 this video. Odds are, you are always focused inward on how you feel and what you're thinking. So today on Recovery Monday, episode number 15, we're going to talk about how to recognize that and some ways you can begin to change your focus. So let's get cooking. All right, guys, there's my little 15 second intro for Instagram so that people watching on my Instagram stories get like a really slick intro. We can be go. And let's get into it. So I'm going to put the chat overlay up when you guys pop in, just say hello, let me know that everything's seems to be working just fine. No technical issues today. Thank the gods of technology. So I will remind you all, hey, hey, hey, what's up? Welcome. If you're coming from the Facebook group, just know that I'm only I'm not going to see your name. I'm only going to see Facebook user. Sorry about that. That's just the way restream does it. So we are doing another Recovery Monday. This is episode 15. We've been doing this for 15 weeks. Can you believe it? So and we will continue to do it until we are through this book. So we are essentially teaching recovery lessons out of this book every Monday here at two o'clock. If you don't have a copy of the anxious truth, then you can get that on my website. I will put that up on my on the screen right now. So if you need a copy of the anxious truth because you want to follow follow along, you can get it right there. The anxious truth comm slash books. And before we get cooking, I will remind you if you have not subscribed to the anxious morning, which is my new email newsletter and podcast that comes out every weekday morning, hop on over to the anxious morning dot email and check that out. Everybody is digging it. Anyway, welcome everybody. We're up to about 30 people here. We're not quitters. Love it. Love it. Love it. Okay, so let's see here. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. Welcome everybody. Hello, Long Island neighbor. How's it going? Love it when I have local people pop in. That's always a good thing. Let me close this. So let us see what do we got going on here? I'm just going to see who's here. All right, let's get cooking here. So let's talk about focus. Today we are talking about changing your focus. If you're watching me, like I said in the intro, the odds are I want to look at what I'll sell. I'll start this video just like I started this chapter in the book, which is I'll ask you over the last two hours, tell me how much time you have spent thinking about how you feel like physically your symptoms and what you're thinking. So over the last two hours, I would bet that if you're watching a considerable amount of the last two hours have been spent focused inward on how your body is feeling, what sensations you're having and what thoughts you're having. This is really super common. Like people in the grips of an anxiety disorder have an almost obsessive drive to focus inward all the time. How do I feel now? What are my symptoms feeling like? What am I thinking? Am I thinking those thoughts? Are they going to come again? How can I get rid of them? How is my heart beating now? Am I dizzy now? How are my legs working now? So it becomes really an obsession with how you're feeling all the time. And instead of focusing on life and the world like, you know, non-anxious people do, we focus on ourselves all the time. How am I feeling now? Now how am I feeling? How am I going to feel? So this is really common. If you're stuck in this, don't sweat it because everybody gets stuck in that. I used to be stuck on it too. I used to spend all my time poking and prodding and checking my pulse and like just all the time I was just always scanning to see was there any new symptom? How was I feeling now? What was going on? I was always aware of what I was thinking. Should I be thinking this now? What can I think differently? What can I do? What can I do? So it's just relentless drive to always focus inward. One of the podcast episodes I did, I don't even know when, was about, it was actually called Stop Checking In With Yourself. So I want to address that for just a second before I go on. This is in a long topic, so I'm going to go for another few minutes and then we'll start taking some questions here. But one of the podcast episodes I did was called Stop Checking In With Yourself because one of the generic mental health bits of advice that you get online, especially from people that are coming from like that healing space. I'm going to use air quotes. I'm not trying to diss the healing people. I get there's value to healing too, but especially when people who approach this as an emotional healing or spiritual healing kind of thing, often you'll hear check in with yourself. What is your anxiety telling you? That is awful, awful, awful advice for people like us. I'm not saying it's universally bad advice, but when you get told do the check in, take five minutes and check in with yourself to see what you need. That advice is not for us. When you get better, you can use the self-check in. I know people swear by it. You got to take care of your emotional health. You got to take care of yourself. I'm with you on all those things, but when you are stuck because you can't not check in, you're always checking in. Being told that the check in is good for you is terrible advice. If you have heard that advice because yes, check in with yourself. What do you need? What do you need to see what your anxiety is telling you? If that has thrown you for a loop, then don't sweat it because it was going to throw you for a loop. You're not broken if that's not working for you. Let's talk about you're always focused inward. One of the ways that that expresses is that you will take everything that happens in the universe, everything from a dog, the neighbor's dog is barking, something is up with your kids, there's a big project at work. Let's see, a dinner plan just got canceled, the pizza delivery guy is late. Anything that happens in the world, there's a supernova in a galaxy, 72 billion light years away, everything that happens in the universe, you will internalize and ask yourself, okay, how will this make me feel? Is this going to trigger my anxiety? Will this make my anxiety worse? Will this make my anxiety through the roof? Now, this may be things that you are personally involved with, like how am I sleeping? What did I eat? What do I have to do today? Do I have to leave the house? How will this make me feel? And then everything else in the world also becomes about how will this make me feel? If my kids are acting up, how does it make me feel? Me, me, me. So your anxiety, not because you're selfish, you're not in any way selfish. That doesn't make you a selfish person, but another podcast that I did was about the selfish nature of an anxiety disorder. So the disorder is selfish, you are not, but part of internal focus is to recognize that you may be internalizing everything to see how it's going to make you feel in relation to your anxiety. And you will also evaluate future events. This is where anticipatory anxiety comes in. If you have something coming up that you and you are going to have to do or something is going to put, place some demand on you, but how small that demand may be, you will internalize that as well. How is that going to make my anxiety react? Is that going to bring my anxiety up? Am I going to do it? Am I going to panic? So very, very common also. So one of the, I want to touch on two other things. I'm going to talk about distraction for just a minute and then we'll get into some comments and questions, right? One of the ways, and by the way, I wrote about this in a lot of details. There's much more detail in the chapter in the book than I can go through in a video. So one of the common ways that people try to get out of that constant inward focus and checking and evaluating is by distracting. And I'm going to flat out say like distraction works. Like distraction, it gets a bad rap, but it works. The reason why I give it a bum rap and the reason why people who sound like me and talk like me about these things will give it a bum rap is because it does work, but it reinforces the wrong lesson. So people who will run immediately to, I have to call my safe person. I have to snap a rubber band. I have to top pop a pill. I have to sniff a sense or an oil or whatever it happens to be. Distraction, I got to get my coloring book and start to color or I, you know, I immediately start, I know people who will do things like I count backwards by three from 100. I count prime numbers. I've heard all of these things, right? Distraction will work temporarily, right? It will work temporarily. So distraction might get you out of your head for that minute, but the lesson that it taught you is I must run away from this. So I must get a coloring books for a while. I don't know if you guys are still into coloring. Who still raise your hands if you enjoy the coloring thing. For a while, adult coloring books for anxiety, like that was typically, these are adult coloring books for anxiety, were all the rage. That actually goes back a few years. Everybody was talking about their coloring books. Now, look, if you like to color, there's nothing wrong with that. Like I'm a fan of coloring. If you did coloring because it's relaxing and it's a hobby and you like to be creative, then knock yourself out, color. But I remember when coloring books were, everybody was talking about their coloring books and I know people that literally ran to the coloring books, they would travel around with their coloring books and markers or crayons or colored pencils. I know people that absolutely, I know women that bought bigger purses. I'm not kidding, bought bigger purses so that they could carry around their coloring books and their colored pencils because if panic hit, no matter what they were doing or they started anxiety rising, they would feel like, oh, I got to get out my coloring book and start to color. Now, why does that work? It gets you out of your head. So it's a good example of why getting out of your head and changing your focus outward is what we want to do because you may get some temporary relief that way except if you're coloring at 1pm because you try to stave off panic, you know, really by 1.45, it's going to happen again. You're going to need the coloring up again, right? So that's kind of the way that works. So that's why we don't want to use distraction because distraction is temporary relief that doesn't actually teach us anything. Right? So what does work? How do we want to work on changing our focus? Well, first thing we want to do is want to recognize the problem, which is what we're talking about now. So recognize what's going on. Catch yourself when you're doing these things. Like, oh yeah, I'm doing that thing again, right? And that's okay. You can do that. You know, I'm doing that thing again. I got to work on this. Okay. So I recognize and I'm doing it. Now, what can we do? Essentially, this is a, changing your focus is pretty much the process of kind of turning your back on the thing that you feel. So when the fear is these thoughts mean I'm going to go insane or I'm going to have a psychotic break or I may be having a heart attack or my blood pressure is too high and I might have a stroke, whatever it is that you are fearing, I'm going to lose control. I can't handle this. This might never end. I'll have that never ending magic panic attack. That doesn't exist, by the way. Whatever that fear is, you have to kind of turn your back on that and say, well, I can't really scan for that. If I feel like I should be scanning for that, I should be evaluating my state to see if that's coming to get me. I should be having inner dialogue to try and stave that off and prove it to be untrue. But really and truly, you have to kind of leave that and turn, it's turn your back on it, right? You have to turn your back on that. So that's what that looks like. It's really uncomfortable and it will feel wrong and it will feel like this is not right. I'm supposed to be protecting against that but changing your focus literally means first thing I know is that I have to just turn my back and leave that fear unanswered and then I'm going to find a way to engage with the outside world the way non-anxious me would do. What would I be doing right now if I wasn't in the grips of all these intrusive thoughts? What would I be doing right now if I wasn't having a racing heart and feeling dizzy or my stomach wasn't in knots? What would I be doing? I'm going to do that. Sometimes you don't necessarily even remember what that look like, which means you're going to have to start to try. You're going to have to try to try different things. I guess I'll make lunch. I guess I'll take a walk. I guess I'll read a book. I guess I'll brush the dog. I guess I'll wash my car. I guess I'll send some emails. Whatever it is, you might not know what that looks like because maybe you've forgotten. That's okay. Just try different things. So, you're pretty much just going to you know disengage with those that fear, turn your back on that and engage outward and every time that anxiety starts to pull you back in like in the godfather every time I think I'm out they pull me back in. You're just going to have to keep repeating like nope I don't have to I don't have to scan for this. I don't have to have inner dialogue about this. I can work on making my tuna salad right now. All right? So, just a quick recap before we get into some of the comments and the questions which we can do right away. The disorder will have us continually in a state of inward focus almost obsessively. We're constantly focusing on how we feel and evaluating our state our mental our emotional and our physical state because we think that keeps us safe. We're trying to guard against that bad thing happening which would be panic or anxiety or whatever you think the bad thing is. We will take everything that happens in the known universe internalize it and then evaluate it based on how it makes you feel. How will this make me feel? Then you may try to get out of that cycle by using distraction techniques which will work but only temporarily and then you have to keep going back to them again and again and again and so what we really want to do is start to understand that the process of changing my focus from inward to outward will be to start to engage with the world the way a non-anxious person would and leave that fear in the background chattering at me. That it's going to be right in your in your ear. Got to hear it anyway. That's why we don't try and distract from it. We're going to hear it but we're going to engage elsewhere even while we hear it. So that's what we got. That is basically what this chapter is. What's chapter of the book that is this? I don't even know. This is lesson 3.3 because the book is broken into five chapters each of which has a bunch of sub lessons in it right. It's kind of organized as if it's a course like you're taking a course basically. So that is the deal on changing your focus. That's the the big overview that like I said there's more detail in the book if you read it but that's what's going on. All right. So let's let's go through anybody have any questions on on this sort of stuff. So I'm going to scroll back to the top here. Look at this. I'm 15 minutes in and you're getting into comments ready. I love it. Let's see questions anybody who is guilty of distraction who's guilty of that stuff. I saw some of the coloring books things pop up because when I mentioned coloring books yep all the time okay zero only because I've been watching stage. I don't know what stage does. So you haven't been focused on yourself. Put this up on the screen. I'll have to Google that now. Maybe that's something that I'm missing. I'm out of the loop on stage, man. But there you go. So you have not this is good. You have not been focused inward on yourself at all because you have been outwardly focused on on this this program that you like clearly. It's entertaining. It's keeping your interest and so your your interest is what's going on in the program. Not what's going on in here. That is a perfect example and I would say along those lines are the last 14. Somebody I see we have stage fans here. Colleen jumped in on that. I'm going to have to check it out. One of the things that I always try and teach people too is think about the times because it does happen even for the most anxious person in the most distressed situation right. It does happen where things come up during the day and you will get a few minutes here and there where you do accidentally start to focus on something else. It's an accident because you're trying to stay focused inward because you think keeps you safe but something comes up. You get into something. You forget that for a second and all of a sudden you discover oh wait a minute. I just had three four five ten minutes where I wasn't focused on myself. So think about how that feels because I know you have a few minutes like that here and there throughout the day. That's what you're going for. That's what you're going for. So there you go. That episode stop checking in with yourself actually because I know Allison threw that up there. I don't remember what episode it is. If you go to the anxioustruth.com there's a search function there in the menu. Just hit the little little search glass a magnifying glass and you could search for what you want. Search for check-in. Stop checking in. You'll find it. That episode generated quite a lot of dialogue with some of my mental health friends that are not necessarily anxiety specialists and they were really didn't like that I said that. The check-in. The check-in you got to do the check-in. I'm like no you don't understand these people can't stop checking in. So let's see here. Okay. I'll throw this up on the screen I guess we'll address this. Somehow or other. You know what this is a little bit meta. So a little bit let's go a little meta here. So we are taught today we're talking about inward focus and always focusing inward and being obsessed with how you feel always and how will this make me feel. How will this make me feel. And invariably when I do these videos when I do any live video and whether I'm doing it by myself or I'm doing it with Josh or Cam or whoever or Lauren and it's people can ask questions. Invariably people will completely ignore what the topic is and go right to tell me about my thing. I have it I need to know about my thing forget the topic. I'm not angry about that but this is a perfect example of that. I start screaming for help and I get out of the car I lose control. This is a perfect example of I'm trying to actually address a thing that would help with that but instead of paying attention to that information and maybe taking a lesson I'm not not not angry I'm not picking anybody here because I don't know who that is. But nope I'm just going to go right back to the thing that I care about right now. Like my thing right now my thing. So it is a good example of how the disorder will literally grab your attention and drag it wherever it wants to go. It's just not it's not a good way to live that's that's terrible I don't want anybody to live that way I used to live that way. But it will literally drag you around and I know I'm going to tell you where you're going now if you let it. So completely ignoring sometimes a topic and jumping in with nope I got to answer my question my question. That's a perfect example of how the disorder will keep you focused on how you feel and what is scaring you right that minute all the time. It's a really good illustration so again I'm not picking on whoever answered that question or made that statement because I didn't even tell who it is but it's just a good illustration of how this works. If you were not anxious that way then you would probably not be thinking that way you would not you would not do that you would be maybe paying attention to like what is this crazy guy saying or you wouldn't need to be watching the video which would be great but it would be a little different animal. So let's see here um the supernovas are hard to ignore I mean that is that is true that's any points we all love a good supernova I know I want to pay attention to them. Alright so let's say this is a good one too I've seen I've done enough checking on on me to last the rest of my lifetime which is true I got to tell you so for folks like us when I was able to start to break that habit and I was doing better on a consistent basis and I would find that those times when I would go you know longer and longer without checking in with myself oh it was the greatest thing ever was like winning the lottery it feels so good when you get relief from that you know in a big way. So let's see here I see that we have a bunch of people who raised their hands on the coloring thing um it's hard to come let's throw the coloring distraction thing up here it's hard to color when you're so anxious you don't even want to sit down okay that's pretty fair so Bethany thank you for making that comment because the coloring books were super popular but I do get that sometimes finding a distraction can be really hard because you don't just don't even know what to do with yourself so even if you want to distract which we would say is maybe not the most productive response in the beginning I can understand it but you start to learn not to do it finding an effective distraction when you just don't even know what to do and you're just trying to get away from yourself can be difficult so thank you for bringing that up let's put this up on the screen I'm going to I will address this um okay I know this is not a topic but that's okay I'm going to address this so listen brother I know that you think you have transmitted your anxiety to your daughter I know I know that you are terrified that you have somehow given your anxiety problem to your daughter first thing I want to tell you is number one you didn't do that you cannot transmit it anxiety is not contagious so I know you know that on a logical level but on an emotional level I know dude that you are terrified that you have somehow accidentally transmitted your anxiety to your daughter you did not do that you are off the hook on this and I know that a lot of the concerns that you have are based on the fact that you should not feel this way this is a defect why can't you get this I'm not getting it right I know there's some issues that come up recurring like that and that's going to make you feel even worse that not only are you failing because you are anxious but now you are failing because you transmitted your anxiety to your daughter you did not do that did not transmit anything to any member of your family okay so first of all huge kudos to you and a fist bump for caring so much thank you for being a good dad so good I'm glad that she's listening the thing that you can do to help your daughter is to help her understand and if you're listening welcome hello that none of what you're feeling is dangerous right now and right now you are surrounded by 66 other people watching this video with you from all around the world that absolutely 100% understand how it feels when you have all those scary anxiety symptoms and sensations and your stomach is not and you get sick to your stomach and it seems so terrifying and you just want to be saved you're okay you're really okay we all understand how that feels so you're just going to have to really start to understand that sometimes life stresses us out and makes us feel a certain way sometimes things trigger this sort of stuff but we don't have to call the anxiety itself a disaster even though I know that it's really super scary and when it's new to you you don't know what to do with it so just your dad knows all right he knows he's been hearing all of these things and just because he may struggle now and then doesn't mean he doesn't know so he will be able to give you some good information and point you at good information take it and understand you're surrounded by people who know what that feels like and you are not in any danger I promise you right so there you go I hope that helps brother but again you're not responsible for this you're good dad thank you for caring I've been practicing my okay let's see pop through let's keep going here this is good we got extra time for comments I'm loving it I've been practicing mindfulness through the day and it's easier in the morning but as soon as it gets dark my anxiety shoots up okay let's address this this is a good question so what's the difference between mindfulness in the afternoon and mindfulness at night well the clock it's dark like it's dark half the time on the planet that's the way it happens so the first thing that I would tell you in that situation is like well my anxiety shoots up okay well it sounds like you're hoping that the mindfulness is during the day is meant to keep you at a at a low level you're welcome you're welcome my friend don't worry about it it's gonna be okay I promise so back to the mindfulness during the day thing you're trying to trying to get the mindfulness to bring you down like I didn't need to this is gonna calm me and keep me cool and then somehow or other you've decided well nighttime is a different animal the mindfulness doesn't work and my anxiety goes up but really truly sometimes that's a function of I'm hoping that my mindfulness activity during the day will keep me at this calm level trying to hold my anxiety at bay through mindfulness but really mindfulness is meant to get you through it not to keep it at bay so even though it's dark at and you've decided my anxiety goes through the roof it triggers at a certain time when it gets dark number one you're anticipating that and you don't like when it happens but when it does happen you just have to use the same routine that you're using during the day it just means you're gonna do it while you're uncomfortable and you will learn that you can actually move through that it doesn't matter what time of day it is so a lot of times it's just a you know that's an expectation thing right this is good I gotta put this up grease belly garage one of my favorite YouTube names I'm gonna call you GBG it's important practicing changing your focus when you're not anxious thank you thank you dude this is huge it is a huge thing you guys hear me talk about meditation practice mindfulness practice breathing progressive muscle relaxation I talk about it all the time it's all over this book like I have a chapter in here about learning new skills if you go to the anxioustruth.com slash skills you'll find I've linked tutorials on basic meditation and progressive muscle relaxation and diaphragmatic breathing the reason why I tell you guys to do that is not because I want you to become expert meditators or I'm trying to turn you into mindfulness gurus I don't care if you become mindfulness gurus or not we're learning how to focus our attention in this situation meditation and mindfulness are attention training tools this is how we exercise our attention muscles our focus muscles and so when we need to I can flex that attention muscle and put my attention where I want it as opposed to where the anxiety is trying to drag it so that is a really really good point if you don't practice those things or you never take them on and then you hope that when the shit hits the fan you can magically relax and breathe and be mindful and it'll go away you're going to be super disappointed because it doesn't work that way so you got to practice when you're feeling good so that you can use those tools to move through the times when you're not feeling so good really important really important but I know for a lot of people look I gotta tell you I'm not a big fan of like I didn't want to do that stuff I didn't want to do it I had to learn by trial and error that oh if I if I refuse to do it because I'm stubborn I'm a stubborn mofo so I'd be like I don't need to practice practice I'm that guy like I never practiced I never studied I still did really well so I'm like I don't have to practice anything I learned the hard way like I guess I actually do have to practice it sucked man so practice practice when you're feeling good okay so let's pop this up JJ sensory motor OCD you can't stop noticing a numbness sensation that's okay I'm not in any way an OCD expert nor what I claim to be but I'm pretty sure that my qualified OCD therapist friends would probably tell you in this situation and you should always seek those people out that it's okay that you notice it the problem is not that you notice it the problem is what you do after you notice it all right so noticing it is okay even when you are you know trying to disengage outside which I'm sure you've probably been taught if you're working with an OCD therapist to try to get you to engage elsewhere while you feel that you will still notice it it's okay you're not trying to make the noticing go away okay people to all right I'll throw this out here let's see here Colleen what's up Colleen my fear is I'm sure people with health anxiety do have heart attacks how do we know when it's appropriate to go seek help okay that's fair so in this situation if you want to talk about you know focus your heart anxiety or some people will call it are calling it cardiophobia now will continually want to bring you back to that continually want to bring you back to my heart has my heart doing now is it racing how do I feel do I have any pains that indicate a heart problem what are the odds let me read about healthy people who have heart attacks let me try and get a grip on this we'll always try and bring your attention back all right here's reality it is true that raise my hand and being stubborn off of yeah joining the club brother I don't learn some hard lessons in recovery I really did but here's the deal on that like nobody gets a hundred percent guarantee nobody if I I think even if I could be the world's greatest cardiology right now Colleen I would not be able to offer you a 100% iron clad assurance that nothing will ever happen to anybody's heart including yours we don't know that but right now nothing is happening to your heart nothing is happening and it becomes an uncertainty intolerance problem that's really what this is so the health anxiety is the intolerance of uncertainty if you cannot get a hundred percent guarantee about your heart then it's nothing 0.0001% chance that you may suffer heart attack is too much for you so we we are swimming an uncertainty all the time we live our entire lives absolutely immersed 16 feet over our head in uncertainty and most of the time we don't care but you've latched on to one area where uncertainty is intolerable so you really got to work on that it's not about being assured that your heart nothing will happen to your heart it's about that it's about the uncertainty okay let's see here this is I'm gonna scroll down a little bit let's see just changing the focus to throw it on here yes this is about rewiring your brain the changing your focus to outward rewire the brain to ignore the inward focus because that seems like what's what's happening to me yeah I mean we a lot of times we use the term rewire your brain and technically like if you had a neurologist here or somebody who's involved in neuropsychology probably say yeah that your brain literally does rewire itself we know this to be true people who suffer head injuries or have strokes learn to do things again they learn to walk again they learn to speak again they learn to use their hands again it's your brain is amazing and it's plasticity it does literally rewire itself so when certain connections are are interrupted it will make new connections so it does literally rewire essentially the process that you're going through is when you keep turning your focus outward instead of inward you allow that that worst case scenario to be there without addressing it the inward focus is trying to stay safe from the the disaster right when you allow it to to just all right I'm gonna have to surrender to the disaster and I guess I'll have a heart attack while I'm eating lunch and then you don't have a heart attack and then you know it again and again and again you essentially are learning oh there really was no danger that's what that is if you want to call that rewiring yeah probably technically probably so let's see here and to follow up answer Colleen how do you know when to seek help if you've already if you have already been seen by a doctor like cardiologists you've had your heart tested everybody tells you that it's okay then then you're good then there's no more help to seek there's no more help to seek and understand that people who legitimately have physical impairments like heart attacks they know people who have heart attacks know that something is wrong the difference is I I know I feel something is wrong and different about my body versus I'm afraid that something might be afraid afraid with my body right that's the difference there oh David Tennant is on stage David Tennant was my favorite Dr. Who by the way I'm not a huge Dr. Who fan but you know getting there let's see here okay let's see here I'm going to scroll scroll scroll I walk in right through my time here in a good place thinking about with the kid getting in right okay this is good Jenny thank you for bringing this up Fitbit I'm this is a guy wearing an Apple watch so I kind of get that when my mic is holding up getting in my Fitbit really helped me with heart rate anxiety it was fixated on those numbers if you have heart rate fixation then Fitbit or an Apple watch or any of those things that's rough that is essentially just pouring gas on that fire in a big way in a big way right so let's see here I will throw this up here you're asking two different questions my friend my opinion to stay your is your opinion you're staying in the car and screaming well that's a different opinion that's a different topic than this you're talking about what to happen what to do when you panic you this is going to be unpopular but I got to tell you anyway because you need to hear this in between the moment where you feel oh my god that first flash of fear and the moment that you begin to scream then you actually make a choice so one of the emails that I had last week on the anxious morning was that the power that we find when we recognize that even though that's a tiny little space that's only a couple of seconds wide you do actually have the power to make a choice there so you choose to begin screaming that you're panicking I understand that that is real fear I'm not invalidating the fear but you have to understand that you may initially have that reaction but we get to decide if we continue that reaction or not so my you're talking about what to do when you panic in the car and the answer would be first of all recognize that you do not have to scream you don't have to do that you will have that initial reaction that's you can't stop that that's okay it's not wrong but you don't have to go into I'm going to scream and lose control and flail about you don't have to do that so you have to see what it looks like when you don't do that you're doing that because you think that's somehow going to save you or that that's that's an escape in some way some way shape or form so you don't have to do that you can't changing your focus this is a little different animal I'm talking about focus in general focus during a panic attack yeah you have to put your focus back out of that it's really hard during the panic attack that's why I was talking earlier about practicing that before it happens but little different animal doesn't necessarily apply but generally yes your your panic is telling you you got to start screaming and crying and flailing and doing all those things when and truly you don't have to do that you know let's see I'm going to scroll down a little bit more okay I'll answer this one really quickly again you know I don't want to get too much into the mechanics of OCD because that wouldn't be fair to you guys but can it turn into a void? what I'm always what I always hear from the very smart people is that when you're dealing with OCD you have to be careful that your coping tools don't become compulsions so sometimes that becomes a concern so you kind of want it to make you want it to look as organic as you can as much like life as you can being mindful of the fact that if you start to make it a compulsive thing every time I every time I have this thought I have to do this activity that that could be that could be something to look out for so you got to be careful about that it's not avoidance people think that like well if I if I focus away from the fear then I'm avoiding the fear no no that fear is still there right so what I would say is whether it's a sensation that you're fixated on whether it's a thought or some other panic sensation or an anxiety sensation it's not avoidance to focus away from it because you still fear it you're not running away from it you're still afraid right that's not avoidance at all it's not that's not avoidance at all let me scroll down a little bit more here okay I'm gonna throw this out here both of my parents were big warriors so I did get my anxiety from being raised in an anxious environment you were shown cues that say I should worry but worry is not the same as somebody who develops an anxiety disorder so it's important to understand the difference here did that contribute to the way you generally see the world and respond to it it totally did I'm not I'm not denying that but your parents do not do not pass along to you an anxiety disorder they may teach you certain ways to relate to the world which may tend you toward the interpretations that lead to an anxiety disorder but it's really important that we we draw a distinction here because many many people come from households where there are anxious parents or parents that are excessive warriors that do not develop anxiety disorders so does it have a does it play a role it totally does we can't we don't want to discount that or I'm not going to invalidate that but just be careful about just saying well my parents taught me to panic and run from it they they didn't they taught you to maybe be more fearful of the world but that's a thing that you can work on that that's you can work on that all right hope that helps Renee I'm going to do a couple more because we're at 35 minutes and I get to get cooking but what exactly is mindfulness this is this is an easy answer people sometimes think that mindfulness is a very magical spiritual esoteric new agey kind of state that you get into it is not mindfulness is nothing more than paying attention without judgment that's it that's all mindfulness is so mindfulness would be when I drink out of my Snoopy mug here I I pay attention you're welcome Carol no worries I pay attention to the mug in my hand I pay attention to how it feels it's cold because there's cold water in it right now I pay attention to the grip I pay attention to how it feels as I drink the sip how it feels going down that's all it is mindfulness is just paying attention without judging what you're paying attention to and without judging your ability to pay attention that's important too so mindfulness is purely just the act of paying attention that's all it is directing your attention somewhere and learning to keep it there and being non-judgmental about what it is and how you're doing with your mindfulness right really important because sometimes people get into that like oh I'm I'm not good at this I suck I'm not good at I'm getting it wrong if you're paying attention we all get it wrong like we're not good at that humans are not meant to pay attention that way we suck at it like we're really bad at it I meditate every damn day most of the time and I still suck at it like I try I try and you know maintain my focus on for me it's my breath when I meditate sometimes it's other things but and on my mind will wander so we're all terrible at it don't judge yourself for that all right so let's see here so I'll follow up on this one then I'm gonna kind of end it because I can't get to everything today sorry guys it is when you stay in the present okay that part is true if you're paying attention then by definition you will be in the present now the act of slowing down and when I wrote seven percent slower my most recent book seven percent slower believe it or not is a mindfulness manual it just takes the mysticism out of mindfulness because this statement instead of fearing the past and worrying about the future we do not qualify mindfulness so I would take that part away it is staying in the present how do you stay present you slow down and pay attention and that's it so we don't qualify it as we we enter into a state where we're not worried or we're not concerned or we're not thinking certain things we might think things we might worry that's okay that is a very important part of mindfulness practice is understanding that there's no specific state that you're after all right anyway guys I kind of I'm sorry I couldn't get all of them I would could what if I could but we're at 36 minutes and I got a boogie because I got stuff coming up in about 20 minutes I have to be ready for so thank you so much for coming by I love doing these next week we're gonna do I don't know what the next chapter is in the book let's look how about we look because it's right in front of me so I can do that okay Lesson 3.4 next Monday we are going to do stop avoiding going into fear we're gonna talk about why avoiding it's no bueno so that will be next Monday the same bat time same bat channel we got a bunch of these we're gonna be doing this into the spring what else will remind you again let me put up some maybe just some shameless plugs before I go because that's that's what I do now I'm getting good at the shameless plugs I've learned so if you want to read along and you don't have this book the anxious truth you can go right there to the URL that's on your screen anxioustruth.com all my books are there and if you have not subscribed to the anxious morning which is a free email newsletter that comes at every morning with a little three-minute podcast attached to it go ahead and do it theanxiousmorning.com or theanxiousmorning.email everybody is digging it and I am gonna tell you flat out I have produced a lot of work in my time doing this those email newsletters in the morning and the podcast that is the best work I have produced to this day I'm gonna go on a limb and say it that is the best work I have put out to date is the anxious morning what does this put do I put this on my Instagram I will put it on my Instagram so these videos stay in my Facebook group on my main Facebook page on my YouTube channel and I do post them to Instagram so in about an hour it will go up on my Instagram and it will stay there as part of my video feed so thanks guys for coming by I will see you next week have a good one