 Welcome to the Anxious Morning. Every weekday morning we'll take a few minutes to go over some important lessons that you can use in your anxiety recovery journey. Away from the endless noisy scroll of social media, the Anxious Morning brings you support, education, inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment. For more, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com. Long term suffering. Is there a point of no return? Let me get right to the answer here. There is no point of no return, wherein you have suffered with anxiety for too long and therefore cannot ever get better. That is not a thing, I swear it isn't. The community surrounding my podcast and books is full of people that have struggled with anxiety in various forms for many, many years, yet still wind up on the road to recovery. I wrestled with my anxiety disorders and depression on and off for over 25 years and you won't find anyone more recovered than me. Everything happens all the time, every day, to people who have struggled with anxiety for almost no time and also for decades. Still, this remains a concern for many, especially the older members of the community. This is understandable. It seems logical that the longer one suffers, the more ingrained the suffering becomes and therefore harder to end, right? If you've struggled for years because you've climbed out of the anxiety hold several times, only to fall back in, you might be expected to conclude that you've missed your chance and that it's just too late for you. However way you've reached the conclusion that you may have suffered for too long to get better, you would be wrong. I can't go into all the mechanics of recovery in a short email newsletter, but I can tell you that suffering time is not a determining factor in recovery. It can certainly be a determining factor in the way you judge your ability to recover, but it does not play a role in your actual ability to move forward with lasting results. Why is this? In the end, recovery is based on recognizing reactions, changing them, practicing and learning new lessons to replace old habits. While a language might be full of silly sayings about old dogs, new tricks and the spots on a leopard, silly sayings do not always accurately reflect reality. Your brain is amazing. It remains amazing throughout your whole life. It never stops being amazing. When given the right combination of good information, helpful direction, encouragement and inspiration, your brain is quite capable of doing all the required recovery things. I see it every day in people of all ages that leave old ways and disordered anxiety behind without ever looking back. If you're worried that you've suffered for too long to get better, take heart. You still have everything you need to make change and go down the path to full recovery. But the first step in that will be trusting me when I say this and allowing yourself to try, even when you don't believe it will work. That's another odd thing about recovery. We often don't believe in it until after we were already doing it. So forget the clock and the calendar. Today is not yesterday and this year is not 10 years ago. Look forward and give your amazing brain some credit. It'll get the job done for you if you give it a chance. Tomorrow, we'll take an eye-opening look at exactly what must change in recovery. Hey, if you're enjoying the podcast and you'd like to get a copy of it delivered every morning into your email inbox, including a full text transcription, head on over to the anxious morning dot email and sign up for the newsletter. And if you're listening on iTunes or Spotify or someplace where you can leave us a rating or review, take a moment and rate the podcast and maybe write a small review. It really helps us out or just tell a friend about us. Thanks a lot.