does it matter what the difference is? People will confuse these things sometimes because they'll say, well, when I panic, for instance, or I have an anxiety attack, I experienced that as fear about my health. I'm having a heart attack or I'm gonna pass out or I'm gonna have a stroke or an aneurysm. And then they'll say, well, that must be health anxiety. It's really not necessarily, that isn't necessarily health anxiety. It's just a common fear during a panic attack. Health anxiety is more of a persistent worry about your health, but you can have both at the same time and it doesn't matter, the principles are the same. So don't, what's the difference in a way? Like don't get too caught up in like, I need to figure out which one is which, because it doesn't matter, it almost doesn't matter. The rules are gonna be the same. With health anxiety, it's about not doing, I'm not gonna do the thing that feeds into that fear and that doubt and that uncertainty. Whereas with panic and anxiety, it's like, no, I'm going to go do the things, but it's the same thing. I'm gonna try and stop saving myself. That might help. Let's see here. I would say no to this. Just keep telling your brain that it's not going to harm you. If that works, there would be far fewer people in the room, right? So there's 66 people in the room. I am not a fan of just keep telling yourself. Frame it, like so when you wake up in the morning, it's like, you know what? Today is gonna be challenging because I'm working on recovery and I'm probably gonna feel really afraid and like I'm in danger, but I expect that and I know it's not real. It's a false fear. Okay, cool. It's a real fear but the basis is false. So frame it, but just be careful about, I'm okay, it's just anxiety. I'm okay, it's just anxiety. That's a tough one because that can become one of those like I'm trying to soothe myself in the moment and I can't seem to fully believe it and it makes me just sort of limp through to the other side of the anxiety and then I have to do it again next time I'm triggered. So be careful about that. Let's see. I'm gonna keep going, keep going, keep going. Easily intimidating my being smaller at first. How do you stop something from being intimidating? How do you stop something from intimidating you? Well, first of all, there's two things that go into being intimidated. Either there's an actual threat, like somebody's physically intimidating you or threatening you, but we don't float and accept through that, right? That's not a thing. That's not a floating problem. But if it feels like I can't handle this and therefore that's intimidating, then in that situation it's like, well, is there, am I intimidated? Am I afraid? Is it the same? Is it one and the same? Does it matter? And you do that by challenging that it's intimidating to me but I'm going to have to act even though I feel intimidated. It's just take the word afraid and substitute the word intimidated. Just make sure that you're not being intimidated by like an actual threat because intimidation could imply things like that. I'm intimidated because somebody is, somebody's pushing on me or somebody's really actually threatening me or something is actually threatening me. So we don't float through actual threats. That's, I would be really careful about that. It's important, right? But what can I take? How can I take a step forward even though I'm feeling intimidated right now? General advice. Let's keep going here. I actually cut a live. Cody, welcome. Hand pink waving. I'm so far behind in the comments. I can't read all of them. I was scrolling pretty quick here. I just don't know what to think about when I'm having a panic attack. You don't get to think about anything. So I don't know what to think about when I'm having a panic attack. I'm so scared of being struck in traffic with no way out or no help to get to me. You don't get to decide what not to think, right? So it's important to recognize the, I can't, during a panic attack, I am going to think that I'm going to be stuck in traffic and stranded with no way out. You will have those thoughts. So sometimes I don't know, and by the way, I see a lot of Twitch people today. So that's cool. I've seen a few people, welcome Twitch. So it's, you can't say, well, I have to try to find something else to think so that I don't think that. Unfortunately, you are gonna think that. So it's even though I think that, what action can I take despite having that thought? Even though that thought is gonna make me really afraid and feel like I can't do this. So just be careful about trying to find, well, tell me what to think instead of this. You can't think instead of that. You're gonna have that thought. You have to act despite that thought. It's, that's an important thing. Let's see, it always makes me angry when it tells me it tells me I'm capable of pushing when I'm in the middle of feeling strong bodily sensations because they don't know what I'm feeling in the moment. Okay. I'm challenged this. I know what you're feeling in the moment. I bet you there's a ton of people in this room right now that would probably understand what you're feeling in the moment, right? This is the argument that says what I'm feeling must be stronger than what anyone else has ever felt. And that's one of those things that I'm talking about challenging those old narratives. Like it makes me angry because they don't know how this feels. But I lived with panic disorder for many, many years of my life as have many people in this room, right? In the room with you right now. So it's that thing where I have to slowly start to open myself up to the idea that that narrative is not helping me. And I have to maybe consider that they might be right and I might be wrong. Or you ever write to hang on to that and say, no, no, clearly what I'm experiencing is worse than anyone else ever drew you, everybody. So don't tell me to push forward because mine's worse. Okay, then the conversation is over and I would not push you any more than that. But be careful about hanging your hat on that narrative. That's a tough one. It makes you stuck. Okay, so this is kind of feeds into that. So Cody is saying that he's learned to challenge everything. Where are we 33 minutes? Within my reality and try to let go more often. This, I tried to challenge everything. And so one of the things that you might be challenging is the assertion that like, this is clearly a unique experience that no one understands. So please don't tell me that I can get through it. So Cody has decided I'm gonna start challenging everything because in a way that lack of belief is based on the idea that fear must indicate actual problem, right? So the doubt that anxiety and fear will put into your brain. Something might be wrong this time, but what about this time? But I can't really handle it. In that situation, we're not good at making good decisions. We're terrible. I was terrible at making good decisions for a long time in a fearful state. I think that was really difficult. So I kept making decisions that were based on the fear until I started to do what Cody did and I thank you for sharing that, dude, is I'm gonna start to challenge that because I don't think I'm making good decisions that are helping me on the long run here. They're keeping me stuck. So I'd start to challenge them. That's a big deal. I appreciate that comment, man. How am I doing on comments? This is rough. You guys are cooking in the comments. There's only 70 of our people in the room, but you're flying here. You're not the same person as you were reacting. You can change. I changed anyone again. This is one of those people. Now listen, this sometimes can be heard again as, well, you didn't have the same experience as me. So Kathleen, thank you for sharing this. And Kathleen did a success story episode on my podcast. It was really great. If you guys wanna go check it out, but be careful about looking at this and saying, no, no. What do you mean anybody can? You didn't have it as bad as me. Like the automatic assertion that it must mean that Kathleen had it easier than you or didn't have the same experience. You don't know that ever. So what I'm talking about today is basically like you gotta start to at least open yourself up to the possibility that when someone like Kathleen shares her story, you immediately respond with invalidating because you didn't have my experience or it must mean that I'm worse than you. So you could just gotta be careful about that. I know this is tough because I'm being a little aggressive here and pushing back on the stories that you've been telling for a long time. I'm not picking on anyone individual here. It's just, these are the themes, right? In the segment of a community that feels stuck or can't get started, this is a very common theme. So I'm not picking on anybody in particular. I'm picking on the theme. One of the main themes that keeps people stuck or like kind of either can't get started or stuck behind obstacles along the way and get frustrated, right? And move down on themselves, which I hate to see. I don't like to see you guys down at yourselves. So let's see here. Let's keep going. Let's keep going. I see a whole bunch of stuff about candy corn. Let's see here. I feel like I make more progress than when someone who doesn't get it tries pushing me. Okay, so Alex, I'm sorry. I didn't see the second comment. So I know I was a little bit rough on your first comment here, but if I'm left to my own devices, okay, cool. And that's fine. Listen, that's definitely one of those situations where it's like, if I choose to go be afraid, I'm better than if you tell me to go be afraid. So let me just clarify this because I appreciate this follow-up comment and let me acknowledge it. Nobody, me included, gets to force you, like force you to go do a thing. Nobody gets to do that. Like I'm never here to tell you or force you to do a thing. Your family doesn't get to force you. Your partner doesn't get to force you. Your boss doesn't get to force you. That rarely if ever works. So I do get that for sure. Just we have to remember, we have to do the thing where it's like, you have to be careful of the thing that says left to my own devices. You got to leave me to do it on my own. But then every two or three weeks, I'm in the doldrums because I want you to leave me to do it on my own. But I'm also really pissed off at myself because I'm not doing it on my own. So just be careful about that too. But excellent comment. Thanks for the follow-up, man. I appreciate it. This is too funny, man. The candy corn stuff. Well, there's like a T-shirt. I don't know what's going on with candy corn, but I don't like candy corn. But that's okay. People like candy corn. How about circus peanuts? Have you guys talked about circus peanuts? I'm guessing that's been in the conversation because it's already a circus peanut cartoon. I just saw it. Like you can't talk about candy corn without also talking about circus peanuts in the same conversation. I believe that's sort of like an immutable law of the universe in some way, shape, or form, I think. Anyway, I think we're getting to the end of comments. The self-belief will come when you are able to panic, not resist it, try to surrender. Yeah, this is good. Very good, right? This kind of describes it. I feel the self-belief comes when you're able to panic and not resist it. That's true. Like that's what I said. The self-belief only really comes after the action, which is what Rebecca's talking about here. It's the action, though, even though you don't believe you can do it and you're able to take that action by opening yourself up a little bit to the idea that maybe you're wrong about, I can't. So, what's candy corn? Did somebody just literally ask what candy corn is? How could that be? Let's see here. I'm gonna keep going to the end a little bit. Let's see. Me and my brain used to be friends, now I see it as it. Okay, this is good comment from Cassie. I'm sorry, guys, I can't answer every comment because I'm sorry to run out of time and you guys are just really voluminous today. Voluminous, it's my word of the day. Me and my brain used to be friends, now I see it as an unreliable thing I can't trust. So, this can be both a crappy thing and a good thing. When you realize, like Cody said earlier in the comment that I put up on the screen, I started to challenge all of my reality. When you recognize that I can't trust my brain right now to make decisions that are reflective of reality or my capability, then I have to start to question it, which makes me open myself up to the idea that maybe these people are right and maybe I can do it. So, this could be a double-edged story. Cassie, I'm not sure if you're seeing it as a bad thing or a good thing because you can see it both ways for sure and that can change hour to hour, I'm sure. But sometimes recognizing it like, oh, I can't trust my brain right now. I cannot trust my brain is really important because admittedly, let's call it really what it is. Admittedly, if you're going to start to open yourself up, try to do things before you believe you can do them. Take a leap of faith, surrender, be brave, all of those things. You are literally, and I'll use my own experience, I was literally trusting this Australian woman who wrote those books. Like I had never heard anybody describe panic attack until I read the Claire Weeks book, Hope and Help for Your Nerves, which is self-help for your nerves in the rest of the world. But it got to the point where it's like, well, this is making a whole lot of sense and if I'm going to let this happen, I'm trusting that she's right. So I have to come to the realization and we all hit this point where it's like, well, I can't trust my brain. It's not giving me good information. It's either been fed bed information in my past and I have to work through that or it's been fed bed information or learned bed habits recently and I have to work through that. So I'm gonna have to trust that this guy is not telling me to do something dangerous or Josh Fletcher is not telling me, Kimberly Quinlan is not telling me to do something dangerous. Ben is not telling me to do something dangerous. Whoever it is you like, right, is not telling you to do something dangerous. We do say like, I can't trust my own brain. So I'm gonna ask people that I might be able to trust to help me make decisions that don't rely entirely on with that fear, fear-based like chatter in our heads. So anyway, I don't know if that's a good thing or a bad thing for you, Cassie, but I appreciate your comment. I see fruitcake. You guys are killing me here. Let's see here. Oh, okay. Cody's in a non-English speaking country. Certainly makes it hard. Make your move before you're ready was my motto in the early days. This is good. We'll throw Terry up on the screen again. Make your move before, like the B4, where are we 41 minutes? I got two or three more minutes. Before you're ready was my motto in the early days. I had no faith I wasn't gonna die or go over the edge, but I realized success comes in the doing. It's hard to say you can't do it when you are. I should probably just end the stream right now because I don't think it's gonna get any better than what Terry just put on the screen, right? It's hard to say you can't do it when you are. Let's address that for a second because I know that there are people in this community on the daily that do things that they thought they couldn't do. Maybe it's like, well, I didn't think I could do this, but for whatever reason that day, I just lost the ability to argue or fight. I'm so over myself. I'm just gonna try it. Sometimes we take a leap of faith because we literally are exhausted and not that we run from the lead. We're so exhausted. It's like, I'm not arguing about this anymore. Effort, I'm just doing it. Like wave your hands if you recognize that feeling. And then all of a sudden you notice like, holy shit, I actually did that. Maybe I panicked, but I got through it or I was able to handle that. Like for whatever reason I leap today. I don't know. And then instead of taking that and like literally like pinning it to the fridge and looking at it before you meet every challenge, within two days, the euphoria over it has faded and they completely forget it and they throw it away. And when you did the thing you thought you couldn't do and then you just throw it away. So I love what Terry said here. I'm good. I'm watching the comments. I'm looking at the candy and the fruitcake comments. Really I am, but so that's a big deal, Terry. That was a great comment right there. It's hard to argue with the fact that you can't when you are actually doing. Terry wrote a whole script around circus peanuts. Wow, okay. I kind of want to go back. Unfortunately, the comments go away after the live stream but I almost, I want to be able to save these because I'm missing a whole conversation. You're going to let Puffed Kero, see? I mean, come on, what is going on here? You're going to let Puffed Kero serve with food coloring come between us? Are we in a candy like a circus peanuts war? It sounds like we are. I got everybody wild up again. Surprised he hasn't blocked us. Nah, I like when you guys are just chatting like this it's really funny. Okay, let's see here. I have OCD and the compulsions would have thought less more than two weeks. No, so I can tell you that in this situation somebody asked about it's a big comment. So what if a thought less more than two weeks? My OCD tells me that that's proof that it must be something that because it lasts more than two weeks. No, like people struggle with OCD themes that persist for a very long time. And even when they get good treatment and get into a state of recovery or remission as we might call it went under a load they might find that those themes emerge again. So from a strictly factual standpoint the fact that your thought last more than two weeks isn't proof of anything, nothing. So that means that you're pointing at a target that says if I do it the right way regardless of what your treatment of choice is ERP, exposure, meds, combination, whatever. If I do it the right way then in two weeks that thought should be gone and that is just simply not the way this works. So I would probably ask whoever it is is helping you with that because I see that there is some medication involved. I'm not sure where you got that. Like if it lasts more than two weeks I have to treat it as something real or significant or it might not be OCD, it's real thing. That's not the way that works at all. Oh, we got another Twitch person. I think we might have, we might have had three or four Twitch people today which would be a record for us. One of them was a spammer, but I'll take it anyway. I'm gonna turn it away. I'm gonna turn away the trust people, the Twitch people. Let's see. Now I'm trusting you and all the others. Ryan, man I get this. All the others, I'm trusting you and all the others that came before you. So yeah, I was putting my faith in Claire Weeks. I'm not gonna lie. And then knowing that like, well she seems to see a lot of people have done this before. So yeah, you guys that are taking that leap of faith now I appreciate that you are trusting at least that I'm not some sort of sociopath which is something, that's something I'll take it. But you're also trusting the people in the community and the stories that you hear. So yeah, it's definitely part of it for sure. Like there's no doubt about it. It's a big deal. Like that we put our trust in strangers. It's not like the normal thing you would expect to do but in certain instances, psycho education and communities like this, help us do that. Come at me, we need to talk. Reese's peanut butter cups are bust. The thoughts are usually junk thoughts and they're just louder maybe. Yeah, yeah that's so good. I'm glad somebody answered that for sure. I'm telepathic. I hope not. Maybe I am, who knows? Surrender with effing defiance. You know I'm a fan of that. Let's see here. Just to say if you're not interested in what I needed is trust in myself and the experience. Yeah, so both. And if you can't find trust in yourself, you can possibly find trust in the community then. Like I'm gonna trust in these other people who came before me. So that's a hard thing to do because you're trusting strangers. It's not natural for people to do that but I get it. And I think we're at the end of the comments. Yep, we pretty much are. Let's see here. I think every mental health expert has some wisdom to learn from. Having what happened? I'm just gonna go through the end here. I give my psychiatrist a stance but I still look further and learn a lot. Yeah, I get it. So that every mental health helper probably has something that I like that comment. Probably has something you could take from them for sure. Just a quick comment in that because I see a back and forth going on. Like while I learned more about this from Drew than anybody else, I appreciate that thing. There's a very kind words to say. I know you're not just talking about just me. There's other people who sound like me. You know the people I work with all the time. But we have to be careful because if you're dealing with, say, a psychiatrist, they're gonna have a different approach. So this is the thing I repeat often but I'll say it again today because this is a conversation going on here, right? They're gonna have a different approach. Expect the psychiatrist to have a different approach. Expect that other therapist may have a different approach. Other therapists are more psychodynamically based and they insist on digging into childhood and that sort of stuff. And is that, you know, you can't possibly heal this without going back to your childhood. Okay, maybe, but expect that there's gonna be a wide variety of like different opinions and they're different theoretical models. So it's okay, right? It's really okay to do that. Sometimes that's gonna happen. There's gonna be disagreement for sure. And let's see here, please explain what candy corn is before they just Google it. Sam, you're gonna have to Google candy corn. Like if you don't know what it is, go and Google it. There will be no shortage of pages about candy corn now, especially like a day before Halloween for sure. So, all right guys, I think we're good to go. Should I put like the caption back up here? Aren't you guys looking at me like in the other room, looking at the other room all day? But thanks for hanging out. It actually turned out to be pretty good. I know I got a little bit forward here with some of you guys. Again, I wasn't trying to pick on everybody in particular. It's just trying to, the idea of believing in yourself means letting go a little bit of all the arguments while you can't, because then I hate to see you get stuck. So that's why I was pressing on that theme because it's again, it's a really common theme in the community among our friends that feel stuck or unable to get started. So that's why I pushed a little hard about that. So if you wanna watch the replay on this, first of all, subscribe to the channel if you already haven't and like the video if you thought that this was kind of cool and you enjoyed the candy corn conversation. If you watch it on the replay, you have no idea what I'm talking about because you're not seeing those comments I believe, but trust me, it was pretty good. I'm not gonna talk about the candy that I'm giving out. I can't give professional candy advice. I have no idea, to be completely honest with you. But if you wanna come back and re-watch it, YouTube is definitely the best place to do it because they stay in a playlist called Recovery Monday and go back and re-watch it as often as you want. You can try and find them on Facebook. They're just really hard. Facebook is hard to find stuff on. Their search is terrible. I don't know, Twitch, does Twitch have a search thing? I think at the end of Twitch, it just disappears. But anyway, no candy endorsements. That's right, I can't, I cannot give candy endorsements. I won't, I can't, I won't, I won't do it, I tell you. All right guys, thanks for hanging out. I will see you all later on. Have a happy Halloween and we'll be back in two more weeks. Oh, two more weeks with one of these and next week I'm actually gonna do a Claire Weeks episode on the podcast because I have some stuff to say about Dr. Weeks that you guys might find interesting. Trust me, it's all good. I love Dr. Weeks, but we're gonna talk about that a little bit. See you next week. We're out.