The Anxious Morning: Recent Episodes
Drew Linsalata
Wake up every morning to a hot cup of anxiety support, empowerment, education, and inspiration in your inbox. The Anxious Morning is written and recorded by Drew Linsalata.
theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Core recovery concept number four, and I think a fitting way to sign off in the final edition/episode of The Anxious Morning:
You can handle it. You always do ...
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Core principle number three I want to pass along as we wrap up The Anxious Morning is that when in doubt, doing the opposite can be a really useful guideline.
Sometimes this hits people like some kind of genius lightning bolt. Other times I get funny looks and head scratches. If you’re scratching your head and looking at me funny now, let me explain.
Most people will ask, “The opposite of what?” ...
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When I am asked for one thing I might say to anxious Drew if I could go back in time and talk to him, it would probably be this.
“Listen brother, everything is temporary. You just have to allow it to be.”
This is one of those core recovery principles that spills over into life too. Everything in the universe is transient and temporary. This includes the physical and/or emotional state of any person. It’s a pretty important feature in terms of the overall design of the universe, but we often overlook it and wind up fighting against it when we are struggling in recovery.
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I do believe the very first thing I ever posted on Instagram was this statement:
You can be afraid and safe at the same time.
Today I want to remind you that it is possible to be afraid and safe at the same time. Why am I including it as a core principle? ...
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“BUT HOW CAN I NOT CARE ABOUT THIS?!”
This is a question that I get asked again and again and again because I often say that I simply do not care if I panic now. Let me clarify and refine that statement. I do care. The difference between now and then - when I was at my worst - is that now I only care for a few seconds ...
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If you are hoping I might talk about something that more accurately reflects your personal experiences or situations, but I don’t, you’re still not broken or beyond hope. I kinda wanted to start today’s edition of The Anxious Morning by saying that.
Last night I made a silly video about health anxiety that acted out a conversation between someone and their health anxiety. It got lots of laughs and I can see that people really identified with the struggle. However, it was also pointed out in the comment section that some people really do wind up with health problems that doctors miss or misdiagnose. Clearly, and unfortunately, this is true. We can’t deny that. I’m always careful to point out that there is never 100% certainty about anything in life, including your health, because in the real world this kind of thing is possible. The point is that my post about one health anxiety experience left another health anxiety experience unrepresented. I don’t think this is limited to health anxiety, so let’s talk about it.
What I’m thinking about this morning is the fact that there is no perfect answer to every question that will apply to every person and every situation. Especially when you’re seeing mental health information and help online, there are constraints on the part of the person providing that information. Even the most well informed, well meaning and well educated content creators have to work within the framework provided by any given platform. This means that for me - when I hit that “post” button - I know that I am almost always leaving someone out of the conversation. I am leaving some experience unrepresented while I represent another.
Unfortunately, not every post, video, podcast episode, book, or whatever else can cover all possible personal experiences and situations. This is where we drop down from the realm of huge digital support systems into smaller in personal support systems or even individual therapy or counseling. Only in those much smaller and likely in-person contexts can we be sure that our personal experiences are being seen and taken into account.
Why is this important? It’s important because I do see people wind up angry, frustrated, hopeless, or all of those things sometimes when they see information that does not directly speak to their personal situation. That always kinda sucks to see. It’s totally understandable though. One of the reasons I don’t talk about medication for instance is that it is a very personal and emotional issue. People that have had terrible medication experiences have a very low tolerance for people that are pro-medication. People being helped by meds have a very low tolerance for negative medication stories and experiences. Who can blame anyone for this? Everyone wants to feel seen, heard, and validated. That’s no crime.
Especially when struggling and trying to find a way out of that struggle, hearing your personal experience represented in the discussion can go a long way. Hearing your personal experience overlooked can be impactful on an emotional and even a practical level.
Beyond practical issues - a French chef is simply not going to talk about Italian food - I don’t think anyone means to mislead or exclude people from mental health discussions. People who do what I do really want to help at least at some level. But we’re going to sometimes miss things and when we talk about one issue we’re almost guaranteed to leave out some particular aspect of that issue. Know that it doesn’t mean that we’re saying that there’s something wrong with you. I don’t think anyone is trying to invalidate people. If someone is making you feel bad because they continually leave out your experience, its OK to speak up or ask about that. When the audience gets really large it can be hard to to respond to every question or comment, but you can put your voice out there into the universe and be heard. Maybe others will hear it and respond to you. Maybe the content creator you’re addressing will hear you and think about what you’ve said. Maybe they can address your experience and situation once they see that it exists. I’ve done my best to incorporate that sort of thing into my message over time. Sometimes it works. Sometimes it falls short. We do the best we can.
Ultimately, try to remember that not hearing your specific situation addressed is not a reflection on you. You’re no more broken than anyone else. You’re as valuable and worthy of respect and acceptance as anyone else. You’re as capable as anyone else.
Above all, if anyone - including me - is making you feel bad about yourself because we’re leaving you out - and we don’t respond to your concerns - run! Even from me if you need to. I promise you won’t hurt my feelings if you do that. The Internet often sucks, but it is a big place with lots of people so there’s a good chance that you can find a place where your experience and situation is better represented.
Maybe someone will invent a digital content platform where we use quantum principles to fork every 90-second video into an infinite number of variations based on the particular situation of the viewer. That would be pretty awesome. I wonder if Elon Musk would ride in and make a mess of that too at some point?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
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If you were listening to The Anxious Truth or following along with me on social media in 2016 you would have likely heard me use the letters C-B-T quite often. I would reference traditional CBT techniques like fact checking and thought challenging. Those are good things. I still dig them. But now you hear me saying slightly different things. I don’t talk about those more traditional techniques that often and when I do, it’s in a different context. You hear me talk more about psychological flexibility, acceptance, and tolerance of uncertainty far more these days. Why is this?
Well, things change. Research happens. Treatment types evolve. I’m often asked about what it means when I say “old school CBT” or “third wave” CBT. I thought today would be a good day to briefly go through the progression from “first wave” to “third wave” treatments when it comes to the problems we’re addressing together.
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You guys know that I’m a total nerd when it comes to these things, and I’ve been asked to address this a surprising number of times, so let’s look at how Stoic philosophy and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) are connected. You really can draw a line from Zeno of City to Aaron Beck if you take a few minutes...
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Just as we were about to hang up, my contractor friend said, “Hey, I appreciate you taking the call and coming out Wednesday.” That was nice, right. Except that’s not how he ended. He said something else.
“I know you don’t like to leave the house.”
Even writing this now triggers a reaction in me. Embarrassment. A sense of failure and failing ...
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I realized that in the 11+ months I’ve been writing The Anxious Morning, I really haven’t directly address the concepts of embarrassment and shame. Not everyone fears dying, insanity, or passing out. Some people struggling with panic and anxiety related issues fear the feelings of embarrassment or shame that they might encounter if people see them in an anxious state.
Let’s take a quick look at the difference between embarrassment and shame. I’d call them cousins. They’re related, but not the same...
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I know you guys wanted me to talk about my own experiences in these final few editions of The Anxious Morning. I’ve been trying to do that because I’m happy to share. This morning I want to share the experiences of others because part of the power of this platform is the ability to aggregate so many inspiring and encouraging stories.
Belief often - usually - comes AFTER acting. Call it acting “as if”. Call it faking it until you’re making it. Frame it any way you that helps you. That’s totally fine. But today, once you’re done framing it, look at some of these stories. Look at the common thread of disbelief and take some inspiration or encouragement from it ...
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Even for a fully recovered person, there can be challenges.
I often speak about how our psychological flexibility and resilience takes a hit when we’re under stress. Well last night I was a textbook example of how that works. I spent a good two hours or so struggling because I wound up in the center of a perfect storm of the crap that life sometimes throws at us ...
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When I talk about the need to be honest with ourselves when it comes to fatigue and taking breaks, I’m often asked what to do when you’re not sure if you’re tired or afraid.
Doesn’t it seem odd to not be able to identify what you’re feeling? I get it though. I had this issue. Many many people in our community have this issue. Anxiety and fear can get so cloudy and confusing that sometimes you just don’t know if want to crawl under the covers because you’re really tired, or because you’re just afraid or anxious.
If you find yourself facing this dilemma, know that you’re not alone. Let’s spend a few minutes to address this and to look for some basic strategies we can use when we’re in that “grey zone”. Please keep in mind that recovery is imperfect. We make mistakes. Sometimes what we do is more impactful, sometimes it is not. This is OK. Do not get caught in the “doing it right” trap. Before we can talk about what to do when you’re not sure what you’re feeling, you’ll have to accept that sometimes you might get it “wrong”, but that it’s totally OK to get it wrong. It’s how we learn.
This really speaks to the topic of self-compassion, which I think I will talk about next week, so stay tuned for that.
If my voice is in your head asking you if you’re really tired or just making an excuse to avoid … I’m sorry. I never plan to be a voice in anyone’s head, but evidently I am. Forgetting how annoying I can be at times, kudos to you for confronting that issue with or without me. When you start to see your avoidance more clearly (nobody sees it early on), you’re making progress. As crazy as this might sound, when you find yourself scratching your head because you can’t tell if you’re tired or afraid, pat yourself on the back. Think of the days when this was not a question because you’d already be on the sofa binging Netflix. Here you are NOT automatically doing that. Winning!
Now that you’ve pumped yourself up a bit, what next? You still don’t know if you’re tired and should rest, or afraid and trying to justify avoiding. What should you do? What I learned to do in those situations was to scale back and go from there. When I wanted to go lay on the sofa and fire up my TiVo (yes, that was a thing back then), I would go over a short list of little things I could do instead. They were often VERY little. Getting dressed. Showering. Making something to eat. Running the vacuum over the carpet in the living room. Walking around the block once. Sitting outside in the sun for 15 minutes. Maybe taking a 10 minute drive around the neighborhood. See how small these are?
I would pick one of those things and do it. Often this would clarify things for me. When I finished vacuuming (for example), I often found that I was actually not as “tired” as I thought I was. This often turned into doing a few more things on my short list. In some cases, this turned into a full day where I wasn’t on the sofa at all because I saw that I didn’t need to be. I had uncovered sneaky avoidance masquerading as fatigue. On other days, I would take a short walk around the block and discover that I really was pretty tired so I would take a break. Sometimes that break was an hour or two, sometimes I might actually fall asleep and it turned into almost a full day off (I had always done my driving exposure in the morning).
On some days I wound up on the sofa for two hours only to discover that I really wasn’t all that tired. Did I beat myself up for getting it wrong? Nope. That’s not usually an issue for me, so please don’t make that mistake. You’re gonna get it wrong sometimes like everyone else. This is not a crime and you did not just ruin your recovery. I promise, you didn’t. When I got it wrong, I’d get up and get on with my day as best I could. Those days counted too because I learned something in those moments and took those lessons with me.
I think the summary here is that especially in the early days of recovery when avoidance habits are still strong, we try to err on the side of not automatically running for the comforter and the fuzzy slippers. Might you wind up pushing yourself a bit this way? You might, but that’s why I say to use a short list of small things to do in these situations. If you find that you are pushing into exhaustion or really tired territory, you can stop and go rest.
It’s OK to not be sure if you’re tired or anxious. Days like that help to teach us what we need to learn. They give us experiences that we need to have. When in your life did you ever think you’d have to work on identifying a basic state like “tired”? I bet never, right? So give yourself a break (no pun intended). Disordered anxiety throws all kinds of monkey wrenches and complications into the mix. Working through those is part of the process, so just do the best you can.
Have a good weekend. I’ll see you on Monday.
“But you might as well bid a man struggling in the water, rest within arm's length of the shore! I must reach it first, and then I'll rest.” - Emily Brontë, “Wuthering Heights”
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
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When I wrote “No breaks, no days off”, I was speaking directly to the critical need to break the avoidance cycle. The words I chose seem harsh and absolute in nature. If you read them literally - and why wouldn’t you - you would think that you must never take a break or a day off in recovery. You might decide that your job is to be recovering 24/7 without stopping. If you’ve read those words and come to this conclusion, or wondered why on Earth I would write that or say that … I’m sorry. Really. That was a really bad choice of words on my part. If I could magically a do a find and replace on the tends of thousands of copies of those books that are out in the world, I would totally do that. I would change those phrases today...
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You know what appears to make distance between thoughts and reactions, but isn’t so damn “brain expensive”? Talking about yourself in the third person. In chapter four of Chatter, Kross talks about his research into what happens when people are coached to talk about themselves in the third person when reflecting on states of anxiety, uncertainty, and fear. He calls this “distanced self-talk”. The research they did showed that people that used this third person distanced self-talk experienced lower levels of distress when in anxious situations, ruminated less about anxious experiences, and were better able to objectively define the true level of threat in those experiences.
Pretty cool, and likely useful in our context, right?
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Those were in many cases the days where at the end of driving around and sitting/walking in mostly empty parking lots I felt like a total superhero.
That was such a good feeling!
When you find that feeling, enjoy it. Savor it. Let it show you that you are capable of feeling strong and able and that change is possible. I remember recording myself - talking to myself - on a few of those mornings. I wanted to capture those moments so I could come back to them later when I needed to. I will admit that sometimes I tried really hard to find ways to make that badass unbreakable feeling last in an unnatural way. That didn’t ever really work out that well because I was trying to force an emotional state, but if you’re doing that, I see you and I do not blame you for trying ...
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... in the second session with this particular therapist, she took the experiences I told her about in the first session - panic attacks, anxiety symptoms, a growing sense of pointlessness, increasing difficulty in being home alone, intrusive thoughts about being poisoned, etc. - and glued them directly to my parents’ divorce. She explained that I was probably afraid to be left alone because I was abandoned by my father. She told me I was having panic attacks because I never fully processed and healed from the pain of the divorce. She explained that my obsessive thoughts about my food being poisoned were really just a manifestation of deep unresolved pain that had to be expressed.
OK then. When I asked why I did not have panic attacks for almost ten years between my first go-around and this one, she talked about subconscious processes and repression as a defense mechanism. When I told her that that did not resonate with me in any way and that it didn’t seem right, she told me that my response was just part of that same defense mechanism ...
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Many of you asked me to talk about finding hope, so let’s do that.
Today I want to look at hope in two contexts. Hope can make an appearance at the micro level in a given moment where you are concerned about immediate outcomes. “I hope I do not die right now” is a perfect example of how we might incorporate the concept of hope into the anxiety struggle. But that’s not the context that I think matters most. I want to examine hope on the macro level in recovery ...
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Did I ever tell you about the time I literally spent three full hours standing at my front door, trying to get myself to open the door and step out? Well, let me tell you about it now. It was quite the scene.
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When we are struggling and find ourselves in a challenging situation, we are often engaged in a slew of thinking all designed to answer one basic question:
“How will I get out of this?”
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We often do not talk about the financial burden that comes with mental health struggles. Everyone sees injury or physical illness that can prevent someone from earning the living they want and need to live. But the hard fact is that even though it may be largely invisible to many, a significant number of people struggling with anxiety problems are unemployed or underemployed for some period of time during that struggle.
When you are not working or have modified your employment in the form of fewer hours or less responsibility, there is going to be a financial impact on you and your family.
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The point is that when we are struggling and anxiety and fear are loudly demanding to always be the most important thing in the room, we are easily sucked into our own suffering where there is exactly zero visibility when it comes to how grateful we should be for anything.
People dealing with anxiety disorders can dread days like today often for the reasons I describe here. For many that struggle with hyper-responsibility or the belief that they are in charge of making everyone happy, there can be tremendous pressure that drives the anxiety and fear. Regardless of what your situation and specific issues may be, today you may be struggling and feeling like you are a million miles away from thankful.
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I’ve wrestled with this decision, but I will publish the final edition of The Anxious Morning on Friday December 30.
So … how shall we wrap this up? What do you want to talk about in the last 20 editions of The Anxious Morning?
We have 20 more mornings together. How do YOU want to spend them?
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The barn was ice cold. My family was no more than 5 feet from me, but I could not hear a word they were saying. I could see my kids talking and smiling, but I could also see that they were not talking or smiling … at me. I was checked out and they clearly knew it. I may as well have not been there.
Clearly, I was doing this all wrong...
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I am not here today to give Carl Sagan credit for curing my raging obsession with death and the nature of existence, but what I needed something to hang on to, he gave it to me. Sagan taught me that if nothing else, my job is to simply experience things ...
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You know that thing where the coach or mentor repeats the same thing again and again, rarely acknowledges variations, never changes or broadens that message, and works to “scale” that simple message for a large number of clients? Or you know that thing where the coach or mentor can’t really help then declares that you’re just not doing it right, you’re not fully committed, or that you’re not capable of following their “proven” methods? How about the thing where the coach or mentor suddenly realizes that they are in over their heads and abruptly stops whatever form of help they thought they were providing you? ...
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What happens if I decide that my lived experience and the fact that I read Claire Weekes means that I can go from social media psychoeducator to one-one-one or group recovery coach?
I’ll tell you what happens. I run a very high risk of treating you, guiding you, and advising you, as if you are just like me. That’s just a function of how humans work. It doesn’t make me a bad person. It just makes me untrained and inexperienced when it comes to providing actual face-to-face guidance or treatment. If I do not spend ten plus years actually listening to the experiences of others and interacting with them, then spend another 3+ years being formally trained and supervised by experienced clinicians, I run the risk of misapplying my experience, missing details that matter, ignoring complexity and nuance, and causing harm even when I have the best of intentions ...
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The misconception or misinterpretation that occupies the top slot on the list of things that make my crazy is that thing where someone tells me that this all boils down to, “just do it.”
No. That’s not what it boils down to. This is not a Nike commercial. Nothing in life, including running or whatever else Nike thinks you do better in their shoes, ever gets that simple. Recovery from an anxiety disorder is absolutely and certainly not ever “just do it.” ...
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Recovery is more than just exposure and trying to feel better. Last week on The Anxious Morning we talked about the common “recovery identity crisis” issue. That thing where we’re not really sure who we are if we’re not anxious people. That can be part of the recovery process, and part of addressing that identity crisis is to literally just try new things, sometimes at random and just for the sake of trying them ...
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Are anxiety and excitement related? Are they the same thing? I’m going to point at some research that you might find interesting because it indicates that anxiety - at least anticipatory anxiety - and excitement may very well look so much alike that two people in the same state can choose which of the labels they attach to it. This creates very different results when performance is measured on anxiety-triggering tasks.
This thing that we’re sure is so horrible and dangerous is also nearly indistinguishable from what we feel in some of the happiest moments life has to offer. That has to hold at least some value in this thing we do together.
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Everyone wants to get better right now. I totally get that. Of course we’re going to want to rid ourselves of this scourge as quickly as possible. Human nature is what it is. This is not a crime. You’re allowed to want a better life.
We talk about courage all the time in this thing. It’s a vital part of the process, especially in the beginning of the journey. You need the most courage at the start, when you have to first face your fear and get that ball rolling in the right direction. That stinks, but that’s how this works. Patience is another thing that we really need in the recovery process, but we often don’t talk about it enough.
If courage gets the ball rolling, then patience keeps it rolling. We need courage the most at the start of the process. We need patience most when we get into the dog days of recovery in the middle of the process and toward the end. Unfortunately, this is kinda ass backwards with respect to how humans generally work. We’re most willing to be courageous when we have “proof” that things will be OK. We’re most willing to be patient before we actually understand how much patience will be required of us. It’s really quite annoying when you look at it this way.
If you have been courageous and you’ve gotten that ball rolling forward, well done! If you’re doing things that you used to avoid, making your world larger again, and breaking free little by little from the chains anxiety placed around your ankles, that is amazing. You got the first part of this equation nailed and you’re on your way. Do not lose sight of the what you’re doing and what you’re accomplishing. I know you’re not necessarily feeling great yet, but that isn’t the immediate goal. You’re changing what you have to change now so you’ll feel better later. That’s the name of this game.
At some point you are going to be confronted with another symptom, or another scary thought, or another challenge that you think should not be a challenge. This is when it might feel like you’re working like a dog but getting nowhere. You’ll be tempted to throw your hands up and declare that you’re starting over because you’re frustrated and maybe a little angry and discouraged. This is where courage alone is not enough. When you hit this point, you are now entering the patience zone. Nobody wants to be in the patience zone, but we all travel through it to get to where we want to go.
Stop. Take a few breaths. Make a little space between your emotional reaction and the next thing you do. It’s OK to get frustrated and annoyed. You can’t really stop that from happening because you are human and you REALLY want to get better. Just don’t grab onto that feeling and let it drag you up and down the block. Be nice to yourself. Feeling things and thinking things is NOT going backward. The direction of travel is defined by what you do, not by what you think and feel. This is a crucial concept, but if you are impatient, you will often gloss over that and fall in the “setback” trap.
When you want to rant about how this isn’t working, and you want to totally throw away all the progress you’ve clearly made, remember that patience is also part of the recovery puzzle. It’s not easy, but you have to find a way to be nice to yourself, which means being patient with yourself. How long will this take? As long as it takes. Nobody knows. But I can tell you that if you are going to reject the idea that you must be patient, it will likely take longer than it needs to. Another one of those silly secret-code paradox things you hear me dropping all the time, right?
Yes, courage. But not just courage. You can’t just run this over. Also, patience. You must be patient, often in the moments where you are least interested in being patient. You might think that you can’t be patient, but remember that at one time you also thought that you could not be courageous, yet here you are.
Do you struggle with being patient with your recovery? Feel free to use the comments section on Substack to talk about it.
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When push comes to shove, recovery usually goes out quietly, through the back door, in the middle of the night. It ends not with a flourish and a blast of trumpets as you re-enter the city and are greeted by the adoring masses, but with a barely a sound at all and nobody really noticing—including you ...
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Let’s look at two statements that might describe someone’s recovery situation at any given time.
“I’m engaging in living my life and doing what I want to do while I’m anxious.”
“I’m engaging in living my life and doing what I want to do but I’m anxious.”
At first look, they seem pretty similar. In fact, they are mathematically 94% similar. Only one word in 16 is different. Can you see the different word?
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Many members of this community that struggle with panic attacks at some point start to worry that they may have some other problem. This worry often pops up when you’re not experiencing panic all that often any longer, but are still worried all day long about how you feel. You don’t panic, but you also just feel anxious all the time, you don’t know why, and you are definitely focused on it and concerned about what it might mean ...
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Who am I without anxiety?
This is a question that surprised me when I first started hearing it. Today I want to focus a bit more on the identify crisis that sometimes confronts people during the recovery process...
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One of the most common questions I get is “what are some good exposures for OCD?”
The fact of the matter is that two people could very much resonate with a term like relationship OCD, yet have completely different triggers, rituals, obsessions, and therefore, completely different sets of exposures, different styles of response prevention that will be needed, and therefore, a different treatment plan...
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Today we’re going to talk about another common cognitive distortion that runs rampant among people dealing with anxiety and anxiety disorders. This one is called “personalization”.
Personalization is the distortion that drives you to assume that somehow most things are either your fault, caused by you, or about you in some way. That might sound like being self-centered, but that’s a different thing. When we’re dealing with the distortion of personalization, we’re generally talking about negative or self-deprecating thinking ...
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Fear - especially fear that comes with disordered anxiety - wants ALL the attention. All of it. All the time. Sometimes that looks mean, rude, and selfish.
In many ways, the recovery process is all about unmasking this tendency, then learning how to starve anxious fear of its need for constant attention. ...
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If you are reading this, there is at least some chance that you are hoping that I will give you tips, techniques, and a program to follow to feel better or recover from your anxiety issues. I get it. I’d want that too.
So do I provide those things? Yes. And no ...
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Let’s talk about how to build a house.
There is no program or special technique for driving a nail, but driving is a nail is certainly part of a program for building a house. It’s the scale. The scale that you’re working at matters.
How does this relate to anxiety and recovery? Well, scale matters there too. Just like you might be frustrated when trying to drive a nail, you might be frustrated by the smallest moments in recovery and hoping for additional instruction that you can use in those moments ...
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The back door spike is what we call it you start to worry that you’re not “anxious enough” about your intrusive or unwanted thoughts ...
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Isn’t self care meditation and tea and quiet music in the early morning light? Isn’t it gentle and calm and soothing?
Evidently, not always.
It’s 5:40 AM on a Thursday morning in mid October, 2022 ...
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Why am I ranting a bit this morning about something I’ve already ranted about quite a few times? If you are getting frustrated because you’ve been trying to “accept” and “cope” at the same time so that things don’t hit the “too much” level, you are likely seeing very slow or no progress. You may see progress for a few days then feel like its instantly shattered when all that coping doesn’t work. I’m ranting because I hate to see people calling themselves broken or incapable because they’re making technical errors.
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When it comes to recovery, be a generalist, not a specialist. Don’t focus on learning to drive while anxious. Focus on learning how to get better at being anxious whenever that pops up. Take the context out of the equation and stop at the first part of the question. That’s the part that leads us out of the woods!
“How do you handle anxiety …. Anywhere?”
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Things change. Our perceptions change. Our motivations change. Contexts change. Our reactions and our internal experiences change from hour to hour and day to day. This is how things work.
Everybody is different. Everything is different. All. The. Time.
Why does this matter in the context of anxiety recovery? ...
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Every once in a while someone will ask me how I can be around anxious people all the time, talking and writing about anxiety all the time, and going back to school to become a therapist, without becoming anxious myself. It’s an interesting question, and a really good question, so let me answer it here this morning.
The short answer is no. This does not in any way make me anxious. But let me qualify that.
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“My problem is that I’m am empath.”
Another one of those statements that I’ve heard again and again over the years. Let’s talk about the idea that other people’s anxiety and emotions must automatically impact yours or that you have no choice but to be anxious because other people around you feel things or show things.
Let me propose another definition of what being empathic means.
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Doing hard things is … well … hard. There are a few things that can make this even harder than it already is. One of those things is low self-esteem or a negative self-image ...
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We’re going to get a little meta today on The Anxious Morning. Consider this edition of the newsletter a bit of a basic instruction manual on how to use the material that I - and others that sound like me - produce on a daily basis.
Let me start by acknowledging that when you are afraid, confused, and lost, it’s totally understandable that you will be desperate to get immediate answers that address the things you care most about RIGHT NOW. You are suffering in a moment, so you want to address the specifics of that moment right away. Who has time to read books, go through old newsletter editions, or listen to podcasts? You just want instructions on how to feel better right now.
I get this. If you find yourself in this state, you are not doing anything wrong. You’re just doing what frightened people do. It’s OK.
That being said, trying to address immediate fear hour-by-hour or day-by-day is not really a great plan. Unfortunately, none of the recovery process is about feeling better. It’s definitely not about feeling better on demand or immediately.
Continually trying to feel better and squash fears and symptoms as they happen is not really recovery. That’s management, and I’m never here to teach anyone how to just manage anxiety.
Recovery is about learning to BE better. Better at experiencing the full range of human experiences including fear or big emotions. Better at finding and displaying courage, resolve, and commitment. Better at believing in yourself and your ability to be OK even in the face of discomfort or adversity.
Recovery isn’t about feeling better. Recovery is about getting better at feeling.
Now that I’ve tossed out a few quote-worthy lines, what does this all mean? Well it means that if you really want to make progress and move beyond just trying to manage your anxiety and your fear, you have to start thinking long term. You have to start focusing on the actual goals of recovery rather than just trying to frantically fix things on the fly as they happen.
This means taking time to actually learn what’s going on. Understanding this new approach to anxiety and fear. Getting familiar with the concepts of recovery and the principles that form common threads that we see across all fears, contexts and challenges. This means taking the time to learn and understand that driving anxiety and heart anxiety are the same thing. Does that last line sound ridiculous to you? If it does, then you’re going to want to start to take some time to read, listen, and learn rather than just asking questions based on what you’re worried about in any given moment.
There are, as of this writing, over 225 episodes of The Anxious Truth Podcast. There are now 180 editions of The Anxious Morning newsletter and podcast. There are three books that I’ve written on this topic. More than 600 pages of information. I’ve covered the basics of just about every recovery concept, and I’ve done it in multiple formats and probably multiple times over the last however many years.
Is this a lot of information to go through? It sure is. Will it take time and effort to go through it and digest it? It will. But just like going to therapy is a good use of your time and energy, so is actually taking advantage of all the psychoeducational material that’s already sitting there, answering the questions you have and laying things out for you. I know you don’t want to go listen to old podcast episodes or read books. You want tips on “how to deal with” right now. But the way to “deal” is all laid out for you in most of the material that already exists. It’s just not the way you were hoping for.
I think I can speak for a few of my friends here too. You know the cast of characters that I regularly collaborate with. Josh Fletcher. Kim Quinlan. Lauren Rosen. Joanna Hardis. Jenna Overbaugh. If you add up all the material we’ve produced it would probably reach halfway to the moon. Go use it. Take advantage. Not all of it is free, but I think it’s safe to say that at least 90% of it is.
“But that’s a lot of reading and listening, Drew. Can’t you just give me tips for how to handle feeling like I can’t breathe?”
I already did. Probably ten different ways. And the information I’ve already produced usually goes well beyond just your current concern. It ties it into those over-arching principles and concepts that guide the long term recovery process.
I’ve written and spoken before about being an active participant in your recovery. This is one way you can do that. Take the time. Accept that you have to start to look at the long game, not just minute-by-minute management. Then get to work. Read. Listen. Digest. Think. Then, by all means, ask questions about what you’ve read, heard, or watched. I’m happy to answer them if at all possible.
That will take some time and effort on your part. But I’ve put in quite a bit of time and effort on my end because I think you are worth it.
Don’t you think that too?
“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go.” - Dr. Seuss
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
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“Recovery.” The word implies restoration to a former state. But what if you have no recollection of a time when anxiety wasn’t your constant, familiar companion? Without a reference point, is recovery possible?
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Sometimes we hear the term self-parenting talked about in the context of recovery. I wanted to take this morning to give you an example of where I think it is perfectly applied, and an example of how I think it can often be misinterpreted in our context.
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Sometimes we are faced with two hard choices. No matter what which we pick, we will be challenged. Recognize that you have made at least a part-time job out of never being challenged, so your fear will magnify this situation and make it into the worst possible thing that can happen to you. Distortion. It’s a thing.
When forced to “pick your hard”, ask yourself which of the two hard things is better in terms of moving forward toward the goal of recovery? When possible, pick that one, but do not forget that it WILL be a challenge. Expect that ...
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Here we are at the end of September, so it’s time for another guest post on The Anxious Morning. Today we have some words of wisdom from my friend and collaborator Joanna Hardis. Joanna is a therapist specializing in treating anxiety orders, and she’s pretty awesome. Let’s hear what she has to say on the subject of tolerating distress and discomfort.
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Over the last two months or so I had the pleasure of watching one of our friends take on a big recovery challenge and life event, then execute an almost textbook plan for how to expand their comfort zone to meet that challenge. It was really amazing.
This person saw where they were, saw where they needed to get, then mapped out all the steps needed to bridge that gap. It was pretty impressive. But a plan, even a detailed plan, is worthless if it isn’t executed.
The biggest key to our friend’s success over these couple of months leading to this big event was being consistent. Doing exposures every day. Knowing that in order to hit the goal, each of the steps along the way had to be hit and practiced, even on crappy days where this person did not feel so great and especially immediately after the “hard days”. The days that come after “hard days” are pivot points and milestone days in recovery. We often have no idea at the time, but those are the days that teach us the most valuable lessons.
Let me be clear. This person did not power through things like illness or extreme fatigue. This was not an exercise in being “hardcore” or driving themselves into the ground to prove something. There was rest when needed. I believe there were a few days off due to some medical/physical issues. That’s totally OK. It happens. We are allowed to be human.
But in the end our friend did not give in to the strong desire to retreat and do things like taking “self care days” that were really just reasons to back away from scary things. Our friend kept going, kept their eyes on each little goal along the way, and slowly and consistently checked all the boxes they had on their list. Hell, I even saw this person do some pretty big exposures, then declare they they wanted to not only repeat them but expand on them because, “Just getting there isn’t enough. I have to stay there.”
I also watched this person smash two other pretty big goals as SECONDARY things while working on the the main thing.
Brilliant.
Today we’re talking about being consistent and doing the work every day. And where did this wind up for our friend? It wound up with feelings of pride, happiness, and a sense of accomplishment that were able exist and actually shine through even when still feeling anxious. It wound up with an increased sense of competence and a bolstered feeling of confidence. Consistency helped to teach the lessons we talk about all the time in these parts. Consistency was really the glue that held it all together and turned a plan into an actual success.
Rest when tired. Take care of yourself when you need to. But also don’t run, don’t retreat, and do the work consistently without treating yourself as fragile by default. You will learn things this way. What will you learn? I’ll let our friend tell you.
“I think the one thing that’s changed in the last four weeks is my belief that I can cope with the symptoms and that they won’t harm me is growing a lot as traveling further is becoming slightly easier.”
Well will you look at that. Exactly as designed, through consistency.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
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I can not tell you how many times people ask me for instructions on how to do the right thing when they panic so that they can “calm down”.
Here is a thing that you need to hear even if you don’t want to hear it.
Stop trying to damn hard to calm down. You’re making things worse.
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... Yet this morning, at the end of an insanely busy, exhausting, stressful week, I sat and cried for a few minutes and it was a good thing. It was a natural release of things that needed to be released. It was OK ...
Music Credit
Cavalleria rusticana: Intemezzo sinfonico
Performed by: Herbert von Karajan, Orchestra De Teatro Alla Scala, Milano, Pietro Mascagni
Written by: Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti, Guido Menasci, Pietro Mascagni
Produced by: Hand Weber
Source: Deutche Grammophon (DG)
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Months back I promised that I would circle back and cover common cognitive distortions from time to time on The Anxious Morning. Today we’re going to look at one of my favorite cognitive distortions. Emotional reasoning.
Emotional reasoning is what we call it when you use your emotional state to judge or evaluate yourself or the world around you.
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“I understand that anxiety can’t hurt me but I wish I could get my brain to believe that.”
If I had a nickel for every time I heard someone say that, I’d have a lot of nickels. Here’s the thing about believing things that don’t make sense. You rarely if ever believe them until you act as if you do believe them.
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Yoga. Yes, it’s a thing. So is Tai Chi. So are hiking, taking walks, lifting weights, running, swimming, dancing, stretching, and massage. All things. Good things!
Are they good for anxiety? Are they good for recovery? The answer to that is … they absolutely can be, but these are not magic activities.
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Last week we talked about the fact that you can’t just decide to not care about your anxiety and how it feels. Today I want to touch on a related idea. The idea of ignoring your anxiety. I think many people are misinterpreting this, so let’s spend a few minutes in an attempt to get some clarity here.
I really don’t like using the word ignore when it comes to anxiety, but many people are hearing that anyway, so let’s examine it.
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Everyone is allowed to get help where they think they can get it. I’m not here to tell you who to talk to or not talk to, and I’m not here to call out specific people. But we should be well informed when we make our choices, so let’s get well informed, shall we?
This morning I will start a series where I compare therapists and coaches along several dimensions. We’ll start with education.
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This is a question I get all the time.
“I KNOW I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO CARE ABOUT THIS, BUT HOW CAN I NOT CARE ABOUT IT WHEN IT FEELS SO POWERFUL AND STRONG????”
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Today I want to talk about the things I DON’T do when anxious. These are things I used to do as a matter of course, but have left behind in recovery. They are no longer necessary for me because recovery taught me that they were never necessary.
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I have experienced both disordered and non-disordered anxiety in my life. If you are reading this, there’s a really good chance that you have too. But if you’re reading this there’s also a good chance that you currently experiencing disordered anxiety and therefore may have lost touch with what “regular anxiety” feels and looks like. No problem. I got you covered.
As a non-disordered person I am most interested in anxiety as a symptom rather than the symptoms of anxiety.
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I am growing weary of social media. I am growing weary of the mental health “community” on social media. I am growing weary of algorithms that have ZERO interest in this topic and could not care less about teaching, privacy, safety, or actual support and empowerment...
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Carl Rogers, one of the most influential and important psychologists in history, was correct. Living really is an awfully risky proposition. It’s risky on many fronts.
How much time and energy do you spend trying to avoid risk, mitigate it, or protect yourself from it? How much of your approach to both anxiety and life are based on trying to deny or fend off the risky nature of living through thinking, thinking, retreating, and more thinking? How hard are you working to control things in an effort to know, predict, and therefore minimize or eliminate risk?
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Believe it or not, many anxious people find themselves wanting to get better, but afraid to get better.
Why is this?
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If anyone had told me how much time I’d be spending fielding questions about coffee and alcohol, I would have thought them to be completely insane. Yet here I am, talking about coffee and alcohol. Who knew this was going to be a thing? I’m joking a bit. I certainly don’t mind talking about it. We’ve never covered this topic on The Anxious Morning so let’s do that now.
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Last winter I started a project that involves relating the Tao Te Ching to the topic of anxiety and recovery. It’ll be a book at some point. This is my analysis of verse 1, and how it relates to the issues we’re addressing together. Welcome to a sneak peak of The Tao of Anxiety …
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Next time anxiety drags you around through what it insists is an immediate disaster and only wants to know “What have you done for me lately?”, whip out your success journal and whack your lizard brain over the head with it. Then give it the finger and be reminded of the fact that you CAN.
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Have you seen the hubbub and debate surrounding the serotonin and depression study out of University College of London? I want to talk about it because it’s important ...
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I want to take the opportunity to talk about the concept of self-forgiveness and giving oneself grace. I think we may be laboring under the assumption that these things are supposed to look a certain way. But really, they can look many different ways ...
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Was Roger Waters writing about agoraphobia?
He was not, but when you look at the first verse of Pink Floyd’s “Time”, you can almost imagine that he was. The lyrics are strangely familiar for anyone that’s spent any time stuck in a safe place hoping for something to break the spell of agoraphobia. Often the days can feel wasted and a sense of hopelessness and despair can kick in. I will never forget the feeling of trying to stay busy, making projects that I could do inside my bubble, and sometimes just trying to kill time while knowing that I was missing chunks of my life as time passed ...
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Sadly, some of our friends in the community are trying to recover while also being stuck in abusive relationships. That abuse can take different forms. It may be physical, but not always. Emotional, mental, spiritual, and even financial abuse are also real things. If you are in a situation like this, I see you, and I understand how difficult it is and how it is making your recovery situation even more challenging.
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We all know "trauma informed", but I would like to propose that we need a companion concept here.
Anxiety Disorder Informed.
That also needs to be a thing.
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I just noticed that I’ve only done one Q&A edition of The Anxious Morning, so I asked the fine people in my Facebook group to submit questions, so here are some answers that I hope you will find helpful. I think we’ll make this a monthly feature on The Anxious Morning!
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Sometimes I can share parts of my anxiety and recovery experience in the hope that I might help you to avoid some of the mistakes that I made.
This is one of those times. This is a story of regret and, hopefully a lesson to be learned.
Apologies that this one is a bit longer than usual, and a bit more emotional. That might happen sometimes.
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In the northern hemisphere it’s that time of year where summer vacations are drawing to a close and kids are going back to school. Lately I am hearing more references to rising anxiety centered around this event. Do you experience back-to-school anxiety?
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I’ve probably said a thousand times that we do not recover with words or thoughts. This remains true. But old school “cognitive reframing” does have some use when we can allow it to inform new actions and new behaviors. So as tribute to the gods of cognitive reframing, here are five cheeky sounding - but actually serious - questions to ask yourself about your anxiety.
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When I started my Masters program earlier this year I told you guys that once in a while I’d update you and fill you in on how it’s going, what I’ve been learning, and all that jazz. My grad program is ten weeks on / one week off for two years straight. This week is one of those off weeks so it seemed a good time for a quick update.
There are people that have found legitimate medical issues that have been contributing factors in creating the physiological sensations of anxiety. This is totally true. I started the very first episode of The Anxious Truth podcast by stating that anxiety is physical. Those were literally the first words I spoke into a microphone. For someone that has been dealing with a real physical issue that has exacerbated the anxiety problem, that experience is both real and valid at all times.
No argument there.
However, in this community, where you are often in a room full of anxious people that don’t have the ability to think rationally about certain fears - especially health fears and health dangers - suggesting that someone get checked for a specific disease or condition can be quite harmful. I know you are only trying to help. You are thinking that sharing your experience might save someone else from having that same experience. It’s a noble purpose and I can appreciate it. But it’s still a bad idea for various reasons.
We have to start with acknowledging that in the online anxiety community we really do not know each other all that well. We can’t know what a person is struggling with. We do not know their health situation or medical history. We have no idea which healthcare providers they are involved with, or if they are involved with healthcare providers at all. We don’t know what they’ve been evaluated for or treated for.
Then we to move to the assertion that each of us is responsible for our own health and for advocating for ourselves when it comes to health. I have to assume that if you are reading, you have been checked and given a clean bill of health by the medical professionals of your choice. I have to assume that you are here because those professionals keep telling you that there is nothing wrong with you even when your brain is insisting that there most certainly is.
Since we don’t know each other, and since we have to assume that each person is responsible for their own health and health care, we are left with a small potential upside and a HUGE potential downside when we roll into a conversation and suggest that a person afraid of their own thoughts should be checked for mold disease, thyroid problems, vitamin deficiencies, or some other impairment or toxicity. That downside is sending someone who has already been tested 1000 times into an anxious spiral of worry and rumination that they’ve been working hard to stay out of.
Planting suggestions about diseases is essentially forcing someone into an exposure they have not planned and have not asked you to force them into.
Is there a chance you may help someone? There is. But if we do a little guestimating based on our assertions about unfamiliarity and personal healthcare responsibility, I don’t think it’s out of line to say that we likely have maybe a 15% chance of helping, and an 85% chance of harming. Would you go to Vegas on those odds? I bet you wouldn’t.
So even with the best of intentions, things can go seriously wrong and we have to remain aware of this and choose our words carefully.
One more thing before I wrap this one up. I know sometimes people get really angry when I say this or when we stop those conversations in my Facebook group. I realize that you may have had a legitimate, impactful experience with a real health issue that made things worse for you from an anxiety standpoint. But consider that you do not have to suggest that experience to others in order for it to be valid. When that suggestion can be harmful to that someone else, consider that discouraging that suggestion is not about you at all. It’s about them.
At some point we have to have the same discussion about trauma, but that’s for another day.
Mini-rant over. See you on Monday.
“After obsessively Googling symptoms for four hours, I discovered 'obsessively Googling symptoms' is a symptom of hypochondria.” - Stephen Colbert
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
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One of the more heartbreaking questions I get asked all the time will come from someone that has been in total avoidance and retreat mode for an extended period of time. Often the person is totally housebound, unable to leave their safe zone for more than a very short period of time or can’t go very far from home. Sometimes the person asking has been engineering life for years so that they are rarely if ever alone because they are terrified of that.
Then life happens. A partner takes a new job out of the home or an hour across town. Maybe there’s a vacation coming up, or a family function like a wedding. Maybe there are medical or dental issues that must be taken care of. For whatever reason, life comes stomping through the avoidance zone and is about to drag this person outside the safety bubble they’ve been living in for quite some time.
The question is almost always the same.
“Any tips or advice for how to handle this?”
This is a heartbreaking question because while I could answer with some kind of platitude about being a warrior, the fact of the matter is that this is a very challenging situation that will be difficult, and there are no real “tips” that are going to change that. When you’ve been in retreat mode for months or even longer, being forcibly dragged out of the bubble is never easy. There’s nothing I can say to change that four days before said dragging. This is where avoidance comes back to bite us in the rear. It’s not if it will happen. The question is when. We have ALL been in this position and many still are.
So the best tip I can offer for how to handle this type of situation is to start interrupting your avoidance TODAY. Before you are forced to face your fear against your will and on someone else’s terms. Because unless you can have a miraculous change of attitude almost overnight, that will not be a productive experience. You’ll still be OK. You’ll still handle it. But there won’t be many lessons to learn from it and the odds are high that you will react by burrowing back into your bubble immediately afterward to “recover”, and will be tempted to stay there until the next event forces you out.
When you go willingly toward the things you fear and accept that you are doing it to learn and to uncover your own competence and ability, those experiences become more productive. They become helpful. Not pleasant. Not easy. But still positive in nature because they are rooted in purpose with clear intentions. You are operating on your own terms, so even when anxiety threatens to wash you out, you have a better chance of recognizing it for what it is, standing your ground, and learning a lesson as a result.
But this takes time and repetition and commitment. You can’t do this in five days before the wedding you’ve been dreading for months. Start today. Start intentionally interrupting your avoidance, even when you’re sure you’re “not ready” to do that. Start moving toward that fear you’ve been running from for so long. Surf through it on YOUR schedule with some measure of agency and influence in place. It’s a far better and more worthwhile use of your time and energy than waiting for the inevitable, then hoping for some miracle to get you through it when it arrives.
I know, always the same message. But sometimes I repeat the message because the questions are so often repeated. I’m just doing my best to help you not be that person in that situation, because it doesn’t have to be that way.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Take a moment to think about what you’re most afraid of today. Maybe you’re stuck on heart-focused fear. Or maybe it’s your breath. Maybe you’re worried about having a psychotic break, passing out, or the thought that you might not love your partner. Maybe you are struggling with existential thoughts or the sensation of nausea.
There are more expressions of anxious, disordered, irrational fear than I can possibly list here. Panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, health anxiety, and other anxiety disorders can be REALLY creative. Much more than that, they can also be quite shifty and elusive. Often, fears will morph, change, and evolve over time.
So while you may be afraid of one thing today and certain that it is the scariest thing ever, was there a time when you were saying the same thing about another thing? In my experience I was afraid of blood clots, being poisoned, accidentally committing suicide, dying alone at an old age, a heart attack, a stroke, slipping away from reality, and somehow harming my kids if I had to be alone with them. Some of these co-existed, but they all came and went over time. One fear would flare up, then another would take its place weeks later. There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. It was confusing, and VERY frustrating!
The point is that once we notice this, we have a clue that we can leverage in our recovery. We know that we do not recover by thinking alone. We can’t just decide to change our mindset and feel better. But knowing, seeing, and understanding does inform ACTION - the key to recovery. When we can see that our fears change over time, we can see that the thing we are afraid of today is no different than the thing we were afraid of two months ago. Then we can ACT accordingly.
When you are sure that needing to find a toilet is the worst, scariest problem in the known universe, you can look back and remember when you were sure that not getting enough air occupied the same position. What does this tell you? Is it the content of the current fear that really matters? Is it really as important as you are sure that it is? How can so many disasters all be equally probable and worthy of evasive action one after the other?
If I told you that I am an absolute die hard New York Rangers fan, but you know that you saw me rooting for the New York Islanders just a few months back, you would have reason to question my love of the Rangers. “Does he really like the Rangers, or is that just the hockey flavor of the month for him?” That would be a fair question!
So, when you find that your fear is morphing, shifting, and changing, take a few steps back and consider that maybe it’s not the most dangerous thing in the world. Maybe it’s just the fear flavor of the month for you. Once you can grasp this and act accordingly, the game really does change. Learning to navigate through today’s fear using basic principles means you can do the same with tomorrow’s fear without returning to “square one”.
If you’re wanting to do the hard things to get better, but you just can’t bring yourself to do it, the ability to tolerate fear and discomfort - distress tolerance - might be the missing puzzle piece for you. Have you checked out the webinar I’m doing with Joanna Hardis on this topic?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Not everyone is afraid that they will have a heart attack, die, pass out, or have a psychotic break when anxious or experiencing panic. These are common imagined outcomes that drive the fear of fear, but they are certainly not the only sources of this fear.
Some of our friends believe that the state of anxiety itself - without any secondary outcomes - is the bad thing. For these folks, feeling anxious or experiencing panic confirms their belief that they are broken, defective, damaged, unworthy, less than, weak, or incapable in some way. These beliefs can have emotional, moral, social, and even faith based components.
I know that there are people reading this right now that believe that they are anxious because they are not close enough to God, or that they are being punished for something they do not know they did. Others believe that being anxious makes them weak or damaged and that they will be punished or rejected simply for feeling the way they feel. These are real fears created by real life experiences and interactions with others.
In the end, the path to recovery still runs directly through fear and out the other side, but we are doing a disservice to some of our friends by boiling everything down to “Did you die?”.
I know I have been guilty of this in the past. As I continue to learn, get exposed to so many personal stories, and have varied experiences as a mental health helper and therapist-in-training, my views broaden and my understanding gets a bit deeper. We change over time, right?
So I write this today because I know that we must recognize this fear when we see it. We have to talk about it. We have to validate it. We must understand that repeating the same recovery messages again and again to someone that is clearly experiencing this problem in a different way is not only un-helpful, but can be harmful, even accidentally.
Maybe this is a bit of an apology for missing this point in the past. Maybe I’m angry about seeing one-dimensional mental health “influencers” continue to pound away at the same round peg, trying to force it into a square hole by sheer will of a large following or lots of “likes”. I’m not totally sure what prompted today’s edition of The Anxious Morning, but I do want to say loudly and clearly that if you are frozen in fear because you believe that you are simply not allowed to ever be anxious or be afraid, I see you.
No, you do not die when afraid, but that’s not the point for you. I can tell you all day long that you did not have a heart attack or go insane, but for you, the bad thing DID happen. You showed your weakness. Your brokenness. Your failure. I know these can be powerful fear drivers so do not let me or anyone else minimize that.
In the end, you’ll arrive in the same place that others do having learned the same lessons, but you may take a varied path to get there. That’s OK. Remember that recovery is not just about proving that bad things don’t happen. I know it is happening to you. Recovery is about learning that you are capable of handling them now, even if you were told otherwise in the past.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“If I could just figure this out, I would be so much better.”
This is a thing I hear all the time. If you are reading this, there is a chance that you have been stuck in the “figuring out” loop at least once in the recent past. Maybe you’re stuck in it now. It’s very common.
Another variant comes in the form of statements like, “I’m the kind of person that just needs to know, then I’m better once I do.”
Some things in life can be known or figured out. This is true, and when you can know or can figure out, go for it. Humans made it to the top of the food chain at least in part based on our ability to figure stuff out when required. The magic here is in being able to recognize when we are confronted with things that either can’t be figured out, or don’t need to be figured out.
That’s usually where things go off the rails for folks like us.
It is entirely possible, and sadly quite common, for human beings to accidentally turn brain power into a weapon pointed directly at ourselves. This happens most often in our community when the need to figure things out becomes a major component in the drive to avoid fear and feel safe and certain about the world. In a state of disordered anxiety where uncomfortable and disturbing morph into disastrous and dangerous, this can really get out of control.
There is no logic behind insisting that your totally healthy heart is about to kill you. There is no clear reason for thinking that you should not be allowed around sharp objects because you might harm yourself or others against your will. I’ve written quite often about the fact that thoughts have no boundaries and no limits. They can make up whatever they want to make up. An anxious brain takes a twitch in your forearm and turns it into a frantic trip the hospital just because it thinks it should. There’s no factual basis for any of what happens in our brains, which is bad news when we stray into the realm of an anxiety disorder.
So when we insist that we “Feel better when we know”, but there’s nothing to actually know, we wind up stuck in a never ending cycle where we bring the power of our brains to bear on a problem that can’t be solved by thinking or asking. Frustrated and even more agitated and afraid, we ask more and think harder and harder, desperate to achieve some sense of security and relief through thinking and analysis. This can become a nasty self-perpetuating habit designed to make things better when in fact making them far worse.
So what can we do about this? We can come to grips with the fact that sometimes in life, figuring things out can be both impossible, and un-necessary. You may HATE this idea because you have pinned so much of your identity and sense of security to thinking and knowing. But at some point when figuring out isn’t working no matter how hard we try, we have to step back and at least consider that we are wrong about all that.
Only then can we start to take steps toward NOT figuring out. Leaving questions unanswered, or even un-asked to begin with. Not knowing. Not needing to know. This takes time and effort in the form of behavioral change. It’s not easy. But it remains almost impossible if we dig our heels in and try desperately to justify why all the thinking and figuring out is warranted.
You may not want to abandon your need to know. You may feel like it is irresponsible. You may see it as denying or invalidating who you are. But people change the way they see themselves every day. It’s a natural part of how we move through life, change, and grow. I’m not telling you to abandon who you are. I’m just suggesting that maybe being the person that figures things out isn’t who you need to be all the time.
The best thinking has been done in solitude. The worst done in turmoil. - Thomas Edison
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Today I have a little bit of bad news for you.
Accepting, surrendering, and tolerating are not things you can “almost” do. They are binary functions. Either on, or off. You either fully surrender, accept, and tolerate, or you are still hanging on to things that you think are saving you, but never really do.
Someone in the comments section on YouTube today noted that her therapist is fond of saying that she can turn her “acceptance knob” up to 9, but she never allows it to go all the way to 10, which she needs to do. I love this analogy.
I completely understand that you will likely start by turning the acceptance and surrender knob to level 2 or 3. That’s fine. Then you might go to level 5 or 6. When you’re feeling REALLY brave, you’ll go to level 9. But 9 isn’t 10. If we take the binary view, 9 still means OFF. You have to get to level 10 because only 10 is ON in this situation.
Why am I being so strict about this?
Because when you are still holding on and not fully letting go, you are still clinging to the mistaken idea that holding on is needed in order to be safe. If you continue to insist that you have to be safe from your own body and mind, then you will find yourself getting frustrated when “You’re doing the things but nothing is changing.” I know it sounds really cold when I tell you that 95% acceptance is not good enough, but I say that because that last 5% is going to make you think that you are incapable or more “broken” than people that get better. I am being harsh here because it is always heartbreaking to see people wind up blaming themselves and judging themselves so negatively for no reason.
If you are always wondering HOW to accept, tolerate, or surrender, check out the seminar I’m doing with Joanna Hardis on distress tolerance!
What does this look like in practice? We most often see it when people state that they have made progress in floating through or accepting certain situations, but can’t seem to do that in others. They will describe the “special” fears and challenges that are just too big for them to fully surrender to. They can’t seem to fully allow certain experiences, so they start to doubt themselves and ask for special tips and tricks to get them through. Does this sound familiar to you? Do you have situations, fears, and challenges that you just can’t bring yourself to “accept”?
This also kinda speaks to the “acceptable bubble” concept I talk about so often. That thing where you recover to the point where you’re not crippled, but your life is still somewhat small and full of restrictions because you can’t do the “big things”. If you find yourself stuck in an acceptable bubble, you are probably refusing to turn your acceptance knob all the way up to 10.
I did not want this to be true when I was going through recovery, but it was then, and it remains true now. Only FULL surrender, acceptance, tolerance, etc. get this job done all the way. That means allowing the surrender switch to flip to the ON position where there is nothing to hang on to or shield yourself with. It means cranking that knob all the way to level 10 even when you are sure that you should NEVER do that.
Embrace the binary nature of acceptance, surrender, and tolerance. It’s a scary concept, but it also holds the key to real lasting freedom. It removes the bonds of self doubt and negative self judgment that you may be struggling with. Fully letting go is the way out, even when we don’t want it to be.
That pesky leap of faith. It keeps popping up on us, doesn’t it?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Often when someone new comes into the community around my podcast and my books, they come burdened with failed recovery efforts. This is always heartbreaking. If you are reading this and thinking to yourself that you’ve already tried “everything” and nothing worked for you, I see you. When you’ve thrown every trick you can find at your anxiety and none result in meaningful or lasting change, it can be too easy to reach the conclusion that nothing will work for you and that you are doomed to a life of fear and restriction.
This conclusion is often accompanied by a negative narrative about oneself and about how special your anxiety must be or how you are weaker or less capable than people that recover. To add insult to injury, seeing yourself this way can make recovery even more challenging than it already is, so in some ways the belief that nothing will work for you or that you are incapable of recovering can fuel a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy cycle in some cases. As if you need any more obstacles in your way, right?
But before you decide that you are specially broken or worse off than anyone else, ask yourself one question.
“Did any of those things I’ve tried have any chance of ever working to begin with?”
This is the part where I might spontaneously burst into a rant about horrible anxiety “cures” and counterproductive coping strategies, but I won’t. If you don’t know where I stand on those things, you’re gonna want get more familiar with the content I create. I’ll just say that no amount of probiotics or lavender oil will ever “cure” panic disorder or OCD. Not ever. Since you’re subscribed to the Anxious Morning, I will assume you understand why I say this and that you have come to accept this fact for the most part.
That being the case, throwing chamomile tea and healing crystals at the fear of your own heartbeat is like trying to fix a leaky pipe with a basketball. You might love basketball. It might make you happy. But no matter what you do, you cannot fix a leaky pipe with a big orange ball. Does that mean there is something wrong with the pipe that’s leaking? Is it more broken than other leaky pipes or beyond hope because you couldn’t stop the leak with a basketball?
See where this is headed? When you hang your hat on the notion that “Nothing works for me!”, take a few steps back, take a breath, then ask yourself if any of those things were ever going to work. I know you wanted them to work. I know the people that told you to try them insisted that they would work. But while you read this, there are about 6000 other people also reading this that share your experience. Those things did not “work” for them either. They were never going to work.
Give yourself a break. Just because the programs and cures and fixes and coping plans didn’t fix you does not mean you were ever broken to begin with. You are OK. You’re not strange. You’re not weird. You’re not worse. You’re not beyond hope. You just have to put down the basketball and pick up the pipe wrench, even if that wrench isn’t much fun to use.
And for the record, there’s inherently evil about a basketball. You just have to use it in the right context, for the right purpose, and with with the right expectations.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Once upon a time, when I would feel my anxiety levels rising toward panic I would assume that my blood sugar was crashing to a dangerous level. I cannot tell you how much “emergency” orange juice I drank in those days and I absolutely HATE orange juice. Always have. Drank it anyway because did I mention EMERGENCY?
It got to the point where I was borderline obsessed with making sure I did not let my blood sugar get too low. It seemed like common sense. Keep eating to prevent those horrible sensations from happening! After doing this for some time, I was getting really good at managing my blood sugar … in my head. In reality, I had no clue what by blood sugar level was because I never actually tested that. Didn’t matter. I was totally sure that I was a blood glucose expert and that my constant grazing was warranted and effective. Thanks, anxious brain!
At one point I decided to up my game, so I purchased a blood glucose test kit. My intent was to take this to the next level and really get “protected” against those dreaded blood sugar drops.
The next day at work, we ran up against a pretty big meltdown on the network, which means I was focused and busy from the minute I walked in until early afternoon. That meant … no food. OMG. No food from like 7 AM to 1 PM? As soon as I realized how long I had gone with out eating, I immediately started to panic, which I interpreted as “blood sugar crash”! I grabbed my trusty kit and stabbed my finger to see how bad it was while I had a banana, a granola bar, and an apple juice ready to go on my desk.
My level was 96 mg/DL. If you are not aware, this is perfectly NORMAL. I tested again immediately. Same number. 96. I was in the middle of a massive blood sugar crash (in my head) but my blood sugar level was dead on perfect at 96.
Here’s where we get to the lesson. This test result ASSURED me that I was not headed into some kind of hypoglycemic crisis. I knew enough about panic and anxiety to see immediately where my error had been for months. Staring me I the face was a desk full of food and two nasty used test strips that told me that I didn’t need the food to be safe. ASSURANCE. What a wonderful tool!
Except it didn’t end there. My anxious brain told me to discard those tests because clearly the strips were bad. I went and got more strips and continued to test myself in a borderline obsessive manner for another 6 weeks or so. Always normal. Always. My body was clearly performing as designed when it came to keeping my blood glucose levels where they belonged, but I would not believe it. I was still sure that I was crashing and needed to be protected medically. I’d see a number around 95 or 96 and I’d feel much better. For maybe two hours or so. Then I was on guard again. Can you see what this was?
I was seeking REASSURANCE. Repeated assurance. I refused to make good use of the initial helpful healthy assurance and instead got myself stuck in a cycle where I would get anxious about my blood sugar level, test it, get relief from my anxiety, then repeat again and again and again. I was a perfectly healthy person frantically and compulsively protecting myself against a medical problem that did not exist, and the more I tested, the more I wanted to test.
THIS is why we talk so much about reassurance seeking and why it is a problem. I had my ASSURANCE with that first test, but I threw it away and continued to seek REASSURANCE for another 6 weeks or so until my doctor read me the riot act and I finally threw the monitor away.
That was not easy to do at all. The first week or so without my protective test kit was really scary. I even went back to get another kit, but thankfully I was able to just sit in the car for 10 minutes and didn’t actually go in to buy it. After a while, and lots of really scary moments where I was sure I was going to pass out or die in a horrible blood glucose tragedy, it started to get easier to not check. It took maybe six weeks to finally leave my blood sugar theories behind, but that effort was well worth it.
ASSURANCE is fine. We all need it. It’s part of how we learn and form cognitive models that govern our behaviors. There’s no crime in asking questions and seeking assurance. Just remember the story of my test kit and chasing a problem that didn’t exist when you feel like you want to keep asking those questions again and again. No good will come of that. Trust me. I know.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
It’s the end of July already, so it’s time for a guest writer on The Anxious Morning. Today we’ll hear from someone actively engaged in the recovery process. Lindsey is doing the work right now. She’s struggling through challenges and doing her best to surf through hard days to learn the lessons she needs to learn. She’s gaining ground and making good progress. When she told me about this little lesson she learned from an old Fleetwood Mac song, I asked if she would be willing to share this bit of wisdom and insight on The Anxious Morning. I’m so happy she agreed to do it!
How can Stevie Nicks, one of the greatest singers and songwriters of our time help you with your anxiety? Just hear me out. I recently took a writing course that focused on songwriters. While studying Stevie Nicks, one story in particular about the song, “Landslide,” stopped me in my tracks.
If you haven’t listened to the song, you should do that now. And if you are familiar with it, you, like most people, probably assumed it was about love – love with a man, love with a woman, love with a parent, love with a child – love with someone. What if I told you it was never about loving someone else? What if I told you it was written about loving herself, about loving her art, about not giving up on her own dreams?
Landslide was written about one poignant moment - a moment in Colorado with her guitarist and then boyfriend, Lindsey Buckingham. Their first band, Buckingham Nicks, had flopped - the band she had given up everything for – and she and Lindsey had gone to Colorado to get away. Faced with having to quit singing and give up her dreams, she looked up at the “snow-covered hills” and Stevie said to Lindsey, “we’re going to the top of that mountain.” With not a dime to their names, she told him in that moment, she wasn’t giving up. And within one year, they were Fleetwood Mac. You know the rest of the story.
It got me thinking about my anxiety journey. About all the times I white knuckled through large crowds. Grocery runs. Endless doctors’ appointments. Those days when I was sweaty and dizzy on long highway drives with crying babies in the backseat, looking for the nearest exit. I was always pushing through to appease someone else - my husband, my boss, my kids - to make everyone around me believe I was ok.
But I wasn’t ok. And years of talk therapy didn’t fix the panic attacks. Nothing did. Nothing worked until my reason and my why became me. It never worked until I decided not to give up, until I loved myself enough to chase my own dreams and climb to the top of the mountain for me.
Can the child within my heart rise above?
Can I sail through the changing ocean tides?
Can I handle the seasons of my life?
Well, I’ve been afraid of changin’
‘Cause I’ve built my life around you
But time makes you bolder
Even children get older
And I’m getting older too
Oh! I’m getting older too.
– Stevie Nicks, Landslide
We don’t get unlimited time to be who we want to be and do what we want to do. Love yourself enough to go climb that mountain today for you. Take it from Stevie. Don’t give up.
Don’t spend all of your time trying to FIND yourself. Spend your time CREATING yourself into a person that you’ll be proud of. - Sonya Parker
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Sometimes we find ourselves at the intersection of two emotional states.
Frustration and motivation.
When we have finally had enough of living a life of self-imposed restriction, we can wind up getting fired up, ready to finally take control, and highly motivated to be done with all this nonsense once and for all. This is the intersection of frustration and motivation. Sometimes, it leads us to want to take one huge step forward to “fix” our problem with a big swing of our recovery broadsword.
You’re all fired up, angry at the small life you’re living, and ready to go toe-to-toe with your anxiety and your fear to end this fight once and for all. In this state anxious people will consider strategies like jumping on a plane and flying abroad, even though they have been too afraid to go more than 10 miles from home for the last 2 years. These are called flooding exposures.
In some circles flooding just means intentionally experiencing panic. But that’s not a problem. We do that all the time recovery. I’m talking about intentionally pushing yourself WELL beyond your current comfort level for an extended period of time, hoping that you can cure your anxiety problem in one big dramatic turn of events.
Sadly, this rarely works. We all want it to work, but it just doesn’t in the vast majority of cases. If you’re wondering why you can’t just “rip the band-aid off” and recover by forcing yourself on a fight to some far away land, let me explain.
The theory behind flooding is that even if you hit the maximum level of fear and panic that you can achieve, physiology will limit how long that lasts and eventually you will exhaust, then calm down and more constructively confront your fear. That’s the theory. But waves of panic are a real thing so a successful flooding experience means that you either have to be skillful enough to not fuel multiple waves of panic, or working with a skilled therapist or counselor who can help you steer clear of those repeating waves.
If you can’t reach the point where you are in total acceptance and surrender mode while terrified, the waves will come and you will learn only that this was a terrible idea and that you must get out of the situation as quickly as possible. In the worst case you give up on the idea and want desperately to end the experience but simply cannot because you are 1000 miles from home, or on an aircraft, or all by yourself, or in some other situation that you just can’t walk out of on demand. This is when flooding backfires and can increase avoidant behaviors after the fact.
See the problem? The theory behind flooding is not wrong, but in practice the deck is stacked against the near perfect execution required to capitalize on the theory. There are therapists that will use flooding with clients they feel are ready and capable of pulling it off, but even a therapist that believes in flooding will not automatically apply the technique to everyone without careful assessment and evaluation first.
In the end, even though you might be sitting at the intersection of frustration and motivation, you might want to direct this awesome burst of energy toward a recovery plan that has a higher percentage chance of working for you. Ready to rip the band-aid off and get your life back immediately? Maybe start by taking that 15 minute drive that you’ve been refusing to take, walking around your neighborhood for 20 minutes, or eating those peanuts that you know you’re not allergic to but are terrified will kill you anyway. These are real steps forward that you can build on to get moving in the direction you want to go in.
Oh, and one more thing. Please do not be freaked out by the idea of flooding. Going to your child’s school concert is not flooding. You can leave if you want to. Attending a family wedding is not flooding. You can leave that too. Going to dinner at a restaurant is not flooding for the same reason. You may push yourself outside your comfort zone and take on challenges, but so long as those challenges have reasonably short duration and you know you can leave at some point, you’re good to go. Challenging yourself is good. You’re not going to ruin your recovery by taking on reasonable challenges.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
One of the most common fears in our community is the fear of depression. Note that there is a difference between being in a depressed state, and being afraid that one might wind up in a depressed state. This fear is expressed so often that I wanted to take 700 words or so today to address it and clear a few things up. Knowing is not a cure, nor is it automatically protective, but having some facts in hand can be very helpful when addressing this fear.
First, nobody can ever guarantee you that you won’t experience depression. Life is mostly uncertain. While nobody wants to experience depression, the frantic attempt to guarantee that it won’t happen is pointless and will only have a negative impact on your mental health.
There are certainly good self-care and mental health practices that can help us remain resilient, psychologically flexible and, and more capable of navigating through difficult challenges including depression. But we can never be 100% sure that we can block depression or keep it from ever happening.
Depression is not a death sentence. Not by a long shot. In 2017 the World Health Organization estimated that 300 million adults worldwide experienced a depressive state at least once in the previous year. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance reports that approximately 17 million American adults will experience a depressive state in a given year. Depression is the second most common mental health issue in the US, behind anxiety disorders. Yet, we do not lose 300 million people to depression or suicide (the ultimate fear for many that fear depression) each year so the fact that depression is commonly and regularly treated is on clear display in these statistics. Experiencing depression does not automatically mean being depressed forever or becoming suicidal.
Sadness and low moods are not depression. Sadness is a normal, healthy, transient human emotion that we all experience regularly. Being sad does not indicate that you are on the way to depression. It is common in our community for people to remain on guard against any hint of “negative” emotions or lower mood in an effort to protect themselves against the onset of depression that they fear so much.
It’s OK to be sad. You are far better off to learn how to be sad in a healthy way rather than to find ways to block it, prevent it, or squash it because you are afraid that it might be the harbinger of something worse.
Thinking about depression does not equal depression. Being afraid that you might become depressed is not a signal that you are going to become depressed. Thoughts are not predictors of the future or hidden signs that something is wrong.
I am asked often how to handle the fear of depression. The best advice I can offer - and you should always defer to your medical team and mental health provider - is that if you are afraid that you might be depressed, or afraid that you are depressed now without knowing it, do your best to acknowledge those thoughts and move on with your day. Let reality show you that your thoughts are just thoughts. If reality shows you otherwise, you can deal with it then, but you will not solve this problem or help yourself by sitting passively and ruminating on the topic of depression.
Remember that anxiety can make you feel unmotivated, hopeless from time to time, and irritable. The fear and resulting restrictions that come with an anxiety disorder can disconnect you from old hobbies and interests. This can closely mimic the common signs of depression that you’ll see listed on the Internet, but this does not automatically mean that you are depressed. Again, do your best to remain aware that your fear of depression will magnify and distort things to a great degree. Anxiety disorders and depression are linked. That is true. But your anxious mind will turn that link into certain doom if you indulge it.
Finally, you are absolutely NOT alone in this fear. It’s one of the most common disturbing thoughts and fears among anxious people. Being afraid of depression does not mean you are broken or doomed to get worse or to never get better.
Josh Fletcher just did an episode of The Panic Pod covering the fear of depression, so you might want to check that out. It was a great episode.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I often talk about the difference between understanding the principles of recovery, and asking for recovery instructions. See episode 179 of The Anxious Truth podcast for more on this. Why do I talk about this? Why is it important?
Let’s take a look at a real life recovery example as an illustration.
Once in a while a member of our community will pop up to say that they’ve been working hard at recovery and making good progress. Then they will ask for tips or advice on taking a next step forward. Going back to work or returning to school after an extended absence are two common examples I can point to. This person will talk about how they’re doing so much better and are now in a position where they can take this step forward that they’ve been working toward for some time.
Awesome, right?
But in asking for tips and advice on taking the next step, you are often forgetting the principles of recovery that got you to that point to begin with. Remember that we are working on building a new reaction to anxiety and a new relationship with fear. We’re learning that we are safe even when anxious and that we do not have to treat anxiety like an emergency.
When you go back to these principles, you see that you already know how to take the next step. You’re just doing the same thing you did when you took your first steps. You know how to do that.
How do you go back to work or school when you think you’re ready? Or even when you’re not entirely sure that you’re ready? You go do the things, expect to be challenged, the respond to that challenge the same way you’ve been responding to the challenges that came previously. If you get anxious in your office, then allow that, relax into it, and let it pass. If you get anxious in the classroom, the same rules apply. The good news here is that there are no new or special instructions for you to follow. Just follow the basic principles you already know and have practiced.
We can acknowledge why people sometimes ask for tips at this stage of the game. Maybe your confidence is still lagging a bit behind so you’re not sure that you’re really ready. Maybe you’re concerned that unlike a short exposure, being at work or school all day means you can’t escape. This is also a confidence issue. You’re still afraid that “too long” might be “too much” and that you won’t be able to handle it. But remember when you took your first scary steps forward in recovery? Remember how you were really afraid that you would not be able to handle that?
But then you did. Then you did again. And again. Then you handled more. And more.
So while you might not be feeling all that confident, and you might be feeling like your recovery is a bit fragile and might break if you “push it”, you’re still OK. The only way to be convinced that your recovery is durable and that your progress is lasting is to take that next step and let it unfold like all the others unfolded.
This is an exciting, but still sometimes scary place to be in your recovery. If you started at ground zero and you’re on the edge of something big, take the step. You know what to do. I can’t believe I’m going to write this but …
You got this. ;-)
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
By show of hands, how many people have been told that the vagus nerve is one of the keys to managing anxiety or making it stop? I can’t actually see your hands of course, but I’m guessing quite of few of you would have them raised right now.
This is another reason why we can’t have nice things.
Before I get into this, let me state clearly and unequivocally that the vagus nerve does in fact play a role in transmitting signals from your brain to the rest of your body. It is tied to sympathetic and parasympathetic functions. This is not news, nor is it in dispute. Everyone pretty much agrees on this. But this does not mean that your vagus nerve holds the key to some magic anxiety fix.
So where did things go off the rails when it comes to the vagus nerve?
Back in 1994, a professor of Psychiatry by the name of Stephen Porges first talked about polyvagal theory at a conference. Porges decided to divide the parasympathetic nervous system into two branches that were active or inactive depending on your state at any time. You could be in “safe mode” or you could be “immobilized”. He attributed control of a third state - “mobilized” - to the sympathetic nervous system.
This kinda sounds like fight or flight stuff, which I know we’ve all heard about many times. If you take what Porges says at face value and it sounds like fight or flight which we all know and love, you can already see how polyvagal theory began to catch on. This is kinda how the vagus nerve started to become a bit of an anatomical celebrity in the mental health field. Polyvagal theory seems to make sense. It’s relatively easy to explain to the layperson, and it provides a relatively simple explanation for experiences related to conditions like PTSD and panic disorder. Polyvagal theory sounds kinda cool, and it feels good. As such, over the last 25 years, polyvagal theory has become popular in mental health circles and is referenced constantly by content creators, mental health influences, coaches, and even some therapists.
But here’s the problem. Stephen Porges made a few physiological and evolutionary assertions when unveiling his theory that are not only unsupported, but that directly contradict a large body of existing research findings in areas like evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology. The very foundation of the polyvagal theory beloved and adopted by so many is incredibly weak. It has been refused, rejected, and disputed from the get-go by a mountain of evidence from other areas of study.
Porges himself has yet to provide any hint of good evidence that his assertions - and therefore his theory - may hold water. Yet that did not stop him from creating a bit of a mental health business empire based on the theory.
In short - and I realize I am likely going to annoy some folks here - polyvagal theory sounds and feels good so it became really popular, but it doesn’t even really meet the requirements to be called a theory at all. It’s an idea. A conjecture. Maybe a framework or a way of visualizing things. There’s nothing wrong with that. We need those things. Those are part of how science works, but hypothesis and conjecture are the starting points for discovery, not the end points. Yet practices based on polyvagal theory are often sold to desperate people as evidence based and proven, which they absolutely are not.
I’ll stop short of calling it snake oil (even though I really want to), but when a legion of evolutionary biologists are presenting clear data that humans do not differ from other species the way Porges needs us to in order for his “theory” to be credible, proponents of polyvagal theory and the techniques it has spawned continue to assert that any doubt about the theory is based on a “lack of understanding”. Only they get it. The rest of us are clueless.
Really? All this evidence is worthless because only you have a true understanding of the issue? Is that really the hill you want to die on?
Why do I care about this and why am I ranting a bit about it? Because I have been in conversations with people that call themselves mental health advocates, educators, and even recovery coaches (especially in the trauma space) that love to tell me about polyvagal theory. Then they stare blankly when presented with my argument against it. The response I usually get is something along the lines of … “Well, I like it.”
I’m not so sure that this is a solid basis for mental health interventions. Liking something.
So next time someone wants to teach you - or sell you - 17 ways to somehow manipulate your vagus nerve to achieve that coveted “ventral activation”, consider that there’s a good chance that they not bothering to look at the actual data, or they have, and they’re ignoring it because its either bad for business or upsets the neat conceptual apple cart they’ve come to enjoy so much.
Let me clarify one thing before I get off my soapbox. Using the framework of polyvagal theory as a basis for exploration, or as a way to conceptualize or visualize things like trauma response is not a bad thing. There are excellent, highly qualified clinicians that do this, and they do it well. They just won’t tell you that the way out of the dark is to ride your magically and specially evolved vagus nerve into the healing zone.
Sometimes humans have a maddening habit of taking good things and twisting them into an unrecognizable shape that completely misses the original point. I kinda feel like the whole vagus nerve craze is a great example of that.
Rant over. Have a good weekend.
“Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.” - Adam Smith
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Invariably when someone asks me for tips on how to to scary things, they are really asking for ways to make those things less scary and less uncomfortable.
When people ask me how to be brave, they are often asking me how to not be so afraid.
Both questions are understandable without a doubt. Both both questions are also completely missing one of the foundational concepts of recovery from an anxiety disorder. When we become afraid of how we feel and what we think - when anxiety and fear become the source of more anxiety and fear - the way out of this dilemma is to unmask the irrational nature of this fear. Recovery is essentially learning that while anxiety can feel really scary, there’s no danger and therefore no reason to be afraid in the end.
If we accept part of the essence of disordered anxiety as fear without actual corresponding threat or danger, then the way out that pickle is to break the link between the anxiety itself, and the perception of impending doom or harm. When the link is broken we are left with simply experiencing anxiety as an unpleasant and unwanted sensation, but not an emergency.
Odds are you’ve been trying everything you can think of to break that link with thoughts, ideas, words, quotes, memes, and soothing techniques. Has that worked? I’m guessing that since you’re reading this, it has not, at least not consistently or for any length of time.
Now you’re left with an inconvenient alternative. Facing the fear rather than trying to think or talk yourself out of it. I understand that nobody wants to do that, but we most effectively break that faulty mental link between anxiety and danger by allowing the danger to happen, then seeing that it never actually does. That means facing what you are sure is dangerous (even when it is not), which means being AFRAID. The fear is a key part of the experiences that teach us the lessons we need to learn. Without the fear, we learn nothing, and we remain stuck.
So being afraid is not your problem. It’s really the solution to your problem. This means that you have to stop grasping for ways to get around fear or stop it from happening, because you can’t have that and recovery at the same time. Seeing the presence of fear as failure is putting yourself in an unfair and untenable situation, and totally misses the point of why you are trying to do scary things to begin with.
It’s not natural or intuitive to welcome fear, or to see it as a teacher or ally. We are wired to see fear as an enemy. Hell, that wiring is part of what created the problem you’re trying to solve right now. But in this case, our way out is to put aside our natural drive to avoid fear … and move toward it.
When you make your life smaller and smaller to remain calm and to feel safe all the time, you are stuck. If you are working on your recovery and you are afraid, you are on the right track!
Yet another statement that must look downright absurd to anyone not well versed in the mechanics of disordered anxiety. I feel like an absurdity machine sometimes, but there is wisdom in the absurd for folks like us, so let’s embrace it rather than running away from it.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Sometimes people labor under the misconception that in order to recover they must learn to never feel things. Being sad or afraid is instantly called failure, triggering a desperate search for magic tips that will keep those reactions from happening.
Recovery is not about learning to be a robot. I have never said that and never will.
When you are anxious, afraid, uncertain, and feeling vulnerable, you WILL have feelings and emotional reactions to that. How could you not? You are human, and alive. You WILL feel things when confronted with a challenge like recovery, especially one that can stretch out for a longer period of time. Some days you’ll feel pride, accomplishment, and even happiness or joy. You never call that failure, right?
So, please stop looking for ways to not feel emotions. Your emotions are just fine. There’s no need to prevent them from happening or to declare them to be disastrous.
When we break this down, the issue is not your emotions at all. The real issue is that you have likely developed the habit, maybe dating back long before your anxiety problems, of treating your emotions as automatically the most important things in the room at all times. I can totally understand how this happens. We are immersed in an ocean of self-help, personal development, and mental health “advice” all squarely based on the idea that everything you feel always matters and must be examined, honored, decoded, deciphered and unpacked. Everywhere we turn we are told that we must get in touch with our emotions and find the hidden meaning in them all the damn time. We are told again and again that our emotions are VERY important.
So if you are deeply enmeshed with every emotion, thought, feeling, and sensation, I understand why. Many people have been taught that this is the proper way to be a human.
Sometimes wellness and growth is found along that path, but not always. Sometimes we just have to accept the fact that our bodies and brains are not perfect, nor are our souls. We have to at least consider the possibility that it really is OK to disregard some of what they throw at us. Sometimes emotions and thoughts are not important at all. This is one of the foundational concepts when dealing with anxiety disorders. Yes, it is is often completely counterintuitive. Yes, it can seem somewhat cold or even de-humanizing and invalidating. And yes, you may not like this idea from a humanistic or spiritual standpoint.
But what we like and don’t like don’t really enter into this. We don’t need warm, fuzzy, or easy to grasp. We only need effective.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
This may be an unpopular way to get back to work here on The Anxious Morning, but I want to challenge our widespread use of the word “healing”. Before I go on, I am not here to invalidate anyone’s pain or past experiences. Many problems in life are emotional in nature, based on past experiences. They do involve emotional pain and the need for things like healing and forgiveness for ourselves and others. I’m not dismissing that. But try to open your mind and consider for a minute that not EVERY problem is automatically a healing problem. Also consider that more than one thing can be true at a time.
If you have learned to be afraid of your own body and thoughts, are you broken? Is that a disease? Are you defective as a result of a structural shortcoming or wound?
If you listen to a song that you like and mis-hear some of the lyrics, you may love that song and sing those incorrect lyrics for years. You are completely convinced that your favorite artist is singling one phrase, when the rest of the world is hearing a totally different phrase. Your brain is sure that it is correct. Just like your brain is sure that you are in danger when you feel anxious, while the rest of the world sees no such danger. If you are to correct your misheard lyrics error, must you heal yourself? Are you broken, diseased, or damaged? I’m guessing you are going to say no, you just need to learn the right lyrics and start singing them.
So why do we so often insist that recovery from an anxiety disorder is based on healing? Because our sacred thoughts and emotions are involved? Because our bodies are involved? Surely these things are critically important and therefore they deserve something that carries more weight than simply learning! Learning isn’t profound enough for our special thoughts and feelings! We need HEALING!
But really, do we? What if you are not broken, wounded, or damaged? What if you were just mistaken? What if you are not diseased or ill? What if you’d just learned and reinforced some bad habits? Imagine that?
There may very well be pain, negative experiences, or even trauma in your life that will require some healing. But that doesn’t mean that every challenge you face and every problem you are trying to solve is a healing problem. You may have pain to heal, but you may also have incorrect lessons and bad habits to correct. More than one thing can be true at a time, and one of them has nothing to do with you being broken and in need of being healed.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I need a break.
This is not always easy for me to say, and harder for me to do. Call it a flaw. I tend to treat myself like a machine, and even when my body, my mind, and the universe are clearly showing me that I am not a machine, I tend to ignore that and carry on. One might argue that this tendency could have contributed to developing anxiety problems to begin with, but that’s a different topic for another day.
Sometimes on The Anxious Morning I talk about what life looks like after recovery. Today, it looks like coming to grips with the idea that I need a little break. I’ve talked about knowing that when I have an anxious day or experience anxiety symptoms that it tends to mean that I’m pushing myself a bit too far into the red zone and need to step back for a few minutes or a few hours to re-group and quiet things down. Well I’m not experiencing anxiety or anything like that, but my enthusiasm and creativity are sagging a bit for the last couple of weeks so this tells me that its time to step back, make a little room, and re-charge the battery.
This is where remaining in touch with reality rather than responding only to thoughts and feelings can be helpful. If I put all my stuff out on a table where I can see it clearly, it makes things easier to navigate. I’ve now written a morning newsletter and created a morning podcast every day since January 1. I still produce a weekly podcast. I’m still posting on social media and trying to remain active in my Facebook group. AND I’m a full time graduate student and running my old businesses at the same time. In the old days I might get swept up in WHY I’m feeling like this, and what it means, and worrying that I might always feel like this. But now I can look rationally at the situation, and see that I’ve been operating at a high level for a very long time without stopping. I can recognize that humans do need to take breaks now and then. Making these observations of reality, this then becomes a very normal transient human state that does not morph into an emotional or anxiety crisis, even though I’m tired and feeling some things, which used to spell disaster.
That is part of what recovery looks like. Much of my ability to work through things like this comes directly from the lessons I learned when working on overcoming anxiety disorders and depression. For this I will always be grateful.
So, next week - July 11 through 15 - there will be no new editions of The Anxious Morning newsletter or podcast. I will likely not create any social media content next week, might be totally absent from the Facebook group and I may even not release episode 216 of The Anxious Truth next week. All of this makes me uncomfortable but I tell you guys to do uncomfortable things all the damn time so I can do it too, right? And really, I know that I can best serve the community by disconnecting for the week and coming back refreshed, so that is what I will do.
I appreciate all of you and the support you so enthusiastically give for the work I do. Keep doing the things, keep learning the lessons, and we’ll be back at it here on July 18, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.
In fact, I think we’re gonna do a little thing called “What I Did Over Drew’s Summer Vacation.” If you wanna post your exposures, your challenges, and your wins online, you can do that in my Facebook group or on Instagram. Tag me either way. On Instagram use the hashtag #IAmMore because we are ALL more than just anxiety. I’ll complile them and we’ll spread some love when The Anxious Morning returns. Yeah, I’m digging this idea, so let’s go!
What interests me in life is curiosity, challenges, the good fight with its victories and defeats. - Paulo Coelho
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
There are questions that plague humanity day in and day out. They are asked in all walks of life. Our brightest minds and deepest thinkers slave to find answers to these profound queries, yet we make no headway and remain mired in the dreaded uncertainty baked into the Universe.
You know many of these questions.
Chicken or egg?
Coke or Pepsi?
Cup or cone?
Star Wars or Star Trek?
These questions speak directly to our essence as sentient beings and an evolved civilization, but they pale in comparison to a question that gets asked in thousands of mental heath influencer posts every day and likely will until there are no atoms left intact and the universe becomes a cold, thin shadow of its former glory.
Panic attack or anxiety attack?
I know you’ve seem this discussed more times than you can remember. When an anxiety Instagrammer runs out of ideas, this is always on the back burner waiting to be dusted off. “What’s the difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack?”
Who even cares? Why does it matter? What do we stand to gain by debating this again and searching desperately for an answer to a question that doesn’t seem like it even needs to be asked?
Let’s just put this to bed by refusing to use the phrases panic attack or anxiety attack ever again. Let’s just start calling them both “transient states of variable discomfort”. Damn. That’s solid. I should write romance book titles with this kind of skill.
Seriously, I know that NOBODY is going to start using the phrase “transient states of variable discomfort” because there’s no clickability in that, but you have to admit, that the phrase does accurately describe both anxiety attacks and panic attacks. In both situations we experience discomfort that varies in intensity both between and within experiences and is transient in nature.
So why must we label these experiences? Are we looking for solutions? Fixes? Strategies? Does accurately defining the boundary between them lead us somewhere closer to a recovered state? Are we somehow treating them differently because they are different things?
No!
In recovery we are learning how to tolerate transient discomfort at all intensity levels. Maybe today you’ll have an anxiety attack. Maybe you’ll have a panic attack. Maybe you’ll just feel generally anxious. Maybe you’ll have a great day and feel awesome from the moment you wake to the moment you fall asleep. The whole point of recovery is to learn that all of those states and all states in between are OK and handle-able. So there is literally no point in paying any more attention to the difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack.
Consider them the same thing and know that your “strategy” remains the same regardless of how you are experiencing discomfort within the context of an anxiety disorder and the recovery process.
Next time you see someone post this on social media, don’t feed the algorithm. Don’t click the like button. Scroll on by without stopping. Only you can prevent forest fires, and only you can end the scourge of anxiety attack vs panic attack posts on the Internet. Together we can rid the world of this menace!
Now excuse me while I go and design a few “Transient States Of Variable Discomfort” t-shirts.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday I used this very common question as an example of a recovery question that you could work on answering on your own, allowing yourself to maybe get it “wrong” in the process. No disaster will happen if you do that.
Today, I thought I might offer a short discussion on the principle behind the idea of “sitting with” anxiety, fear, or any emotion. Learn the principles. Then apply them. It’s way better than asking for specific instructions every time.
What does “sitting with” anxiety even mean? Is it literally stopping and plopping yourself in a chair or on the floor when anxious so you can fully experience anxiety?
Sometimes it does look like that. But not automatically.
Do yourself a favor and totally forget ever hearing the words “sit with” when it comes to anxiety. Instead, use the word “allow”. Your job is not to sit with your anxiety but to allow it without resistance. When it rears its head, you want to work on responding to it and relating to it in a new way. In many ways, NOT responding or reacting. Just dropping the fight and the resistance, and allowing it to come in whatever form it comes (yes, even panic).
Sometimes you can allow anxiety and fear without resistance by sitting quietly and doing nothing. I strongly encourage doing this sometimes when the context allows. It’s an EXCELLENT (though challenging) way to practice building this new recovery-focused reaction to and relationship with anxiety. But while this is an excellent practice when you can do it, you can’t always drop everything and sit down when anxious. Life doesn’t work that way.
Sometimes you will have to allow anxiety without resistance while you do other things. Walking. Talking. Eating. Showering. Petting your dog. Dancing. Driving (yes, driving). You can do all of these things while allowing anxiety to surface and play itself out. These are also incredibly valuable recovery experiences that teach you all kinds of important lessons, first and foremost being that you are capable even when not feeling your best. Do NOT avoid this lesson. You kinda can’t fully recover without learning it. It’s that important.
So when do you literally sit, and when do you keep going? It depends. What situation are you in? Who are you with? Are you under some kind of time constraint? Are you even physically able to stop and sit in the current context? If not, keep doing what you’re doing. What action will most closely align with your values in a given moment and/or fit into a given social context? There is no proper answer here. Sometimes you can sit. Sometimes you can keep going. You may sit on Tuesday and choose to keep going on Wednesday in what look like identical situations. Mix it up. Do it all. Have all the experiences. Practice multiple ways. This is the best way to build a durable, portable, and lasting recovery.
So do you need to sit with your anxiety?
You only need to allow it without resistance. Sometimes you’ll do that on your rear end. Sometimes you won’t. How’s that for a perfectly ambiguous set of instructions?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Many members of our community get caught up in doing recovery right. Some get REALLY caught up in that, becoming highly entangled in reading, watching videos, listening to podcasts, and asking questions about the correct way to recover. This can lead to choppy waters in recovery when the drive to do it right starts to overshadow the principles of recovery and the reason you’re doing the work to begin with.
Sometimes I will say that we do not recover so we can live. We live so that we can recover.
I stand by this statement and will repeat it from time to time.
In life, sometimes we get things wrong. We make mistakes. We misread cues and make less than optimal choices. We get lazy or unmotivated sometimes. We get confused. This is all part of being alive. All humans make mistakes and get things - even important things - wrong sometimes. Recovery is no different.
In fact, I might argue strongly that an ugly, imperfect recovery can be more valuable in the long run than somehow reading all the books, understanding every word, then executing a flawless recovery plan and racing back to “feeling better”. I mean, everyone wants to feel better and I would love it if you felt better, but the magic in recovery is not in figuring out how to feel better. The magic is in learning how to DO better.
We live so that we can recover. This means that we start doing life to the best of our abilities so that life can reveal our competencies and our strengths for us. Part of being competent and strong is learning how to fix mistakes, change direction when needed, and navigate through errors or mis-steps. “Helicopter parents” catch heat for robbing their children of the lessons of resiliency and flexibility. If we try to engineer error-free perfect lives for our children, how will they learn to rise to meet a challenge or pick themselves up when they fall down. The same applies in recovery. Are you “helicopter parenting” your way through your recovery, or are you willing to accept that part of this process is sometimes getting the process wrong?
Especially for our friends driven by overachiever, perfectionist, or hyper-responsible self image issues, getting it wrong can feel really uncomfortable sometimes. Reading, then doing without confirming the correctness of said doing seems irresponsible and like throwing caution to the wind or inviting disaster. But I promise, it is not. Doing recovery this way, by working to understand and apply the principles without demanding specific foolproof techniques or instructions is hard. It means that you will make mistakes sometimes, but it is far more productive and in the end far more rewarding.
How can you allow yourself to get it wrong sometimes? Try something without asking for verification first. When you want to seek specific instruction or technique, ask yourself what principle of recovery applies to your situation at the moment then try to build your own instructions from there. When you fee like you must confirm that recovery is possible or that someone has solved the problem you’re trying to solve act first even in the face of this uncertainty and state of not knowing. Expect and accept the discomfort this brings and practice moving through that discomfort.
I’ll leave you with a common example.
“Am I supposed to literally sit with my fear, or should I try to get on with what I was doing and let it tag along?”
My answer to this common question is … “sometimes”. This means that you’ll just have to try it both ways and see what happens. You’ll also have to learn when one method applies and when the other applies. You’ll have to work out when that might flip depending on context, then flip back.
You might get it “wrong” sometimes, so strap in. But really, as long as you learn something from the experience, there is almost no “wrong” anyway.
I’m currently just getting started on “Reclaiming Conversation” by Sherry Turkle. I found this one when it was referenced in Cal Newport’s “Digital Minimalism” so I was encouraged to give it a try. It’s a more academic read, but I have a real interest in the impact of digital media on how we related to each other so I’m enjoying it.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Last week I had the privilege of spending my first week on-site in what my graduate program terms “Residency 1”. It was a really great experience that was validating, satisfying, educational, enlightening, and very challenging all at once. I can’t ask for more than that!
I was exposed to many different personalities, backgrounds, world views, and life experiences. I made friends, learned from experienced, respected clinicians, and was confronted with questions that I never even know were questions. I’d like to share one of the more interesting issues that came up during the week because it illustrates an important point about the client/therapist dynamic.
If I am your therapist and you begin to cry in a session, what would you think if I handed you a tissue?
I had no idea that this is a debated issue in the therapy and counseling world. Some clinicians will say that offering a tissue is part of creating a safe, accepting space for emotional expression. Others argue that offering a tissue is a signal that says, “Please stop crying now.” This interpretation varies based on cultural and social norms, lived experiences, and even geography. One professor from Oklahoma stated simply, “I’m from Oklahoma. We’re gonna hand you a tissue. It’s what we do!”
There were other questions and issues like this that popped up as we did the work last week. We talked about eye contact, body language, use of profanity, seating arrangements in a therapy session, the use of touch in a therapeutic setting, and a few other really interesting ideas that I had generally not considered before.
In all cases, there are no hard and fast rules, nor right and wrong answers. So much of what happens between a therapist and a client is based on cultural commonality or differences, socioeconomic status, geography, faith, and lived experiences. Both therapist and client are people. People come in all kinds of different and amazing flavors and we’re not always sure how they’re going to mix. Of course there are ethical and professional guidelines in place to ensure that therapy is a safe place and that the rights of a client are always protected, but many of “rules” governing micro-exchanges between client and therapist are fluid, based on context, and may change through implied or specific negotiation as the relationship grows and evolves.
As a therapist in training, I’m handed phrases like “Meet the client where they are” and “The client is in charge”. These make perfect sense, but until you actually practice being in that one-on-one setting with other human beings and dig into the nuances of how things really work in real life, you just can’t appreciate the richness of the experience for both parties and how it can be enhanced by paying attention to these small details.
On the Internet, I can pass along knowledge and relay my lived experiences with panic, anxiety, intrusive thoughts, and recovery. But generally speaking our relationship when it comes to the content I create is one-to-many. There is one of me, and many of you. I love this thing that we do together, but last week really highlighted some of the differences between being a mental health content creator and being well trained and qualified to provide assistance on a one-to-one basis.
The more I go down these roads, the more I feel privileged to be in the position I’m in.
So tell me. Would you appreciate the tissue, or would you interpret that as a request to calm down and stop crying? I’m genuinely curious to hear what everyone has to say on this.
It’s July 4 in the US - a national holiday - so there is no Recovery Monday live stream today. You can find all the old Recovery Monday videos on my YouTube channel here.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I am often asked how to “stop” fear or stop thoughts. People that recognize that they are in the bad habit of automatically treating thoughts, fear, and symptoms as emergencies become desperate for “tips” on how to stop doing that. It all feels so automatic and uncontrollable and they can’t see how to prevent all of that.
Here’s news. It is totally automatic. You have hard wired circuits in you that are designed to declare an emergency swiftly and loudly when a threat it detected. This is what humans do as a matter of course. That’s not a problem.
In the event that I experience panic - which can happen maybe a few times a year for me - that first flash of total panic and absolute fear IS AN EMERGENCY. I can’t make it not be. I have no control over those circuits. They are there for a reason and I kinda like that they are. So for the first minute or so, everything absolutely feels like an emergency and I feel compelled to take evasive action.
This is not wrong. This is not a problem. This is to be expected. You can’t just decide to stop reacting in this automatic way. Initially, you WILL feel the fear, you WILL knee-jerk in response, and you WILL feel very strongly that you need to engage with this emergency to mitigate it. You might even begin to do that. Maybe you run to your car or pick up the phone to start to call for help. All expected.
The magic happens once you come to the realization that you are doing all that. It’s not my first moment of panic that defines my recovery. It’s all the moments after that. That’s where the change is. That’s what defines your recovery, wherever you may be along that path.
Go ahead and startle. Go ahead have the initial “OMG!” thoughts. Start running for the exit. You can’t help that. But at some point you know what you’re doing, and at that point you have choice, and therefore power (thank you. Dr. B!). Not immediate power and the choices are not easy to make, but there is choice and power nonetheless, and that is where we find change and progress.
So if you are desperate to find ways to change your initial reaction to anxiety, thoughts, symptoms, or fear, give yourself a break. You don’t need to squash or extinguish that first minute reaction. You can’t win that battle. But it’s not the first minute that matters. It’s the minutes after that. Focus your efforts there, because you can be successful there, and that is where you can start to see a difference over time.
Practice recovering in the second minute, and the third. That’s where things really happen.
“I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod; my shadow does that much better.” - Plutarch
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
It’s the end of June, which means it’s time for a guest post on The Anxious Morning. This month I’m thrilled that my friend and frequent collaborator Lauren Rosen has agreed to contribute to our little project with some words of wisdom about the fear of judgement.
In the context of OCD and Anxiety Disorders, fears related to other’s judgment come up a lot. Whether it’s fear of making yourself vulnerable and having your symptoms judged, or the central fear of judgment in Social Anxiety Disorder, this particular concern about judgment can really grab ahold of us. And, of course it can! No one likes to be judged. We evolved as a social species who depended on our tribes for survival. We’re programmed to want other’s approval.
That being said, this fear of judgment is something that we can learn to navigate differently.
Here are a few ways to develop a different relationship to fears about judgment.
1. Watch out for mind-reading and related rumination.
First off, it’s VERY important to remember that no one reads minds. We may be able to name many instances when we correctly predicted what someone was thinking. We also tend to forget the instances in which we were incorrect, which makes us unreliable at determining our own abilities in this department.
Just because you have been right when it comes to guessing another’s thoughts does not mean that you will always be or have always been right. If you take thoughts about how you “know” what another person is thinking seriously, you’re likely to start spinning whole tales related to how they don’t like you or how you’re doing “it” wrong (whatever “it” may be). This mental
churning will detract from your life and likely make you feel a whole lot worse. Using mindfulness techniques, we can non-judgmentally notice our mind-reading thoughts, perpetually disengage from rumination and come back to the present moment.
2. Not everyone’s opinion deserves equal weight
Ever notice how someone you barely know can say something horrific about you and that sticks with you for days? Or how someone who you love and admire can say something complimentary that you immediately discount? It’s so backwards! We are unwise to assign equal weight to everyone’s opinion. Different people have different values. If you’re focused on being kind, and someone who doesn’t prioritize kindness deems you as lacking, it probably
doesn’t make sense to give that person’s opinion about the quality of your character much importance.
3. Your opinion is the one that counts most, even if you don’t “feel” like this is true.
First, we often conflate thinking for feeling. “I don’t feel like that’s true” is really a thought in disguise – “What if that’s not true?” – and a feeling – probably anxiety. Understanding this helps us to accept emotions and the presence of thoughts without buying into misleading narratives about how what “feels” untrue must be untrue.
Another quick side note: if we’re basing our well-being on the presence or absence of feelings, we’re in a precarious spot. The work in recovery is down to accepting the presence of feelings and becoming more adept at navigating them. So, if you have thoughts of self-doubt or feel anxious as a result of your thoughts, you can accept the presence of these thoughts and feelings.
What matters most is how you believe you are doing when you consider your actions against your values – i.e., the qualities that reflect the kind of person you want to be. We can infuse our behaviors with these qualities regardless of circumstances. If we recognize that we did our best to show up in a way that’s consistent with our values, we’re likely to breed a sense of long-term contentment that is resilient to the highs and lows of momentary emotional experiences. We may even notice that we feel proud of ourselves. This is far more precious than gaining the approval of everyone else, which, incidentally, is not possible.
4. Be thoughtful in who you choose to be vulnerable with
Just like everyone’s opinions aren’t equally important, so everyone is not equally safe to share your most vulnerable sides with. Trust is earned. Of course, there are no guarantees, but taking pause and considering a person’s history before you share tender things with them is likely to prevent just anyone’s judgment from showing up, announced. Still, people may judge and judge blatantly even when you’re not opening yourself up. And sometimes, you will be thoughtful and still get judged. But if we go back to values, the sting we might feel is likely to come and go as unfettered feelings tend to do.
Lauren Rosen, LMFT is a licensed marriage and family therapist practicing in the states of California, Florida, and Utah. Lauren is well known in the mental health community on Instagram as @theobsessivemind, and has recently opened The Center For The Obsessive Mind where she specializes in treating OCD and other anxiety disorders. Find Lauren on her website at theobsessivemind.com.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let me tell you a little story about my eyes and my feet. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it?
Feeling a bit off balance (many of you will call it dizzy) has been one of my primary anxiety symptoms for many many years. If I’m having an anxious day, which can certainly happen to me sometimes (because I am human), I will likely feel that sensation.
Anyway, back in days of old before anyone ever heard of COVID-19, I spent my days working on screens, but not all the time. I walked. I went to the gym. I biked. I socialized. I went to my office. I visited customers in my old technology business. Yes, looking at screens was always a big part of my days, but there were plenty of breaks from that as I moved through normal life.
Then normal life stopped happening. The world shut down, we all stopped going places, and all those regular life breaks that took me away from screens went away. What was left was …. screens! In the early days of lockdown I was doing more live streams and responding to an increased demand for interaction in the community - which I was happy to do. But the result of that was that I was spending WAY more time looking at screens. Often, that meant looking DOWN at a phone or tablet that was in front of me. I was spending a very large percentage of my waking time looking down at screens that were no more than about 30 inches from my face, most times even closer.
Then I discovered that if I went out for a walk, I would experience that same off balance sensation that I used to associate with being anxious. Except I wasn’t anxious. I was a bit off balance, my eyes were having a difficult time keeping up with the world around me, and I was literally drifting to the right ever so slightly when I walked. It wasn’t noticeable when walking from the kitchen to the living room, but on a long walk down my street it was very noticeable for me. I was also experiencing neck pain and I found that I was losing mobility in my neck. My eyes were also wigging out and I found the I was having a difficult time focusing and tracking objects in the distance.
This was mildly concerning to me, and as it continued to get worse, that concern became more than mild. Was I having some kind of vestibular issue? Was I experiencing some anxiety that I wasn’t aware of? Is my vision changing again? Have I developed some kind of muscular imbalance?
No, to all of that. The issue was that I was spending far too much of time time looking down at computer screens, phone screens, and tablet screens. My head was tilted and my eyes did nothing all day but focus on tiny pictures and text that were close to my face. My body was adapting to looking down with close focus as its default state, so looking up and looking at the actual world became a bit of a foreign experience. True story!
Once I started drastically limiting my screen time and more actively managing my desk time, things improved quickly. I made it a point to get active again and to spend time looking UP and into the world. My neck stopped hurting, the stiffness went away, my eyes got used to distance focus again, and I was no longer drifting when I walked. Imagine that!
So why does this story matter to you? Maybe it doesn’t and you’re bored to tears now. But maybe one of your default reactions to being anxious is to doom scroll through Instagram, read my Facebook group furiously, or bury yourself in YouTube or Netflix. Many members of our community use screen time as a soothing, escape, and safety behavior which means that many wind up spending hours upon hours looking DOWN at small screens every day. Then they also wind up feeling that off balance, slightly dizzy disoriented thing where the world looks strange and their vision isn’t exactly right. Which then makes them anxious, which often drives them to look down again and engage with a phone screen for another hour.
I’m not giving you a cure for dizziness or an instant fix for DP/DR, but I might suggest that spending large portions of your days staring down at handheld devices is not helping you with these things, and could be making them worse than they have to be.
So … LOOK UP. Give it a try. Think about your screen habits and how you can cut down on screen time. Start looking at the world again. It might feel weird when you first do that, but give it a chance. Let your eyes look into the distance and learn to focus and track again. Give your body a chance to be upright again and learn to move like it used to.
Look up. Because in the end, that’s where life, and therefore recovery, is anyway.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about recognizing “regular” anxiety in your life. This is anxiety in many forms, triggered by external influences, that all humans experience from time to time. Learning to identify regular anxiety when you feel it can help you in your recovery journey.
But for so many members of our community, this is is a difficult task simply because regular anxiety almost automatically spins out of control, goes off the rails, and becomes the disordered anxious response that is the hallmark of issues like panic disorder, OCD, or agoraphobia.
What is the difference? What is disordered anxiety? Well for our purposes we will define disordered anxiety as anxiety that originates internally with bodily sensations or thoughts that you have learned to interpret as threats over time. This is important. Disordered anxiety is based on interpreting your own body and mind as sources of danger or threat. Why is this so important?
Because when humans experience life stress, we respond physically and mentally to that stress. Sometimes that response is what we might call regular anxiety. Other responses might be anger, despair, disappointment, or fear. In all of those cases, those responses will likely trigger physical responses in our bodies. This is normal and to be expected. Some extra thinking is also bound to happen when under stress, so that is also normal and to be expected.
But when we’ve become conditioned to be on alert for threats originating in our bodies and minds, sensations and thoughts - even those that are normal and expected - can quickly trigger an exaggerated threat response. We get “regular” anxious because of life, then we roll into disordered anxiety territory when that regular anxiety itself becomes a threat that we’ve decided we must respond to .
When this happens, it’s common to misinterpret things by concluding that your nasty co-worker makes you panic. In reality, your nasty co-worker triggers a normal anxiety or anger response in you, which in turn gets interpreted as a threat worthy of panic. I know it might seem like this doesn’t matter, but it does. When we incorrectly declare that the entire world is direct panic trigger, we more readily engage in avoidance and retreat rituals. We see our ourselves as unable to handle any stimulation, sensation, or emotion, and will declare even normal, healthy human reactions to life as strictly off-limits.
This is why understanding this process, and working on recognizing regular anxiety, can be a huge help. We can reframe our situation within this more accurate context, which gives us some room to work in. If you can see your normal responses and understand how they morph into disordered responses, you can work on putting some space between those two things rather than trying to avoid the universe at large because you think it is full of “triggers”.
I’m not implying that this knowledge or understanding will wipe away your anxiety disorder, but it always helps to have a grasp on the principles and mechanics of the process rather than simply being reactive and hoping for specific instructions on how to overcome every specific sensation, thought, fear, and situation.
I just finished reading “Digital Minimalism” by Cal Newport. I’ve been working for quite a while on being more intentional with my use of social media and electronic devices in general so this book was right up my alley. I found it both theoretically and practically interesting.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Disordered anxiety. You hear that phrase from me all the time. Why do I make it a point to use that term? Why don’t I just say “anxiety” and be done with it? Well, sometimes I do. But sometimes it’s important to differentiate between “regular” anxiety and disordered anxiety. Regular anxiety is a normal part of any healthy human life.
Every human experiences anxiety sometimes and to some degree. Sometimes it’s a vague uneasiness or sense of worry. Sometimes it can be stronger and more impactful. I might argue that even a full panic attack can be “regular” anxiety depending on context. Lots of people experience panic attacks once in a while without ever developing an anxiety disorder, so we could say that panic is also part of regular anxiety, just on the extreme end of the spectrum.
What makes regular anxiety … well … regular?
In a nutshell, it’s the source of the anxiety that determines this.
When some external influence presses on us, we may experience anxiety as a result. What kind of external influences? Final exams. Relationship breakups. Losing a job. The death of a loved one. The birth of a child. An argument with a friend. Double overtime in game 7 of the Stanley Cup finals. The list of external influences that might trigger anxiety is endless, but when we come into contact with a stressor of some kind - negative or positive - we may experience anxiety as a result. This is what I’m calling regular anxiety today. I’m guessing that you can understand this.
But if you are reading this, the odds are high that regular anxiety isn’t really your problem. You might be wishing for days when you can experience regular plain-old run-of-the-mill anxiety! I feel you on that. I remember those days. But it is important to recognize the fact that you DO experience regular anxiety, even when gripped by panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, or other disordered anxiety issues.
When life gets stressful or throws big events or changes at you, it is completely normal to feel anxious about that sometimes. And I would bet a large sum that you do! If you’re trying to recognize regular anxiety in your life, do your best to pause when anxious and consider the context you’re in. If you just had a big fight with your partner, that’s a clue. If you’re experiencing money issues, that’s a clue. If your middle child is driving you crazy and you don’t know what to do, that’s another clue. Your initial response to these things is quite likely “regular” anxiety. You’re human, and you are allowed to have that response. Please do not make the mistake of gluing harsh self-judgment and catastrophic thinking to instances of regular anxiety. That is not helpful nor required.
When life presses on you, you are allowed to get anxious. Keep your eyes open for instances of “regular” anxiety. See if you can get more skillful at evaluating the situation you are in so that you can see when you are reacting to the world like any human would. It can make a big difference in the way you see yourself, and therefore in your recovery progress.
I can’t cover a topic like this without acknowledging that for most of you reading this edition of The Anxious Morning, regular anxiety often goes off the rails and winds up on fire in a ditch, morphed into disordered anxiety that you will call a disaster. I know this makes it difficult for you to remain objective and presents a challenge in recognizing when you’re just being human. So tomorrow we’ll look at how and why regular anxiety triggers a disordered response for so many in our community.
I’m traveling this week so no Monday live stream, but you can access all past Recovery Monday videos on my YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
By show of hands, how many of you have been told that you need to be “present”?
How about we stop TELLING anxious people to “be present” and start TEACHING them how to pay attention? That’s way easier for an anxious brain to grasp and way more practical. Paying attention is something you can DO. Present is something you have to BE. When your brain is racing and you are caught up in the cycle of thinking and you are not sure if you are supposed to s**t or wind your watch because you are afraid and confused, DOING is far easier than BEING.
So. Let me say in no uncertain terms that you can ignore all the advice you get about being present. Instead, just learn how to pay attention. It’s a far simpler plan and just as effective in the end.
What do I mean by this?
When your anxious thoughts are telling you that you really should check that spot on your arm for the 12th time today, you can pay attention to that, or you can decide to pay attention to something else, even while you are afraid that you have skin cancer that every doctor is failing to find.
When your anxious brain is working hard to convince you that you are mere moments away from having a psychotic break, you can pay attention to the psychotic break, or you can choose to pay attention to something else while afraid to have a psychotic break.
This is not easy to do. Not by any measure. But this is something we can learn, and practice. We can practice placing our attention on something of our choosing. Maybe the sensation of your breath, or a picture hanging on your wall. Or maybe a sound, or the scent of your friend’s favorite perfume. Then you can practice keeping your attention on that thing, and returning your attention to it when it wanders.
When you train your attention on a given thing, you are engaging with that thing. You are noticing that thing, observing it, pondering it, maybe interacting with it. When you pay attention to a thing, you engage with that thing, and you are present with that thing. Wait. What? PRESENT? How did that happen? Being present is just what happens when you learn how to pay attention and get engaged. And if you practice this when not anxious, you can start to use this technique when you are anxious.
So when your brain is absolutely begging for your attention and engagement because it insists you are in danger, you can use your new attention focusing skills to move your engagement to something of your choosing. You can work on being PRESENT with something that is not your fear and not some imagined catastrophic outcome. You can do that. With enough practice, it becomes easier and more effective. Not to drown out your fear or erase it, but to allow it to run its natural course while you place your attention out into the world rather than keeping it anchored in your thoughts.
Can you see how learning how to pay attention might be far easier than trying to figure out how to BE present? Now, I fully acknowledge that “pay attention” does not sound profound or spiritual in any way, but we don’t need profound here. We just need useful.
Start there, and you may be surprised at how profound begins to surface naturally down the road.
When things go wrong, don’t go with them. - Elvis Presley
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you’re reading this, I’m guessing that you have been through times when you would happily pay big money to feel relaxed just for a few minutes.
Then one day you discover that you ARE feeling relaxed. Then you get anxious because it doesn’t feel “right”. True story. This happened to me many times during my recovery, and it happens to many people in our community every day.
Why? Why does this happen? Why does not feeling anxious make us anxious in some cases?
There are two explanations I can offer for this. The first is that anxiety is triggered by waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you have spent such a long time battling anxiety and trying to get away from it, feeling like it attacks you constantly, when it does subside it’s normal to remain on guard and ready for it to return. That state of readiness and guardedness is in fact anxiety, so you stop feeling anxious, then get anxious because you are anticipating being anxious again. This is quite common.
The second reason that we might feel anxious about being relaxed is that after so long in a continuously tense state, relaxation can feel “empty”. I used to call it feeling “floaty” or detached. Not in a DP/DR way. But it would feel like my body was both heavy and light at the same time, or sometimes the best word I could use to describe the sensation was “hollow”. Being in a physically relaxed state, augmented by a mentally calm state, meant that I just felt different from head to toe. When you are afraid your own body, it becomes natural to not only scan for changes, but to closely evaluate and judge every physical state you encounter.
Just when you start to come to grips with the idea that feeling tense, wound up, and anxious is OK, that feeling goes away, leaving you to analyze and evaluate this brand new feeling … NOT being anxious or worked up. It quickly leads to questions like:
“Is this right? Am I supposed to feel this way?”
“Why do my legs feel so light right now?”
“Can I even feel my hands?”
“Is something happening to me?”
Some of this inner dialogue and analysis might be familiar to you. Isn’t it interesting that feeling NO anxiety will trigger some of the same questions and catastrophic “what if” thinking patterns that we experience when at the height of anxiety?
An anxious brain is never satisfied, is it? It simply must scan for threats, and when it scans, it finds them even where none exist. NOT feeling anxious is different and different is wrong and wrong is dangerous so … anxiety.
The key here - in my opinion - is to accept the FACT that all states are acceptable. I mean within reason of course. Nobody is telling you that bleeding from your upper thigh because you’ve had a chain saw accident is acceptable. But in general, in the absence of actual physical impairment or medical danger, ALL states are acceptable and even permissible. Humans experience a very wide range of physical, mental, and emotional states, so all are allowed. We are designed for all of them, even the ones we do not like.
It’s OK to get anxious because you’re not anxious. But when you do, remind yourself that your job in that moment is to allow that state and to move through it so that you can learn that there is no threat and that you are OK when you feel that way.
If someone told me on my 16th birthday that one day I would be writing an article for thousands of people to explain that its safe to relax, I would have never believed it. Yet … here we are. Brains are so strange.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Remember yesterday when I drew a parallel between the return of anxiety and getting a letter from an ex? Well that went over so well (in my own mind) that I thought I would stay on this roll with another little break-up parable designed to teach a recovery lesson. Let’s see if I can pull this off, shall we?
You know that thing where you have to end a relationship, but you also don’t want to end the relationship because you are afraid to be alone and will really miss your partner even though they are making your life miserable on the daily? Oh you know about that? Great. Join the club.
In this situation a common move for many people is to end the relationship, but to also try to do the “let’s be friends” thing. Don’t even lie. You know you’ve done this. You break romantic ties and separate from each other, but you do your best to soften the blow and take the sharp edges off the feelings by being “friends” for some amount of time. Great plan, right? You’re free of all the headaches, free to move on and find something new, but also not totally alone and you don’t have to worry about dealing with all those pesky break up feelings and the discomfort that comes with them. This is a genius idea!
Then … it isn’t. You were so sure that you could just be friends. Buddies. Besties. All the good stuff that soothes you and makes you feel better in the moment, but something isn’t right. Bad things keep happening. You’re still sleeping together sometimes because … well … because. You’re still sharing things on an emotionally intimate level. You’re still running to each other with every little life event because … support, right? But next thing you know, you’re pretty much right back where you were before the alleged break-up. Nothing has really changed. No progress is being made. You’re scratching your head and wondering how this amazing plan that combined the best of all worlds has failed you. Why are you still stuck in this thing that you do not want to be in any more?
Sometimes when we decide that we want to recover, and we resign ourselves to the fact that we must go toward fear and discomfort to do that, we also try to hang on to our old strategies and familiar responses and reactions to anxiety. Does this sound familiar to you?
“I’m ready now! Bring on the exposures! New relationship with anxiety! Recovery is possible! But it feels kinda scary to leave all my safety and soothing rituals behind so I’ll do both. I’ll do the scary stuff and still have my old go-to rituals handy to take the edge off and keep me comfortable. What’s the harm in that? Best of all worlds!”
Except that 6 weeks later you are wondering why things are not getting any better. You’re still anxious, still afraid of every exposure like it’s the first time, and still doing your best to smash your anxiety over the head with a bottle of lavender oil because you need to “calm down”. And you can’t find any progress, even though you’re “doing the things”.
Sometimes, when we try to soften the blow and remain friends with an ex, we find ourselves wondering how we’re at the same bar having the same argument and complaining about the same issues that we always have.
Break-ups hurt. Missing someone you love hurts. It’s hard work to do something so uncomfortable because you know it’s the right thing for you to do.
So we bend the rules to make things easier and more comfortable. But that rarely works out.
Life is hard, isn’t it?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yes, I know this is a funny title. What is this edition of The Anxious Morning about? Why, Drew? WHY????
You know that thing where you break up with your partner because no matter how hard you try and no matter how many times you beg, plead, reason, or argue, things are just not working out? You want it work out. You really do, but in the end you have to end the relationship because it’s never going to be what you hoped it would be.
We’ve all been there. It sucks. Reality is super inconvenient and does not care about our feelings.
Now imagine that you work through all the pain and the heartache and make all the adjustments that come along with a breakup. You do the hard work. You’re finally getting over it and moving forward with your life. Excellent! Then one day out of the blue you get a letter from your ex. WTF? What is this all about?
According to the letter, your ex has changed. Lessons have been learned. Growth has happened. They’re better now. They love you. They want you back. You have a three page handwritten letter in your hand designed to convince you that THIS TIME WILL BE DIFFERENT!
You know you should throw away the letter and never think about it ever again. Keep walking. Keep moving forward. Move on. But … reason is sometimes no match for emotion so you send a text and next thing you know the relationship is back in full swing and you are believing that this time it really is different.
Until it’s not.
Two weeks later you’re hurt, frustrated, disappointed, disillusioned, and kicking yourself for ever believing a word of that letter. Now you have to process the breakup again. More emotional heavily lifting now complicated by the fact that you are judging yourself really harshly for falling for the lies again. Raise your hand if you’ve been here before. Many of us have.
Nice story, but what’s the point, Drew?
What else rolls in on you when you think it’s over, dumps a metric ton of words and thoughts on you to convince you that THIS TIME is different and special, then leaves you wondering why you followed along and got fooled AGAIN?
Think about it. I bet you know the answer.
Next time you get a letter from your ex, acknowledge that they are super charming and very convincing. Acknowledge that you are drawn on an emotional level to believe every word and open that dialogue with them again. Allow yourself to be human and feel that natural pull. Recognize the PROCESS.
Then stop. Be still. Allow all those emotions and feelings and desires to be there. Breathe. Make a little space for yourself to operate in. You can do that.
Then take that letter from your ex, with all its marvelously persuasive language … and burn it.
The rest of your day might be kinda tough once you do, but you’ll likely feel stronger, prouder, more capable, and even a bit more confident tomorrow.
Sorry, ex. Not today.
I’m currently reading Love Notes from the Hollow Tree by Jarod K Anderson. It’s the second poetry/prose compilation from this author, and I’m enjoying his thoughts as much in this book as I did in the first. Oh, and I’m reading it with someone very special. You know who you are.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
This is one of those things that comes up fairly regularly in our community. I recognize that no matter how often I try to clarify my role in your recovery, some responsibility does come from being a mental health content creator so I have to take a few hundred words on a Monday morning to address it.
At least a few times every week someone asks me to validate or approve of something they’ve been told by their therapist or counselor.
Sometimes even a therapist that specializes in anxiety disorders might say something that sounds like a contradiction that doesn’t fit the “Drew method” (I CRINGE even writing that). This can happen. I’m not a licensed therapist yet, but I feel comfortable saying that therapists are also human and there is no flowchart that all therapists follow when treating anxiety disorders. It’s not a paint-by-numbers thing so different situations are subject to interpretation and context always matters. This means that sometimes I might say something that seems to contradict your therapist, or your therapist might seem to be contradicting me.
In most cases when context and individual circumstances are looked at, that contradiction makes perfect sense and there’s a perfectly good reason for it. In other instances, more careful examination reveals that there really is no contradiction. Just different words or framing techniques. That’s pretty common. But in every case, the safe, smart move is to prioritize your therapist over me. Your therapist knows you, your individual situation, your history, and the nuances of your case. I am just a guy that writes books and says stuff online. So if you are working with an anxiety disorder specialist and ask me to validate or “check” something that therapist says to you, I really can’t do that. I can’t virtually butt heads with your therapist from an ethical standpoint.
Now let’s look at a different situation. One in which you are working with a therapist, counselor, coach, or some other helper that has no connection at all to a cognitive behavioral approach to anxiety disorders. If you are hoping that a gentler approach to your anxiety will work for you, and you choose a therapist that will be more gentle with you, that is entirely your right and I support that right. You get to decide what is best for you and I do not get judge you for doing so. But if you make this choice then ask me to validate the mode of treatment, you will get radio silence from me. Why? Because I will not invalidate your right to autonomy in your mental health choices and I cannot be some guy on the Internet that argues virtually with the clinician you’ve chosen. That’s not cool at all, and maybe there are other issues at play that I don’t know about so I can’t have an intelligent opinion anyway.
Blanket statement: If you’d heard even a few of my words you likely know that I do not think that running home to soothe when anxious is a good idea so please do not ask me to “give the OK” for you to get better that way.
You have my unconditional OK to make any choice you want to make. That I can totally and happily give you.
Of course, if you want to fire your therapist because they are simply not helping you for some reason and you ask me if that’s OK, I’m going to tell you that its always OK. You can fire your therapist any time for any reason because … autonomy. You can also unsubscribe to The Anxious Morning and stop listening to The Anxious Truth podcast at any time and if you thought that was the best move for you I would cheer for you. Odds are your therapist would do the same even as you fire them.
You always have options. You can always make changes. The people you look to for help and support should help you navigate through those options and changes, not dictate them for you. That includes me.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
There’s an old adage in the customer service world that says, “Nobody calls to say they love you.” These are true words, and they apply well beyond call centers at banks and cable companies.
In general, people tend to use the comments section of the Internet, and any place where they can say things, to talk about how bad things are. When given it, humans will take the opportunity to complain, share horror stories, look for confirmation that their disasters are in fact disasters, and to share misery. It would appear that this is how we are wired, so I’m not blaming anyone or finding fault in this.
Please keep in mind that this natural tendency toward the negative applies not only when reviewing a car dealership or restaurant. This applies in mental health and anxiety as well, which is a very important thing to remember if you’re reading this right now.
If you go online to find out how others are handling anxiety, panic, intrusive thoughts, or any related problem, expect to find complaints, horror stories, disasters, and a torrent of misery. Why? Because people will take to the Internet to speak their problems out loud in the hope of finding a solution. The issue is that we are long on problems and generally short on solutions or solution providers, so we wind up with an avalanche of negative, scary, stories that will make you think that you have no hope of ever getting better.
Everyone will join a Facebook group to talk about how bad they feel. Nobody will join a Facebook group to talk about how they are NOT anxious. When you also join a Facebook group to talk about how bad you feel, you will be confronted with all the other people that are doing the same. The same holds true in the comments section on YouTube and Instagram, or on Twitter or Reddit. You will see LOTS of negative and very little positive.
When people get better they generally stop going on the Internet to talk about anxiety. When people are making progress in recovery, they tend to not need to commiserate any more. When anxiety isn’t a problem any longer, there’s no reason to talk about it, so people don’t. People simply do not call customer service for help if there is no problem. This does not mean that nobody gets better or that it is near impossible to get better. It just means that very few people get better then come back to tell you about it. This makes the Internet look like confirmation that you are doomed, when nothing could be farther from the truth.
Why should you care about this situation? Because when you are searching for hope and find only nightmare stories, an anxious brain is especially vulnerable to drawing incorrect conclusions that center on never getting better, being anxious forever, and losing everything as a result. This is to be expected, but this is also not necessarily accurate.
So when you find yourself Googling, forum surfing, and diving head first into the deep end of “anxiety support” on the Internet, please keep this bias in mind. You are almost always going to see far more negative than positive dialogue, but this is not reflective of reality in any way. Then, maybe pull back and stop looking for support so much if you find that it’s making you feel worse or more helpless.
If you hate hamburgers but love tacos, you might not go into a McDonalds because McDonalds has hambugers. The good news is that there are still tacos in the world, even when you can’t see them in a McDonalds.
When negative posts, horror stories, and the sharing of suffering negatively impacts you, maybe step away from the Internet, because the Internet has those things. There is still recovery in the world, even if you can’t see it from the comments section.
Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to accept the consequences without complaining. - Grace Jones
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
OK-ness.
I’m not sure if this is even a word, but I’m gonna use it anyway because it’s my newsletter and I can do what I want. For our purposes, we’ll define OK-ness as the state of being … well …OK. I’m quite the wordsmith, aren’t I?
What is conditional OK-ness?
The best way for me to answer that is to give you a little assignment to complete. Think of something you find hard to do because of anxiety. Then finish this sentence:
I can do this hard thing AS LONG AS …..
Whatever comes after “AS LONG AS” is a condition of OK-ness for you. For example, “I can drive by myself as long as I don’t get more than 5 minutes from my house.” This sets a condition on being OK. That condition is staying close to home. A fully recovered person would have no such condition. They would not have have to stay close to home to be OK. In this light we can define recovery as a quest to attain consistent states of unconditional OK-ness.
Is your OK-ness conditional? Think about “normal” everyday activities, situations, and contexts that you really want to be able to engage in and enjoy again. Maybe you’re already engaging in them because you’ve pushed yourself and managed to expand your comfort zone to some degree. If you have, good job! But now think about any conditions that you’ve set on being OK in those situations.
Do you need a safe person with you or nearby?
Do you need water, mints, or sweet snacks?
Do you need to have my podcast playing to be OK?
Do you need to have your essential oils or ice packs at the ready?
Does the temperature have to be in a certain range?
Is there a limit on distance traveled or the number of people at the gathering?
These are typical examples of conditions for OK-ness.
So what can we do with this?
When you can identify your conditional OK-ness, and identify those conditions, you have a new roadmap to follow. Your conditions are now guideposts for you in your recovery. Road signs, if you will. You now know that in order to continue to progress, you must remove those conditions one by one.
At this point you might be cringing and wondering why I am raining on your parade or making things so difficult for you. I’m sorry. I really don’t want to do that, but if we are shooting at complete, lasting, durable recovery that works across multiple contexts in your life, this is the path we must follow. I’m not minimizing the progress you’ve made. You did that! But that progress can be fragile if there are conditions attached. This leaves you vulnerable to that dreaded word … SETBACK! When we build conditional OK-ness we are building an acceptable bubble for ourselves and that bubble is easily popped.
Let me acknowledge that all living creatures have some conditions for OK-ness. Plants are OK as long as there is sunlight and water. Humans are OK as long as there is food and the temperature is under about 110 degrees F. Cats are OK as long as there is a dog to annoy on a daily basis. You get the idea. But if we we want to go all the way in RECOVERY, we cannot be satisfied with conditional OK-ness.
So … is your OK-ness conditional? And if it is, what are you going to do about that?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Are you a worrier or an over thinker? Worry and overthinking (these are just forms of rumination which is a safety seeking behavior) are common problems for many in our community.
If you identify as a worrier or overthinker, odds are that you really don’t want to be this way, but no matter how hard you try, you are not able to find a way to stop. You’re looking for a switch that will turn it all off, but you can’t seem to find it no matter how hard you look, can you?
You’re not alone in this. Many anxious people are trying to do this, and also failing. Let’s look at this for a few minutes, shall we?
Sometimes this is a matter of changing the “angle of attack”.
There is no switch in your brain that turns off worry or overthinking.
You don’t get to just decide to stop having thoughts. We can choose to HAVE a thought, but we do not get to choose to NOT have one. So as much as you want to stop thinking about that time you may have offended your boss, or stop worrying about how your daughter is going to manage away at college alone, you can’t. Those thoughts keep coming because we have no mechanism for turning them off. Even when you try to think other things in an effort to drown out or replace worry or overthinking, you wind up right back at the starting line again, over and over. It’s incredibly frustrating and can make you feel like you have no power or control over anything.
The problem is not that you can’t flip a thinking switch. The problem is that when you allow your thoughts but disengage from them or try to focus on other thoughts and activities, you likely feel uncomfortable and in some ways exposed and vulnerable. Walking away from worries and swirling thoughts feels wrong, irresponsible, or even reckless.
"What if I don't worry and I don't fix things, then something bad happens????"
This creates a state of agitation, distress, or discomfort. We also call that anxiety or even fear sometimes. So you can’t stop those thoughts, but if you try to turn away from them or disengage with them, you get really uncomfortable really quickly. It’s a no-win, isn’t it?
Actually, that’s not the case.
When you say that you can’t stop worrying or overthinking what you’re really saying is that that you see yourself as incapable of allowing and working through that discomfort and distress. You don’t want to be controlled by those thoughts, but you must entangle with them because the alternative is to experience uncertainty, fear, or powerful anxiety, and you see that as absolutely out of the question.
But really, is it? Are you really incapable of handling these things? Have you never managed to tolerate uncertainty or discomfort in your life? Given that we live in a structurally uncertain and mostly un-knowable universe, how would that even be possible? You are handling uncertainty and accepting un-solvable problems all the time. You have the capacity to do that.
So … when you want to throw up your hands and declare that you are doomed to a lifetime of worry and overthinking because you can’t stop your brain, take a minute and consider this. Do you really need to stop your brain, or do you need to work on re-discovering and re-building your distress and discomfort navigation skills?
What would happen if you saw the problem in this light? What would you do next?
You know me, I’m always happy to get you thinking on a Wednesday morning.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let’s talk about exposures and what they are, and aren’t. I’m always surprised by the number of people that hear the word “exposure” or the phrase “exposure therapy” but completely misinterpret what it means. This is impactful because it leads many members of our community to conclude that either exposures do not work for them, or that they are simply unable to grasp the concept or do it right. This can lead to feeling stuck in recovery, and in needless negative self judgment.
Let’s take a look at a few statements that represent what exposure is, and one that represents what exposure is not.
EXPOSURE
“I am planning to put myself into a situation that I expect will trigger anxiety or panic. I intend to feel those things so I can practice moving through them more productively. I do this consistently and often, making it more challenging as I get better at doing it.”
EXPOSURE
“My thoughts or internal experiences (like DP/DR) trigger me randomly so I can’t plan them but when this does happen I will allow it and do my best to feel what I feel while working through it more productively by not treating it like an emergency.”
EXPOSURE
“Life is forcing me to do a thing I am afraid to do because I fear how I might feel if I do it. I don’t like this but I will intentionally accept those feelings if they happen, understand that there’s a good chance that they will, and do my best to use the experience to practice handling them more productively.”
NOT EXPOSURE
“When I’m having a good day I try to do some things that I normally avoid. I hope - or actively work - to prevent anxiety when I do this. If I do feel anxious or panic, I do what I can to stop the feelings with all my coping skills or I end the event and go back to my safe place. I don’t know when my next try will be. It depends on how long it takes me to get over the anxiety or panic that happened.”
The first three statements are indicative of productive use of exposure (and don’t forget the response prevention part too). This leads to learning and progress, even when that progress is slow. Slow is OK. Slow counts. Do not beat yourself up when things feel like they are not going fast enough.
The last statement is indicative of randomly interrupted avoidance, which is not really exposure. This leads to frustration, even more avoidance, and a mistaken belief that your anxiety is special or worse and that you might not be able to get better. This approach is based on the mistaken idea that you are supposed to do exposures while preventing panic or anxiety. That is completely wrong because the entire point of doing exposure is to intentionally trigger the things you’re trying to prevent. You are not failing if you panic while doing an exposure or meeting a life challenge. You are learning, if you are open to the experience and can allow the lesson.
So if you feel like you have been doing exposures, but your exposure looks or sounds like that last statement in the list, it might be time to stop and re-think your approach. You may be feeling frustrated or discouraged, but there’s every chance that you can address that feeling by getting more familiar with the premise of exposure and how it works, then moving in a new direction.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Not everything is an anxiety symptom. That has to be acknowledged. Right now you may be absolutely terrified that you might “miss” something that really is medically dangerous. I understand. I promise, as you get better and move forward in recovery, you will regain your ability to more accurately assess your health and make more rational health decisions.
So what is the role of a doctor in the recovery process? When should you get medically checked? Is that going backwards in recovery? Is seeing a doctor “against the rules”? Let’s answer some of these questions.
Everyone has a different tolerance level for medical and health uncertainty. We all know perfectly “normal” people that see doctors more often and are a bit more cautious and proactive about health monitoring than others. We also all know normal people that will literally wait until their arms have fallen off before calling a doctor. The range is wide here for sure, so there is no right answer when it comes to when you should see a doctor or get something checked out.
As a general rule of thumb and in my opinion, I think that frequency and repetition are the key factors for us here.
You may be someone that wants to get every new pain checked out. I can’t tell you to not do that. You get to make that choice. I can also assure you that going to see a doctor is not “cheating” nor is it against the rules of recovery. I’m surprised at the number of people that describe being legitimately sick who are afraid to go see a doctor because they are afraid that will mean they are going backwards in recovery. There’s no reason to cough up a lung, blow your nose, and run a fever for days on end without help if you want it. You are not breaking any rules by taking care of yourself!
The same rules apply for injury. If you spend all day chopping wood and wind up with back spasms or painful tendonitis, there is no recovery rule that says you should not get medical attention. Nobody is telling you to “float” through actual injury or pain.
Anxiety, recovery, illness, and injury can sometimes coexist. You can be recovering and sick at the same time. More than one thing can and usually does happen at the same time.
That being said, what I can do is to ask you to look at how often you are getting the same things checked out. How often do you access medical services to address the same complaint? Are you in the habit of seeking second, third, or sixth opinions? Are you stuck on the idea that doctors and tests could be wrong? Do you have a problem accepting the “all clear” from a doctor for more than a few hours or days?
You can also look at your ability — or lack of ability — to generalize across contexts. If the pain in your left hip was the result of bad posture at your desk chair, can you consider this when your right hip hurts, or will you immediately run to get checked for bone cancer?
Finally, I might suggest that you take a look at why you are accessing medical care and medical services. Are you calling your doctor because you are impaired in some way, or are you calling because you are afraid that you might be impaired or might become impaired? Sick and injured people — in general — know when they are sick and injured and act accordingly. They do not anticipate sickness or injury and try to catch it before it’s actually happening. Are you doing that?
Just one more thing. Your health anxiety and your fear may already be demanding that you run to the comments section for this post to tell me that “something might really be wrong and that should be checked out!” Let me answer that in advance by simply saying … OK.
I won’t ever argue with your health anxiety and your fear because that argument is what keeps it alive and I’m not in that business.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you have not read or listened to the 114th edition of The Anxious Morning, please go back and check that out, then come back and read or listen to this one. And as always, if you feel that you are truly an immediate danger to yourself or anyone else, PLEASE reach out for in-person help immediately.
Yesterday I talked about the times when I was gripped by the irrational fear that I might somehow decide to commit suicide even though I did not want to. I just want to remind you that this is a common fear in our community. You are not alone in this.
So how did I get past this fear? What convinced me that I was “safe” and would not do this horrible thing that I did not want to do? Sometimes when I talk about this, people asked me what exposures I did for this fear, and what exposures they can do for this fear. Really, I did no exposures directly for this fear.
This fear - which was among the most terrifying things I’ve ever experienced - faded away on me because I was working really hard to get better in general. In retrospect, this was not some new special form of anxiety that had to be addressed. I see now that it is incredibly common among people that suffer with panic disorder and OCD. It can come and go from time to time. It’s not its own special disorder and I did not need to “treat” it directly.
As I did the work of forming a new reaction to and relationship with scary thoughts and sensations, things changed on all fronts. I’ve talked about this before when it came to my repetitive thoughts about death and existence too. As I worked on getting better at being anxious and afraid, repeated experiences where I navigated THROUGH these things showed me that my thoughts were just thoughts. They could still be really scary sometimes for sure, and I did not like them, but as crazy as this sounds, the exposure work I was doing for my panic disorder and agoraphobia helped me put some space between me and those disturbing thoughts about suicide or existential dilemmas.
I overcame the fear that I might unintentionally commit suicide by learning a new way to relate to my thoughts. I know this might not be the answer you’re looking for, but it was the answer for me and as it turns out it’s the answer for most of us in the end. From a mechanical standpoint, I started engaging in life WHILE I was experiencing that fear. I allowed those thoughts about suicide to come, run their course, then go, while I did the best I could to not engage with them and not get dragged into a debate with them. I learned this after allowing 10,000 panic attacks to kill me without resisting. If it worked in that context, I figured it would work in this context too. Sure enough, it did.
None of this was easy. I will NEVER tell you that it is. It might be a simple idea, but it is not easy. But when someone wants to know exactly how to overcome the fear that they might harm themselves agains their will, this is the answer I will give. The fear is overcome by learning how to treat all irrational thoughts and all irrational fears this way. I know you hear me say all the time that the content of a thought or fear is irrelevant, and I know that this is hard to accept, but in the end it was true for me and accepting this and working with it changed everything on so many fronts.
I cannot teach you exactly every step to take in a morning newsletter. That was not my intention. I do my best to relay that information in the aggregate of all my social media content, my podcast episodes, the books I write, etc. But I am hopeful that by sharing the story of how I overcame this fear in general, I might make you think a little. Maybe now you may at least consider the possibility that your current terrified, frantic state is not a harbinger of doom, regardless of how disturbing it may be in the moment.
Every part of my anxious, overworked brain was once completely convinced that it was possible for me to accidentally or unintentionally commit suicide and it was LOUD in expressing that. But in the end, I learned that loud does not equal true. It only equals loud.
Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.
- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Many many anxious people that have NO intention or desire to harm themselves wind up terrified that they might do that anyway, against their will. This is a more common fear than you think so I want to talk more about it. I’ll start by relaying my own experience.
First, I have to remind you that this edition of The Anxious Morning is not meant to be a crisis management tool or a substitute for therapy. As always, if you feel that you are an immediate danger to yourself or anyone else, you MUST reach out for in-person help right away. We all care about you and want you to remain safe above all else.
When I was going through the worst of panic disorder, agoraphobia, a barrage of irrational repetitive thoughts, and depression, I am thankful that I never even once reached the point where I considered harming myself for taking my own life. However, I did become irrationally terrified of the thought that I might somehow do that anyway, against my wishes and against my will.
I had no plan. I had no intention. I did not want to hurt myself or kill myself. Yet, I was terrified to be alone because being alone would make it easier for me to do exactly that … even though I didn’t want to do that. I was gripped with the fear that I would have a thought, then somehow follow through on it, and nobody would be around to stop me or save me from myself. This also meant that I was terrified to be alone with my then small children because I was terrified that I might somehow hurt myself in front of them, or even hurt them.
I was afraid of the knives in the kitchen.
I was afraid of the scissors in the house.
I was afraid of all the electrical outlets.
I even spent time in every bathroom in the house checking to see if I could somehow reach from the bathtub to the light fixtures above the sinks. Not because I wanted to hurt myself or commit suicide. But because I was afraid that I might try to do it anyway and needed to protect against that happening.
I always had a bottle of Xanax nearby as a panic rescue device. I refused to take any of it because I am stubborn and do not like medication (MY issue, not a judgement on anyone else), but it was there. You know how this works. At one point I asked to have that bottle of pills hidden from me because I was afraid that I might suddenly decide to take the whole bottle at once. I went through every cabinet in the house, and tore the pantry apart covertly bit-by-bit and item-by-item to make sure there was nothing in the house that could potentially become a weapon that I would use against myself - against my will.
Twice I left my house in a frantic state and drove pretty recklessly to the hospital nearest my home to sit in the parking lot outside the emergency room “just in case” I needed to run in and have them stop me from killing myself — a thing I had absolutely ZERO desire to do. Mind you, that hospital was well outside my driving comfort zone at the time but the irrational fear of snapping and deciding to harm myself, and the desire to be saved from that irrational fear, was strong enough to override the fear of driving too far from home. One day I’ll write about that in relation to agoraphobia because there’s a lesson in there, but it will have to wait.
Some of what I am describing here may be familiar to you. This is more common in our community than you think. I understand just how terrifying this fear can be and how disturbing thoughts about suicide can be. I totally get the strong desire to immediately save yourself from them and protect against this horrible thing happening … because you do NOT want it to happen but are afraid that it might anyway.
Please know that in this situation, where you have no intention, desire, or plan to harm yourself but are afraid that you might do it anyway, you are safe. You are not so anxious or afraid that you will somehow lose control of yourself and impulsively take your own life, even though the thought of that is so terrifying that by itself you are afraid it will break you and compel you to do it. I used to think that too. Many people think that. You are not alone in this and even when your anxiety is telling you that you are worse than the rest of us and that in your case it might actually happen, it is wrong.
In early July of 2022, episode 215 of The Anxious Truth podcast will cover this common fear in greater detail, so stay tuned for that. Tomorrow in edition 115 of The Anxious Morning, I’ll talk about how I overcame this fear and how it ultimately faded away on me.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
It is rare that The Anxious Morning and The Anxious Truth podcast match perfectly on any given day. Today they do, and the topic for both is the fear of vomiting. This is known in clinical circles as emetophobia. Emetophobia is more common than you might think in our community.
Many anxious people harbor a fear - sometimes a very intense fear - of vomiting. In some cases, the avoidance driven by emetophobia can be the key factor in developing agoraphobia. Ken Goodman, LCSW (Goodman, n.d.) wrote on the ADAA website:
People who suffer with this phobia often experience significant social and occupational impairment, going to great lengths to make sure they don’t vomit (similar to someone who fears elevators and walks up 10 flights of stairs). Kids refuse to go to school or visit a friend’s house, and adults miss work and stop eating at restaurants. Much of life is avoided all due to a fear of vomiting. This means missing out on much of life and a great deal of worrying and strategic planning — all to avoid something uncomfortable that seldom happens. The uncertainty of not knowing when it will happen is what causes so much distress.
And because you don’t know when it will happen, you are constantly on guard, rearranging your life to ward off any possibility of puking.
An emetophobic person may try to do exposures to overcome the fear of panic and anxiety itself, but when the base fear is that one might vomit when anxious or in a state of panic, these exposures can become far less productive, or even counter-productive in some cases. This is why for an emetophobe that suffers with panic attacks or has become agoraphobic, often it is VERY important to look beyond the idea of “floating, accepting, and surrendering” to panic. When there is a steadfast insistence that exposures are literal torture chambers based on the possibility that anxiety may trigger nausea or vomiting, that fear really needs to be addressed directly.
This is both good news and bad news for our emetophobic friends.
The good news is that there is a good explanation for why your exposures feel like torture that never help you. You’re not broken or beyond help. You’re just afraid of something more specific, which can be addressed.
The bad news is that … you’ll have to address it.
This is something that many emetophobia sufferers steadfastly insist is impossible because vomiting is in fact the very worst thing that can happen to a sentient being in the known universe. This may sound like an exaggeration. It is not. Trust me. I have been chastised by many of our emetophobic friends for daring to suggest that even that fear can be faced. But even when you insist that there is no possible way to overcome the fear of vomiting, you would be wrong. Many people overcome emetophobia. It’s treated successfully every day using the basic premises of cognitive behavioral therapy. That treatment can certainly be difficult. Nobody is denying this. But in the end the treatment can be quite effective and if you are willing to drive yourself to the supermarket and panic to get better, consider that working on your emetophobia is just another form of difficulty that you can also tolerate in order to get better.
I can’t give you a step by step cure for emetophobia in a morning newsletter, but I can at least point out that this specific fear could be the biggest obstacle standing in the way of your anxiety recovery, and I can give you hope that you can address this obstacle and move forward toward the life you want.
I suggest you check out the ADAA article linked below, and also check out two episodes of The Anxious Truth Podcast that address emetophobia:
Episode 132 - Christia’s Emetophobia Success Story
Episode 211 - More On Emetophobia (includes emetophobia resources in show notes)
References:
Goodman, K. (n.d.). Fear of vomiting, or emetophobia. Anxiety and Depression Association of America, ADAA. Retrieved June 7, 2022, from https://adaa.org/understanding-anxiety/specific-phobias/fear-of-vomiting
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you know my work, you’ve heard me say at least a few dozen times that no anxiety symptom is special, no matter how scary it might be for you. Sometimes people get really angry when I say this, so let me explain why I say it and why it’s important.
Recovery isn’t random. We don’t just try things, hope to get better, and magically get better. The things you hear me talk about all have a basis in theory that’s been studied and refined over many decades. There is truly a method to this madness.
When you work hard to “overcome” a specific symptom by directly addressing that symptom in some special way, you often wind up declaring failure and disaster when you experience another symptom. We see it all the time in the community. This is because tailoring your efforts specifically toward a given symptom kinda misses the the principles of recovery. We don’t learn how to overcome DP or dizziness. We learn how to build a new relationship with discomfort and fear, regardless of the form it takes.
When we learn to read and write, we learn and practice the elements of language. We start to recognize context and meaning. We learn general rules and use heuristics to gain an understanding of the nature of language, then we apply those as we expand our vocabulary and improve our skills.
Imagine if we had to learn every word without having this system to rely on? Imagine declaring that you can no longer speak because you’ve just discovered a word that’s new to you? Imagine running back to your 2nd grade teacher to be taught that word before being able to continue your life?
That would be a very difficult way to live. It’s also a very difficult way to recover, but if you are hoping to find a way to specifically “overcome” your scary symptom of the week, this is what you’re trying to do.
If you are convinced that you must learn to manage your breathing or your heartbeat to get better, you are going to build a very tenuous and somewhat fragile recovery. The minute you experience a new sensation related to anxiety, you will throw your hands in the air and declare that now you must start over. Figuratively speaking, you’ll have to keep running back to your 2nd grade teacher for instructions.
This is why I say that we must treat every symptom the same. In the end, they are. Virtually every recovered person will attest to this after the fact. We learn the principles of recovery, then we apply them across contexts and across symptoms. When we do this, we learn that even that scary symptom that you are sure is “special” … isn’t.
Tomorrow we’ll look at how doctors and getting medically checked out fits into the recovery process.
I’m currently reading Educated, by Tara Westover. Its a memior. Not something I would usually read. It was suggested by a friend and I’m finding it nice departure from textbooks and and psychology stuff.
Sometimes on Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Everyone knows about “Doctor Google”. Worst. Doctor. EVER.
Anxious people tend to run directly to Google so they can verify that anxiety symptoms are not dangerous and that scary thoughts will not come true. Invariably, anxious people will also bemoan the choice to ask Doctor Google because no good ever comes from it.
Why does asking Google seem like such a good idea … then such a bad idea after the fact?
Google is driven not by accuracy or veracity, but by popularity. The Google algorithm has certainly gotten smarter over the years, but it still rewards sites that are visited most often. That means that when you search for something on Google, the results you see will generally reflect the sites that are most visited in response to the search term you enter. Google will generally show you what it thinks makes most sense because lots of other people have clicked on those links.
When it comes to health issues - including mental health issues - people will most often use Google when trying to find safety from the worst case scenario. This means they will click on the worst case scenarios to see if they apply for them. This means that Google thinks that the worst case scenarios are the best links to show people since they are the most clicked on. So when you ask Google if your racing heart might kill you, you are going to get a bunch of links that paint a really scary picture, leading you to conclude that you are doomed.
The natural bias toward the negative means that Google thinks it’s giving you the best results, but it’s just giving you the most popular, and also the scariest results. Add your anxious mind and it’s compromised reasoning and critical thinking skills, and you can see why Google goes from great idea to terrible idea in short order.
What can we do about this? Part of recovery is learning to stop frantically seeking reassurance all the time, so that is certainly part of the solution. But being educated and well-informed about the nature of disordered anxiety and recovery is a good thing, so not all searching and researching is a bad thing!
Start by NOT starting with Google, or any other major search engine. They’re great when you want to find out who played the Skipper on Gilligan’s Island but they are TERRIBLE mental health tools. Instead, if you’re going to do research, start with some more focused sites that are driven by veracity and accuracy in the space. Here are a few:
Verywell Mind
Simply Psychology
International OCD Foundation
Anxiety And Depression Association of America
Psych Central
Why go direct to sites like this? Because these sites are going to give you a more accurate view into the nature of anxiety disorders and recovery. They are not about click bait or sensationalism. They tend to be slanted toward education about the nuts and bolts of anxiety and treatment. Not everything you read on these sites will make you feel good, but you are far less likely to be dragged into the trap of catastrophic thinking if you make use of well written and focused sites like these.
This is by no means an exhaustive list of good mental health websites, but its a start. I’ll do my best to pass on good resources when I have them for you. For now, just remember that Googling to feel safe isn’t a good plan, but if you must search, skip the usual visit to Doctor Google. She’ll always leave you wishing you hadn’t asked.
By the way, Alan Hale, Jr. played the Skipper. And I didn’t have to ask Google to know that.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Life is full of questions. Sometimes life is nothing but questions. We encounter situations we do not understand and cannot explain. We await outcomes that we cannot fully predict or control. Questions, questions, everywhere!
Here’s another question to add to that list.
Do you automatically turn questions into problems?
Must you ALWAYS know? Must you answer every question, and does every unanswerable question become a problem that must be solved before you can rest?
I get asked many questions about GAD. I know the community is full of people that are wrestling with generalized anxiety, where there are no panic attacks, but there is anxiety lingering all the time. Well, the propensity to want to answer every question, and to turn questions into automatic problems, can be one reason why a person may find themselves anxious all the time for seemingly no reason. Some of our friends even take this to another level by actively looking for questions to answer and problems to solve.
If you can identify with this kind of thing, then you are looking the fear of uncertainty and lack of control square in the face.
Everybody loves certainty and control. They feel like safety, security, or accomplishment. For most people, these are nice things, but they are not necessarily always required. We recognize that we can’t always have them, nor do we always need them to be OK. For the general population, the uncertainty and unknowability (this is now a word) of life are accepted, or maybe even relegated to the land of blissful ignorance. If you’re reading this, odds are you would pay handsomely to be able to accept or ignore the uncertain nature of the universe.
This common drive to answer every question and to turn questions into problems is just that normal drive for safety, comfort, or self-worth run amok. When you can’t know, and therefore feel unsafe or like you are failing your identity as “the one that figures things out”, a state of distress is created. That state of distress or discomfort is the anxiety you feel. So really, if you are someone that habitually and automatically turns questions into problems, the background anxiety that you can’t explain is kind of explainable when you see it from this angle.
There’s some good news here though. You can learn to leave questions unanswered and problems unsolved. I’ve done podcast episodes about this on The Anxious Truth (see episodes 114 and 148 in particular), but the short version is that the act of intentionally leaving things unsolved and unanswered, then the practice of allowing that discomfort, leaning into the distress, and allowing it to rise then fall naturally, is how you build your “distress tolerance muscles” over time. Repeated practice with positive outcomes (nothing bad happened other than being uncomfortable) shows you that you never needed to be in question answering and problems solving mode to begin with. You learn over time that you can let things go, and still be OK.
You might be tempted to counter this by insisting that there might be an instance where the unknown will cause a problem so you MUST be diligent and protect against that. Nonsense. If the uncertain nature of life - which is beyond your control - does cause a real problem or two at times - you will be able to handle them when or if needed. I promise. You can do that.
Take a few minutes today and consider the possibility that you don’t have to turn every question into a problem. Consider that trying to proactively solve every problem and answer every question isn’t keeping you safe and that doing so is not earning you extra points in any account but your own. Think about it. That might be your first step toward making meaningful change.
“Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” - Gilda Radner
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Since we’ve spent much of the week talking about cognitive distortions and distorted thoughts, I thought I would kick off our little series on the common forms of cognitive distortions that we see in our community. From time to time I’ll add to this series.
Let’s start with all or nothing thinking. This is sometimes called black-and-white thinking. The premise behind all or nothing thinking is that only one thing can be true at a time. When you engage in all or nothing or black and white thinking, this OR that must be true. Multiple outcomes cannot co-exist under this distortion.
If you step back for a minute and think about the premise of all or nothing thinking, you can see almost immediately why it is a cognitive distortion. Is life always black and white? Is everything always well defined? Can more than one thing be true at at a time? Your life experience tells you that things are often unclear and that there can be more than one point of view, more than one outcome to an action, and that multiple things can and are true at the same time every day.
When under the sway of disordered anxiety, that life experience goes out the window and you begin to believe all or nothing thoughts. You might still readily acknowledge that both pizza and tacos can be delicious at the same time, but when it comes to those “special” thoughts that scare you, the ability to see nuance like this gets squashed and things become black and white quickly. This fuels fear and does not help promote recovery.
Let’s relate this distortion to the common fear of never getting better or never being able to fully recover. Consider a day in which you engage in few exposure activities. The particulars do not matter. You’re challenging yourself by intentionally being anxious and uncomfortable so you can get better at those things and move forward toward recovery. You complete all your exposure assignments successfully, but you felt very afraid and didn’t want to complete them. All or nothing thinking will drive you to declare this successful day (you did all your exposures) a failure because you still felt anxious, afraid, or uncomfortable. You are not recovered at the end of the day and the all or nothing distortion will tell you that you must either be recovered, or not recovered, therefore you have failed.
See the problem here?
All or nothing thinking means you totally discount the reality of the situation, which is more complex and nuanced. In reality, you did scary, difficult things and felt afraid when you did them. But you also successfully completed the challenges. You also had real world experiences that get filed away and contribute to a changing relationship with anxiety and fear. More than one thing was true on this day. You were both not recovered, and also moving toward recovery. You were both feeling bad, and making progress.
Emotional reasoning and discounting the positive are other cognitive distortions that matter in this situation. We’ll talk about them down the road. But at the heart of “I’ll never get better” is all or nothing distortions that rob you of the ability to even consider the nuanced and complex nature of the recovery process. They force you to declare failure and defeat when you simply do not have to do that.
Are you guilty of all or nothing thinking? Most people are at least sometimes. Even “normal” people! If you have examples of all or nothing thinking in your life, share them in the comments on Substack if you’re so inclined.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
You can never win an argument with irrational and distorted thoughts. This is especially true when you choose to debate or otherwise wrestle with your thoughts on their own turf - inside your head.
That gives your thoughts home field advantage. It’s where they live, and where they freely frolic, unencumbered by the need to obey the laws of reality as we know them.
In edition 106 of The Anxious Morning we talked about the importance of calling out distorted thoughts rather than trying to soothe the fear they create. Check that out if you haven’t, then come back to this edition.
When your anxious brain is telling you once again that you are about to die, pass out, become incapacitated, have a psychotic break, or kill all your co-workers, it’s best for us to learn to simply acknowledge these thoughts as thoughts, then refuse to engage with them. This is VERY difficult and completely counterintuitive, so calling out the distortion first is a good way to set the table for this more productive response. Before you acknowledge and disengage, first acknowledge that what you are experiencing is a DISTORTED thought. How can you do this?
One of the most effective ways to call out distortions and distorted thoughts, is to drag your thoughts out of your head and force them into the cold light of day. It is important that I remind you that this is not an exercise designed to “prove” that your fear will not come true. That’s a never ending un-winnable war. This is designed to help you see the true nature of scary thoughts in a more objective way so you can work on disengaging from them and allowing them to simply exist.
As an example, when your brain is screaming that “This time, you might actually go insane”, rather than just trying to convince yourself that it won’t happen, drag the thought out into the real world and compare it quickly to all the actual outcomes you’ve experienced as a result of that thought in the past. Remind yourself of how many times you’ve been afraid that you were about to have a psychotic break and how many times that very strong feeling turned out to be dead wrong. This goes beyond just insisting that your thought is wrong and uses actual real outcomes and experiences to inform our next actions.
You can continue to argue and fight with your thoughts inside your head on their terms, or you can drag them forcibly out into reality and let that reality belittle them in a practical way. Use the lesson of your past experiences to expose the distorted nature of your thoughts, then use that more objective view of the distortion to show you that it is safe to disengage and allow that scary thought to happen without resistance.
This is not easy. Even when you drag a distorted thought through the reality machine, it will persist and you will still be afraid. In practice, all of this happens in a matter of seconds, so it is fast. Keep in mind that what we have here is a precursor step (exposing the distortion) that can help you take the primary step (allowing and surrendering to the distorted thought). This is not a method for instantly calming an anxious brain. Only the surrendering and allowing experience will ultimately “prove” your distorted thoughts wrong in any meaningful way, so do not lose sight of this.
Running distorted throughs through the reality machine is useful, but please remember that this takes time, practice, and repetition to learn and improve, so be nice to yourself while you work on it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
The last day of each month is usually a guest post, but I dropped the ball this month so the May guest post is going to be from … me. Well, kind of. This edition of The Anxious Morning is about why learning to slow down is a valuable recovery and life skill. I thought I would pass along some excerpts from my third book - Seven Percent Slower - to help get this point across. I hope you find it helpful.
When we are afraid, most of us tend to start moving through time and space like we were shot out of a cannon. We talk faster, walk faster, and think faster (though not necessarily in a productive way). An anxious, stressed, afraid person is often easily identified by how fast they are going.
When your lizard brain goes looking for trouble and finds it, it will demand that you get yourself to safety. A key part of this strategy involves speeding you up. When anxious, afraid, or stressed, one of the prime directives your lizard brain will issue to the rest of your mind and body is to GO FASTER!
Rushing and going faster are natural and baked-in aspects of the escape and avoidance response. They are attempts to get away from stressors, fear triggers, or threat responses. They are part of fight or flight. If you’re going to run away from a perceived threat, going faster is an advantage. If you are going to turn and fight, being quicker and faster is an advantage. Speed improves survival performance in most cases.
Automatically speeding up when anxious, afraid, or stressed was an excellent idea 30,000 years ago when humans lived in a constant state of actual danger and under constant survival threats. But in 2022, this genius bit of evolutionary engineering has become less important. In many cases it is causing more harm that it is preventing. Speeding up kept primitive man alive. Speeding up keeps modern man stuck in a cycle of threat scanning, false alarms, fear, stress, and anxiety.
When you choose to keep rushing around in an effort to escape your discomfort and unease, you are sending an important signal to the fear center in your brain. By going faster and faster, you are shouting at your lizard brain that there really is a threat that needs dealing with. It will get that signal, conclude that it is still needed, and continue to fire “danger” directives at the rest of your body and brain. When your lizard brain wants to you to speed up to avoid danger, but there is no danger, speeding up rewards it for being wrong! It encourages your lizard brain to keep sounding false alarms.
When you disobey your lizard brain’s demand for speed, when you choose to slow down instead, you are responding to that demand with language that your fear center can understand. This is relatively simple in the end. Your lizard brain needs behavioral signals and experiences to process. Acceleration signals danger. Slowing down signals that everything is OK.
This is why you should learn how to slow down. Making this change in your life is an act of compassion toward your overworked fear center. You should make the effort to teach it that it doesn’t have to be so wound up and on guard all the time.
If you’d like to explore this concept in more depth and learn simple ways to slow down as part of your recovery journey, you can check out Seven Percent Slower in print, electronic, and audiobook format at sevenpercentslower.com.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you’ve done any digging into the mechanics of anxiety disorders, you may have heard the term, “cognitive distortion”. Cognitive distortions are irrational and irrationally biased thinking patterns that play a key role in keeping us stuck along the way to recovery.
Cognitive distortions cause us to focus heavily on the negative while ignoring or discounting the positive. They will cause us to jump to conclusions that are not warranted or make assumptions about the world and about other people that are not accurate nor reasonable. I’ll kick off a series covering each of the common forms of cognitive distortions, but for today I want to take a few minutes to look at why recognizing and calling out these distortions is far more useful than simply soothing the fear they help to create.
When irrational thinking patterns create a state of alert or fear in our minds, our first instinct is usually to try to soothe that fear by arguing with our thoughts or asking others to help us prove that they are wrong or that nothing bad is about to happen to us. Nobody is to blame, and nobody is failing, in wanting to soothe their fear. This is a natural reaction for all humans.
But when that fear is driven by thinking that by definition is distorted, we can never truly soothe it because we cannot win an argument with an opponent that is not bound by the laws of reality. Distorted thoughts can, and often do, completely fabricate alternate realities that do not and can not exist. They are free to do that, primarily because our thoughts have the benefit of not being real. They can be whatever they want to be, so whenever you come up with a strong case against them, they can simply slide to the left, change their tune, and start the cycle all over again. You may be familiar with this dance because you may be stuck in it right now.
When you default to trying to soothe your fear with words, thoughts, and reassurance provided by others, you are trying to win this un-winnable argument. You might feel better for a short time, then the wheels fall off again and you’re right back at it, trying to knock out an opponent that doesn’t feel any of the punches you’re throwing, no matter how hard you throw them.
This is why even though it might seem insensitive, uncaring, or even rude to react to your fear by “calling it out”, this is the more productive path to recovery. When afraid and feeling vulnerable, you do not want to hear someone shine a cold light on the irrational and often fictional basis for you fear. You want to be told that you are OK. Unfortunately, in this context, it is far better (although much more difficult) to SHOW yourself that you are OK, and this begins with the act of recognizing the distortion and calling it out, sometimes in a brutal, direct way that leaves no wiggle room for rebuttal.
Calling out distortions is process based. It leads to long term progress. It helps teach us to see harmful patterns and apply needed corrections across multiple contexts.
Soothing fear is focused on short term comfort and offers us no real path to learning, which is the key to recovery. When we default to soothing, we wind up at “square one” every time a new fear pops up, which leads to frustration and the increasing fear that we will never get better.
I understand that calling out distortions and distorted thoughts isn’t terribly warm and fuzzy. It doesn’t look like you expect helping to look. But in the end, it is a kind thing to do for yourself, and for someone else, because it shines a light down the path to what is truly desired and needed.
It’s important that I say that this doesn’t mean that you have license to be mean, rude or condescending to yourself or anyone else, but that’s another topic for another day.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
In yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning I talked a bit about the need to experience the natural end of a panic attack and the natural decrease in anxiety and agitation that occurs when we allow it to occur.
When I talk about that, invariably a few people stand up and want to tell me that theirs never ends.
“I have panic attacks that go on for days!”
This is a common assertion in the community. But while it may feel like your panic goes on for days and days, it does not.
Physiologically, human bodies do not have the ability to maintain a full blown fight or flight life and death alert state for days on end. That is a high intensity, short duration physiological state. We just don’t have the juice to actually panic for 8 hours, or 4 days straight.
Biology. It matters.
Usually when I point this out, a person that insists that they do panic for days will re-think that assertion and will fall back to a lesser claim. They might say that they feel on the edge of panic all day, or that they feel afraid all day. Then we’re getting somewhere.
You can be afraid all day. You can feel on the edge of panic, or the edge of some horrible disaster, all day. That can happen. But that is not uncontrollable level ten five alarm panic. That’s just being anxious and uncomfortable for long periods of time.
Naturally you don’t want that, but it is important to understand that you are not in a blind panic from Tuesday to Friday. You are likely agitated, uncomfortable and anxious from Tuesday to Friday, and you could be experiencing panic attacks multiple times from Tuesday to Friday. Panic can come in waves, but just like the ocean, it does subside between peaks. That is VERY different than saying that you live in a state of panic during every waking moment.
Why is is important to make this distinction? It matters because for most people, the state of panic is the “forbidden” state that they must never be in because they have no control, can’t do anything, and are totally helpless. This is not true, but the perception matters. Thinking that you are living in that state all the time leads to the logical but incorrect conclusions that you can do nothing to change things, that you have the worst anxiety in the history of the world, and that nothing can help you.
Recognizing the breaks between panic attacks gives you some initial room to work in. It cracks open the door and lets in some light. It offers a first ray of hope, and sometimes that’s what’s needed to get things moving in a new direction.
So if you want to respond to this by telling me that I am wrong because you are in a state of panic all the time or for days on end, stop and think about it. How would that even be biologically possible? And if it is biologically possible for you, then I assume that you are one of the new alien overlords so … welcome to Earth. We have cookies and cake here. Help yourself.
I am not particularly interested in saving time; I prefer to enjoy it. - Eduardo Galeano
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday in the 103rd edition of The Anxious Morning we went over the basics of ERP - exposure and response prevention. We defined it and clarified when it is used in the mental health community.
I said in yesterday’s edition that the RP part - response prevention - is the most important part of ERP, and the most important part of any exposure based therapy regardless of the initials you use to name it. Why is this?
We care so much about response prevention, because that is the part that creates the learning condition. The goal of exposure is not to teach you that you can run with a knife in your hand, sing a song about killing your family, or drive to the supermarket with your kids. The goal of exposure is to teach you that you can tolerate and navigate through anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and discomfort without having to take special steps to save yourself or be saved from the disaster you fear.
Exposure is a way to find, then strengthen our tolerance and resiliency muscles. We use specific exposures to trigger discomfort, but the specific exposures are not really the point. Generally speaking, the discomfort is the point. More specifically, learning that you can handle that discomfort is the point.
When you engage in safety, escape, or soothing responses and rituals, you are not learning anything about your ability to tolerate and navigate through psychological, mental, or emotional adversity. Those old responses designed to keep you “safe” get all the credit for keeping you safe, perpetuating the myth that you were in danger. You were not, even when it felt like you were. Those old responses and rituals confirm to your brain that there is danger, that you need to be saved from it, and that those panic and anxiety alarms should keep coming. Your old responses are like rocket fuel for an anxiety disorder. They are training your brain to sound alarms like praise trains a dog to sit and stay.
When you experience fear, anxiety, discomfort, or distress and do NOT try to save yourself, be saved, or escape, that state of discomfort naturally ends. Not nearly as quick as we want it to, but it will end. When we do nothing to save ourselves, we signal to our brains that everything is OK and that the troops can stand down. When the anxiety passes (because it always will), there is no explanation for why it passed. No safety device, ritual, compulsion, or safe person to give the credit to. We are left standing face to face with reality. You did nothing to soothe or save yourself and still wound up OK.
Of course I have to remind you here that feeling shaky, afraid, and vulnerable is still OK. That’s not actual harm. Those are things humans can feel sometimes.
This is why response prevention is so important. When we take away the old responses, we learn through actual first hand experience that WE get the credit for moving through the fear. We see that WE did it. We tolerated, navigated, and handled. All things that we would swear are impossible, yet we did it, and we have nothing to credit but ourselves for that success.
THAT is the magic moment where recovery happens, little by little, neural pathway by neural pathway. Experiences with positive outcomes where you did nothing special but allow that outcome to happen naturally. Boom. That is the goal of exposure, and the response prevention is vital in getting there.
So take a few minutes today to think about this. Are you engaging in response prevention, or are you powering through your anxiety, fear and panic with all kinds of special rituals and techniques designed to get you through? It’s a question you may not have asked yourself yet, so this is as good a time as any to ask it.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
A few weeks ago I did an Instagram post about the response prevention part of exposure. Lots of people wanted to know more about this. I got the sense that the concept was foreign to many, so this seems like a good time to start to address it little by little.
Remember the The Anxious Morning is not therapy nor a substitute for therapy. I cannot diagnose you in a morning newsletter, nor should anyone ever diagnose you on the Internet. Ever. This is a very cursory definition of what ERP is and how it is applied.
ERP stands for Exposure and Response Prevention. You’ll often hear it referred to as the “gold standard” treatment for OCD. That is an accurate statement. Let’s break down the acronym.
E = Exposure.
Exposure is the act of intentionally coming into contact with tasks, places, people, or situations that are likely to trigger your anxiety, panic, or feelings of discomfort. Most people have at least heard of this part. If you have harm OCD and get triggered around knives or sharp objects, exposure might be holding a knife or walking around with a knife. If you are agoraphobic, exposure might be driving to a park two miles from home. These are typical examples.
RP = Response prevention.
This is really the most important part. Tomorrow on The Anxious Morning we’ll go over why. For now, just know that response prevention refers to the act of intentionally NOT engaging in responses to discomfort that are usually used to soothe that discomfort. For example, if you like to tap on your cheekbone, pop breath mints, call for help, repeat a mantra, or perform some kind of vagus nerve ritual (sorry, had to take the swipe) when you feel anxious, agitated, or in a state of panic, response prevention describes the act of intentionally NOT doing those things, even when you really want to do.
ERP is therefore a method used to intentionally create an anxious state (exposure) while intentionally not engaging in rituals or behaviors designed to soothe that state (response prevention). I know that at face value this seems ridiculous and like something you would NEVER want to do, but it is an incredibly effective form of treatment.
Is ERP only used to treat OCD?
You will hear the term ERP used most often in the context of OCD treatment, but in reality any exposure therapy is ERP in some form. If you are doing exposure for panic disorder or agoraphobia, you also have to refrain from engaging in your escape or safety rituals. Repeatedly dragging yourself through the supermarket (for example) while you sniff lavender, tap your cheek, talk on the phone to your safe person, and literally RUN through the place to get out as quickly as possible, is technically exposure, but it’s not going to be very helpful because its E without the RP.
So no matter the anxiety issue we’re addressing, if we are addressing it with E, we also have to include the RP to get any real desired result.
Come back tomorrow and we’ll talk about why.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
When I asked the community for topics for The Anxious Morning, this is one that came up a few times so I wanted to cover it here. It’s a really good question that everyone asks at some point and it will actually dovetail into the two editions that will be released tomorrow and the day after so stay tuned for those.
During an exposure, or when meeting a life challenge that triggers anxiety or panic, you WILL experience anxiety. You may feel all the symptoms that you know and hate. You may feel depersonalized or derealized. You might feel like you can’t breathe or are about to pass out or die. You may be convinced that you will lose your sanity and permanently break. All of these things (and others) can happen while engaging in exposure work.
So what do you do with them? How should you handle them?
The short answer is that you don’t have to handle them.
Well, that’s not really an answer. It’s really the lesson you need to learn from these experiences.
When you experience all those scary and uncomfortable symptoms and thoughts during an exposure, you should basically do the opposite of what you want to do to “handle” them. You will want to run. Don’t. You will want to escape. Don’t. You will want to get help or be rescued. Don’t. You will want to find every logical argument in the world to try to convince yourself that its just anxiety and that you are still OK. Don’t bother. Your lizard brain isn’t listening and isn’t buying your argument.
So when your body and mind are screaming at you to save yourself, be saved, or otherwise run out of this horrible, dangerous, hell-like situation, your response has to be exactly the opposite.
The highlights are:
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Relaxation (you can be relaxed without being calm).
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Focus in a more productive direction (you have to practice this)
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Proper breathing (you also have to practice this)
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Resolve to bend like a willow tree in a storm, but not break (which in this case we’ll define as running).
As always I have tell you clearly that this advice is not designed for “panic stopping”. I am not teaching you how to build a shield against panic. These is all predicated on the idea that the most successful exposure is the one in which you fully experience and move THROUGH anxiety, fear, and discomfort. Why? Because that is where the recovery lessons are. That’s why.
I can’t go into all the nuts and bolts of exactly what to do second by second in one morning newsletter. But this gives you the general idea. And if you stopped by hoping to find the top five ways to stop anxiety only to wind up disappointed, then this advice is exactly the advice you needed to hear today.
Tomorrow we’ll expand a bit on this topic to talk about Exposure and Response Prevention - ERP.
I just finished reading “What Happened To You” by Dr. Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey. It was suggested to me as a way to help understand the experience of trauma, and I’m happy that I read it. I think I might do a review of the book in a future episode of The Anxious Morning so stay tuned for that.
On Tuesdays (sometimes) I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
One question that does pop up now and then in the community is, “How do I handle dreams about anxiety?”
Generally, this question will come from someone who is now feeling anxious or even experiencing panic in their dreams. They dream about being anxious, those dreams are disturbing to them, they wake up feeling unsettled, and want to know what to do about that.
Well … there’s good news and bad news here. The good news is that dreaming about anxiety isn’t unusual, rare, or unique. Many many people that get stuck in the anxiety and fear cycle can often have dreams focused on anxiety. Dreams in which you are anxious or feeling panic happen all the time to many people.
When I was at my worst and struggling to get even a quarter mile from my house by myself, I would often dream that I was suddenly in San Francisco. That’s 3000 miles away from home. In my dream, I would have no idea how I arrived there. The instant reaction - in my dream - was to panic because I had no idea how I was going to get back home and out of “danger”. I would get anxious and panic in my dreams fairly often. I would wake up from those dreams feeling agitated, unsettled, shaky, and all the other things that often come after a big anxiety wave or panic attack. My experience is not unique at all, so take some solace in the fact that dreaming about being anxious does not mean that things are “getting worse” for you. You’re quite normal in this respect.
The bad news is that what you can about this is essentially … nothing.
My advice in these situations is to treat anxious dreams - even the ones that really rattle you - the same as you would any other anxiety wave or panic attack. I do understand that waking up in the middle of the night in a panic because you were experiencing panic in your dream is unsettling. It’s a shock. A jolt. Like being punched in the face while sleeping. You are in a vulnerable state - asleep - then seemingly “attacked” by this thing that makes you feel completely overwhelmed and even a little disoriented because that is common when we are suddenly awakened.
This all being acknowledged, we are best to resist the urge to treat anxious dreams as special things because they FEEL so uncomfortable and scary in the middle of the night. But frantically trying to find a way to stop them from happening or instantly feel good when jolted out of bed this way gets very frustrating and ultimately just adds fuel to the anxiety fire.
Feeling anxious in a dream - then anxious upon waking from that dream - is just like feeling anxious at any other time. It’s not the feeling that we care about, it’s the way we react and relate to it. Yes, you will be startled and afraid at first because that’s what humans do, but after that initial jolt your job with anxious dreams is to allow all the feelings and thoughts to come, peak, then subside. Just like you would when awake.
I know, this seems very difficult, and it is. But as always, difficult does not equal impossible.
Oh, and one last thing. Your anxious dreams are not “telling you something”. They are not premonitions, visions, predictions, or messages from your intuition. They are just the workings of an anxious, over-sensitized brain, and nothing more.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
This is the 100th edition of The Anxious Morning. I’ve now written 100 essays on anxiety and recovery - about 35,000 words worth according to the Ulysses app - in the span of about 4.5 months. By comparison, Seven Percent Slower is about 32,000 words. The majority of anxiety books on the market that you may be aware of are about the same length. Of course The Anxious Truth is twice that size, but that’s an anomaly.
I write it. I speak it, then I turn it into an audiogram so that people can consume the content via email, with their ears, and even with their eyes via YouTube. It takes me about 30 minutes to write each of these editions, then another few hours per week to convert them into podcast episodes and YouTube posts. Total investment is maybe 5-6 hours per week. Over the course of 2022 that will be about 300 hours of my time.
What do I do now with The Anxious Morning? Am I getting the most out of those 300 hours? Are you getting the most out of my 300 hours?
I always wanted to do a little morning mental health show of some kind. At the moment, this is it in some form. Probably the first form. But I will admit that while I can easily write another 150 of these to fill the rest of 2022, I’m thinking about new directions. How else I can convey this information without making you guys scroll endlessly through Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. I’m also thinking about a more conversational approach to these essays.
Maybe in the second half of the year these will take the form of short videos where I can just fire up a camera and talk to you for a few minutes every morning. If that does happen, they will be very informal. This can’t become a video editing project because that can take quite some time, so if I go down that road I will essentially sit at my desk, or on my deck, or in my living room, fire up the phone, and go. What you see is what you get, but that’s not so new for me anyway.
I’d love to have more conversation around these topics. I’d love you guys to be able to pop in and ask questions. The comments section on Substack and YouTube are OK, but it’s not exactly what I was imagining. I think maybe I’m picturing a bit of a talk radio format more than anything else. You guys really steer this ship because all the topics come from you, so I would love to have you participate more actively in some way.
Anyway, this is what goes through my head after creating 100 of these. I’d love to know what you think about The Anxious Morning. It is useful? Is getting an email every morning annoying? Do you prefer the audio or video formats? What can we turn this into now that there are almost 5000 of us involved in this project?
Drop me a comment. In the comments section. On Substack or YouTube, I guess. That’s the best we got now, so let’s use it, and tell me what you think.
I’m listening.
“I’m listening.” - Frasier Crane
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let’s wrap up our little self care mini series by looking at some examples of what self care might look like in recovery. Some will be obvious. Some might be surprising to you. I can’t give you step by step instructions on every way you can rest, recharge, and take care of yourself, but I can at least give you a list to get started with.
Caveat: I am hardly a master of self care. I can own my shortcomings, and one of them is sometimes skimping on this in my own life. I have no elaborate or well developed self care rituals, but I’m not really sure that self care has to be all that elaborate. Regardless, I urge you to seek other sources that might have better insight than I do on this topic. Just don’t let the gurus of self-care accidentally drive you into that justified avoidance we talked about yesterday.
Physical Self Care
The most obvious forms of self care are physical. Our bodies get tired, sick, and injured sometimes. We have to take care of them and give them opportunities to rest, recharge and … oh my God I’m going to say the word … heal. Physical self care doesn’t automatically mean soaking in a tub surrounded by candles. It might, but physical self care can also look like eating a proper meal rather than a jelly sandwich over the sink. It might mean taking a 15 minute break to just walk the dog around the block. Physical self care can be practicing some light stretching or progressive muscle relaxation every morning. Showering and getting dressed is self care. On some days just getting out of bed is self care. Wearing comfortable clothing can also be a form of self care. Are you getting the picture here?
Mental Self Care
This one is a bit trickier. For anxious people desperate for recovery, thinking and solving can become a full time job that occupies almost every waking moment. This can result in mental and cognitive fatigue. You have to give your brain a rest when you can. Mental self care can be turning out the lights, putting your phone down and listening to your favorite music. Reading things you love - not just anxiety books and articles - is mental self care. Learning something new just for the fun of it is mental self care. So is doing a crossword puzzle, drawing, or writing a poem or short story. Your brain deserves to disengage from problem solving to have some down time and fun time. That’s mental self care.
Emotional Self Care
Probably the most amorphous kind of self care. Emotional self care might include talking to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while or in some cases disengaging from friends and family for a day or two because you just need a break and some quiet time. This can be especially true during stressful times or situations full of strife, conflict, or drama. Emotional self care can be sitting quietly with your dog and telling her what’s on your mind. Another form of emotional self care might be taking time to tend to an intimate relationship because you value that connection and it nourishes your heart and soul.
Emotional self care might be drawing boundaries for yourself that protect you from emotionally taxing or draining people or situations. Journaling can be a form of emotional self care. Reminiscing and remembering are a form of emotional self care when you have happy or comforting memories and experiences to fall back on. Emotional self care can be nuanced and subtle but in many ways while it might be the hardest form of self care to define and practice, it also might be the most impactful.
We can only scratch the surface of this topic in a morning newsletter. Just keep in mind that the recovery process can be demanding and stressful … and so can life in general. Self care, used wisely and in the context of self-honesty, is a valuable tool that can help you along the path while also supporting your well being in general. That’s not bad. Not at all.
What are some of your preferred self care strategies?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday on The Anxious Morning I talked about why my occasional rants aside, self care is important. Today I want to talk a bit about why I sometimes rant about self care and how that concept can become problematic.
Before I go on, I just want to be perfectly clear about something. I do not get to judge when you need to rest or take care of yourself. Nobody gets to judge that. Only you do. Only you can feel what you feel and know what you know about yourself. This is important. I cannot give you exact instructions on how or when to engage in self-care. I can tell you why you should, and what the pitfalls are, but in the end you are in charge of all of that.
When we are driven by avoidance which itself is driven by baseless (but real) fear, we often develop a curious and unexpected super power. Anxious people often become galaxy class masters of rationalization and self-deception. We quickly cultivate amazingly effective strategies for convincing ourselves that we’re not avoiding anxiety or running from it. When we do an exposure on Tuesday, then take all of Wednesday off, we’ll call it well deserved rest, a mental health day, or a “me day”. We will sometimes latch on to that most clickable of all online mental health devices … self care.
“I’m not avoiding! I know I’ve only left the house once in the last four days but … SELF CARE!”
I get this. Really, I do. If you give an agoraphobic a choice between doing another exposure and taking a self care day to lay on the sofa, disordered anxiety and irrational fear will choose “self care” 8 times out of 10. Even when that day off is the 26th day off in the last 32 days, an anxious person driven by the desire to feel safe will argue passionately that they need to listen to their body and engage in compassionate self care.
Sometimes we DO need to do that. See yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning for more on this. But remember the part a few paragraphs back when I said that you are always in charge of this stuff? Well that comes at a price. That price is the willingness to be brutally honest with yourself about your motivations and what drives your choices. You get to declare a self care day whenever you need one, but you also have to accept responsibility for rationalized avoidance when it rears its head from time to time.
When the idea of self care (and even self compassion to some degree) gets used as a shield to protect and justify avoidant behavior, then it has gone off the rails. You may not even be aware that it happened. You may never have intended it to happen. But we all know how powerful anxiety and irrational fear can be. They’ll take over and make everything about retreat and avoidance, then convince you that retreat and avoidance are the right thing to do.
Left unchecked, anxiety and fear will turn self care into food, gorging themselves and sucking the air of your recovery progress.
This is why I often rant the way I do about self care and the misuse and misappropriation of the term. I’m not picking on anyone for wanting to rest, or even for wanting to feel safe and comfortable. But when anxiety and fear are partying at your expense and running through your liquor cabinet while you’re just trying to find your cat, somebody has to be willing to turn on the lights, unplug the music, and end the party before the whole house gets trashed.
I guess sometimes, I’m that person. I’ll shut down the anxiety party when it needs to be shut down.
What a buzzkill, right?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Many of you have likely heard me speak dismissively about the idea of self-care. I won’t pretend that I don’t do that, but there’s a method to my madness when I do. Today on The Anxious Morning I want to take a few minutes to talk about why self care is - in fact - an important thing. Tomorrow I’ll talk about why I sometimes speak about it the way I do.
I have a bad habit. I treat myself like a machine sometimes. I always have. Clearly, that is not a good strategy. I could make the argument that it’s one reason why I wound up damn near crippled by anxiety and depression multiple times over 25+ years. Nobody is a machine, and nobody - me included - should treat themselves that way.
We may be marvels of engineering and design, but we are not machines. We get tired. We feel the effects of physical exertion, mental exertion, and emotional stress. We get sick. We get injured. We grow old. And while we are incredibly agile when it comes to adaptation, adaptation does not mean that we are armor plated or teflon coated.
I know sometimes people hear me talk about the recovery process, being courageous and going toward fear and mistakenly think that I am urging them to try to run things over and ignore the consequences of doing so. I am not. When I wrote The Anxious Truth, I did acknowledge that rest is a thing and that we all deserve and need to rest.
Self care is important. It matters. It matters physically, mentally, and emotionally.
All three of those batteries need to be recharged and refreshed at times. Heck, sometimes they all need to be recharged at the same time! When life is throwing bricks at us, catching them, dodging them, and fending off the hits gets tiring. It wears us down. We need to take time when we can to disengage, step back, and give ourselves space to rest, recover, and recharge.
This does not make you weak. It does not mean you will not recover. You are not being lazy. You are not being soft. You are just being human, which is not only permissible, but desirable. If we are after one thing along the path to recovery, it would be uncovering the truth that we are entitled to and able handle all of our human-ness, even the parts that require us to take a break now and then.
When needed, do work. When tired from doing work, rest, in whatever form or forms that needs to take at any given time. This is OK. This is allowed. Don’t let anyone give you s**t for taking care of yourself, including me.
Tomorrow we’ll talk a bit about what happens when the idea of self care goes off the rails.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
How many times have you found yourself caught up entirely in another scary thought, strong feeling, or bodily sensation because it felt more important than usual and therefore worthy of examination? This is really common. We all do it sometimes so don’t beat yourself up when this happens. I did it plenty of times!
Here’s a quick tip that might prove useful when it comes to this particular situation.
Jot down what you’re feeling, thinking, or experiencing. Make a brief note of what you’re afraid of, unsure of, or worried about in that moment. This is not an invitation to sit down and write 5000 words attempting to figure out your anxiety. Just a quick note will do.
Make the title of that note: “This Feels Important!”
Do this before you take your fear to your safe person, friends, family, online support group, or whatever. Keep all your “This Feels Important!” notes in one place in a notebook or on your phone, or whatever works for you. There’s no right or wrong in this.
Over time, you will build yourself a little collection of thoughts, feelings, and sensations that all felt really important at the moment. Can you see where this is going and how this can be a useful tool? When you’ve built your little collection of momentarily important thoughts or feelings, you can refer back to it next time you find yourself in that same situation.
When you have a new thought, feeling, or sensation, go to your “This Feels Important” journal and be reminded of the repeating pattern. When we see our repeating patterns of behavior in black and white, we get a jolt of much needed objectivity and reality. We can use this to help us disengage the gears and jump off the hamster wheel.
Again, it’s important for me to say that I’m not talking about delving into every thought you have and engaging in analysis designed to solve or figure out. This is just a little tool that can help point out what you’re doing so that you can maybe not do it again.
Maybe it will work for you. Maybe it wont’t. But it’s worth at least considering.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
You may be asking yourself if I have lost my mind. Anyone who has read my books, listened to The Anxious Truth podcast or followed me on social media for even a short time knows that I never give symptom advice. So maybe this is a little bit of click bait … or maybe it’s not. Let’s find out.
Everyone starts the recovery journey by wanting to explain their anxiety symptoms and find ways to make them go away.
“How do I handle a racing heart?”
“Does anyone know what’s good for dizziness?”
“Why do I feel like I can’t breathe? How can I stop that feeling?”
The list is WAY longer than this, but you get the idea.
Now, pull up a chair, and I will tell you how we overcome anxiety symptoms. Here’s the magic bullet you’ve been hoping for all this time. I’ve just been hiding it from you until now. Ready?
We overcome anxiety symptoms by not trying to overcome them.
You’re welcome.
OK, I’m being a bit silly, but that is really what it comes down to. Let me flesh that out a little. Here’s the sequence of events that we are after when it comes to making our symptoms go away:
1. First we learn to see them differently. I know you want to insist that your symptoms are horrible and unbearable and you must run from them because they FEEEEEEL so scary. But step one in making them go away is to recognize that this insistence is not helping at all. It’s hurting. Your anxiety symptoms are natural physiological responses to fear. No more. No less. They are not harmful or damaging. They are to be expected when you are frightened. If you’re not OK with the statement, work on it until you are OK with it.
2. Then we learn that we have to treat them differently (by not treating them at all). All the time you spend trying to find specific instructions how to manage or deal with symptoms is making things worse. You do not have to do that. You must start to treat your symptoms in a new way, which is essentially not treating them at all.
3. Then we learn that we don't have to fear them. When you accept that we must view symptoms in a new way, then you practice treating them in a new way by NOT treating them, you provide your brain with valuable experiences (not words) that it can use to learn that even when you don’t try to save yourself, the scary thing never hurts you. Those experiences teach your brain - over time - that it does not have to sound the alarm when you feel things in your body. You learn that you do not have to fear your symptoms.
Here’s the part you’re waiting for…
4. Then they go away. This is the last step, but its not a step you take. Its just a happy by-product of taking the first three steps described above. I can’t stress this enough. You can not actively make your symptoms stop. You can only actively relate to them in way that teaches you the lessons that are needed to enable them to stop. So if you want to jump right to “make it go away”, stop, think, and return to step 1.
That’s it. That’s my top-secret extra special supercharged tip for making your anxiety symptoms go away. Now go start doing this. And before you respond with “easier said than done”, let me tell you preemptively that you are correct. Now go do it anyway, because I know you can. And be patient with yourself while you do it because it is hard and it will take time and effort.
Any questions?
“If you can’t describe what you’re doing as a process, you don’t know what you’re doing.” - Edwards Demming
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
One of the concepts I talk about quite often is the need to remain process focused in recovery rather than outcome or solution focused. When I tell you that you almost have to abandon your focus on feeling better before you can feel better, odds are you have a hard time grasping that idea. That’s OK. You’re just being human. Humans are driven to feel good, avoid discomfort, resolve conflict, and release tension.
Let me tell you a little story about what happened this week when I forgot the importance of following good processes and got caught up in trying to directly achieve a solution. Stick with me on this. There’s a point to the story, I promise.
My Masters program started drilling ethical good practices into my head from day one. This is a good thing. One of the assignments I’ve been working on is a hypothetical case study that would present a therapist with a possible ethical or legal dilemma. My task was to work through this sticky situation and come out the other side. Hmmm. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, it’s damn near impossible for a human being to file away their own core values, beliefs, and judgments about what is right or best in terms of of resolving the dilemma. Emotion is involved. Self-image and identity is involved. I KNEW the answer to this problem because I KNOW what’s right and just and what must be done! At least that’s what my emotional brain, my sense of self, and maybe even my ego were telling me. This ethical dilemma was creating conflict on an emotional level and I wanted to resolve that conflict based on who I am. But here’s the rub. In a professional setting I don’t get to resolve ethical conflicts based solely on what I like, believe, or want. That’s dangerous in that it puts ME in the center of the situation, and I’m not the one that belongs there.
To combat this, therapists and counselors develop detailed ethical codes and processes for using and implementing these codes in real life. This is designed to prevent the exact thing I just described. It helps to keep things as fair and objective as possible. There is a process to follow for a reason!
Hmmm. What else has a process to follow?
Nonetheless, I ignored the process and wrestled with this for some time. I wanted a SOLUTION because I needed to exercise my ego, emotions, and core beliefs. I had to resolve that tension, right? The problem is that when I approached this assignment that way, forgetting the process and insisting that my emotions and need for resolution should call the shots, things only got worse. The problem got muddier. I was searching everywhere for information, guidelines, tips, and tricks for how to bring it all to a neat resolution, but that was making the tension worse and making it even harder for me to complete the task. This is also sounding familiar, isn’t it?
My lightbulb moment came last night when I walked away from the problem in total frustration, feeling super grumpy and somewhat disillusioned with this whole “be a therapist” thing. While chatting with a friend and making a late dinner I reached the conclusion that I’d go follow the steps of the process just to get the damn thing done. I didn’t want to do it that way, but I was tired of wrestling with the problem so that’s how I decided to proceed just to put the whole assignment behind me.
Boom. When I stopped searching for an immediate solution based on emotion and the need to release tension, I started making progress. My writing became clear, I was able to lay out a solid course of action, and within about 45 minutes I had everything done and dusted. This morning before I sat down to write this edition of The Anxious Morning I submitted my paper. Guess what? I DO feel good about how it worked out. My final solution is not in total agreement with what I want from an emotional standpoint but the PROCESS still resolved that tension and got me the outcome I needed, which as it turns out is more important than the outcome I wanted.
Oh, and one more thing. This experience taught me some HUGE lessons that will serve me well going forward both in my grad program and as a therapist in the real world so as it turns out the process of working through hard things teaches us stuff if we let it.
Imagine that?
I told you there was a point to the story.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
DISCLAIMER: I have to remind you that this newsletter/podcast is not therapy or a substitute for therapy. This is not a peer reviewed journal article. It is merely a fast overview designed to clear up some basic points of confusion in the community. When in doubt, ask your mental health care provider.
If you’ve listened to me for any length of time, you’d have heard me say over and over that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is the “gold standard” for treating issues like panic disorder, agoraphobia, and other anxiety disorders. I stand by this statement, but I see questions about CBT enough in the community to know that some clarification is needed, so we’ll look at these questions from time to time.
CBT - Cognitive Behavior(al) Therapy is at this point more of an umbrella term than anything else. There are quite a few different therapies that fall under this umbrella. “CBT” by itself is becoming less of an accurate description of treatment, at least in circles occupied by clinicians that are keeping pace with changes in the field over the last 25+ years. If someone told me they were “doing CBT”, I might ask them for more specifics now, because I’d be curious as to which variant of CBT they were working with.
I get asked quite often if XYZ therapy is CBT or not. So let’s take just a minute or two and do a very cursory review of which well-known and widely practiced therapies fall under that CBT umbrella. Note that this is not an exhaustive list. There are bound to be other therapies that I miss here, especially those that might be in their emergent stages and not widely referenced. Just because I do not include a therapy in this list does not mean it does not belong.
ACT - Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
DBT - Dialectical Behavior Therapy
MCT - Metacognitive Therapy
MBCT - Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy
FAP - Functional Analytic Psychotherapy (not to be confused with psychoanalysis, which is not this)
That’s the beginning of a strong bowl of alphabet soup, isn’t it? I know, this can get confusing. From time to time we’ll dedicate editions of The Anxious Morning to a basic overview of these and maybe other forms of therapy just because being an educated consumer is a good thing.
But why is this so confusing within the context of CBT? Because what many people call CBT is an older type of therapy that emerged to glue the idea of cognition (thinking and inner experience) to the basics of behaviorism (that tended to discount those things). That therapy was based on the idea that we should be able to control thoughts themselves, and therefore change behaviors. “Old school” CBT was concerned with using tools like fact checking, thought records, and thought challenging to use thinking to change thinking. The idea was that if you could get a handle on and transform your thoughts, you would ultimately change your behavior.
That was certainly an improvement over Skinnerian behaviorism, but when talking about that kind of “CBT” keep in mind that you’re talking about a form of therapy that isn’t necessarily being replaced, but augmented and changed over time by the newer more process focused therapies I listed above.
Therapy is an ever changing thing. The more we learn and the more research is performed, the more evidence and data we can use to modify how we approach mental health, including anxiety disorders. It’s natural for things to evolve over time. This is a good thing. We want that.
So if you are asking the question, “Is this CBT?” this short article might be a starting point for answering that. If your therapist or potential therapist is practicing one (or a combination) of the therapies I listed, then yes, this falls under the CBT umbrella. If your therapist is practicing old school CBT full of worksheets designed to catch and change thoughts, that is also CBT, but an older form. Often the older and newer forms will often be combined, which is totally fine, and at this point in time, expected.
So to use a phrase I’m told I use quite often … there ya go. I can’t answer every specific question about CBT in one morning newsletter, but this is a start. If you’d like to see more of this kind of thing, let me know I the comments and I’ll be happy to arrange that. I bet I can even drag some of my super smart therapist friends in to help us with that if we want.
Are you listening, super smart therapist friends? Do you have anything you want to add?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
As a follow up to edition 91 of The Anxious Morning, today I want to look at the idea of being tired as it relates to anxiety and recovery.
Let’s imagine someone with an anxiety disorder that makes them really afraid of their own body and thoughts. When confronted with sensations that are normal but uncomfortable, this person has developed the habit of treating those sensations as threats. The same goes for thoughts. Scary thoughts that predict disaster or lead one to constantly question their safety trigger all kinds of anxious and fearful responses.
For this person, over time, it would be expected that they might begin to build avoidance habits designed to keep them out of activities and situations that might trigger those uncomfortable things. They may avoid and shrink their lives because they are convinced that they can only devote their attention to being anxious and therefore can’t really engage with things like work, school, or social interaction.
As this goes on, our friend with the anxiety disorder becomes less and less engaged with life. They treat themselves as fragile and incapable. Their level of activity drops dramatically both physically and mentally as they withdraw only to the places and situations that might guarantee safety and calm. While other members of the household are engaged with life without the need for multiple dedicated rest days each week, our anxious friend is convinced that they must take it easy because they feel tired and can’t do much. There is no actual health issue at play here, only an anxiety and fear response gone off the rails.
Less engagement. Less activity. Less demand.
Yet, this person may declare that they are tired, and must rest. Maybe quite often. See how this can get a bit warped at times?
I do not mean to imply that you must never rest or that you must think of rest as a treat or rewards. All humans have a right to rest. Rest, sleep and relaxation are all built in to our physiology. There’s no reason to fight that or try to work against it. When tired … rest. That’s completely OK and advisable.
My only point today on The Anxious Morning is to shine some gentle light on a common distortion that runs through the community. Being tired or feeling fatigue can be a real issue when we’re always feeling anxious or afraid. No doubt about that. But it can be easy to fall into the trap of feeling some fatigue, then throwing our hands up and declaring it all too much while we retreat to the calm zone again.
This may seem familiar to you. If it is, I will leave you with a few things to think about today:
What small things can you accomplish even when tired?
Can you see examples of people in your life that engage in the world even when tired?
What’s the difference between being too tired to do something, and being afraid how you might feel if you do things while tired?
When was the last time you responded to the thought that you must rest with opposite action?
Again, it’s important for me to emphasize that I am not telling you to never rest. I am only suggesting that you take a few minutes to try to think objectively about your relationship with fatigue and rest. Does it seem healthy to you, or is it possible that things have gone a bit sideways in this area?
Sometimes taking some time to look at our habits and beliefs in the cold light of day can become a productive exercise.
I’m currently reading What Happened To You by Dr. Bruce Perry and (gulp) Oprah Winfrey. It was suggested to me a few times so I’m checking it out because it does resonate with many people that have traumatic backgrounds. I’m appreciating how Dr. Perry uses neuroscience to explain why traumatic experiences can create sensations and thoughts many years later.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“Listen to your body.”
This is a VERY common refrain in the self-help and personal development space on the Internet. The idea that your body is telling you that it needs something is an idea that we hear all the time from people with very large audiences that are attempting to help. Let me inject some clarity here.
For someone that might be overworked, stressed out, taking on too many responsibilities, or trying to do too much (welcome to western society), this is not bad advice at all. When you work yourself into continuous headaches, a knot in your stomach, and a perpetual short temper, then your body may indeed be telling you that you need a break.
HOWEVER (note the capital letters) for someone dealing with an anxiety disorder, the messages from your body and brain have themselves become the source of stress and fear. Listening to those messages has become a way of life full of escape, avoidance, retreat, and restrictions that you are probably trying desperately to break out of. Listening to your body tell you that you’re broken, ill, having a stroke or a heart attack, or about to pass out … again … is leading you down a path where you are constantly being ruled by the boy who cried wolf. You’re ready to listen when he cries again, then unhappy with the outcome when you do.
When you become afraid of your own normal bodily sensations, listening to your body is not really great advice at all. As with many aspects of dealing with disordered anxiety, the best moves are often exactly the opposite of the moves we think we should make or are told to make. General mental health, “healing” and personal growth advice is often not in any way targeted at our community. The people handing out that advice often have no understanding of the mechanics we are dealing with. They want to help, but they’re giving out advice that simply does not apply in many cases. I’ve talked about this many times.
For those of us that develop panic disorder, agoraphobia, GAD, OCD, health anxiety, and other related anxiety problems, listening to our bodies goes off the rails quickly and makes things worse rather than better over time.
Consider this. Recognize what happens every time your body yells “RUN!”, and you obey. Think about what happens when you listen to your body, treat yourself like you are ill or damaged, and hide in your bed for three days straight. What’s the outcome there? At least try to accept the idea that your body might be giving you bad advice and information and that you should generally not be listening to that information, especially when its been shown to be wrong so often in the past.
I know sometimes I sound like a broken record here (old reference for the win), but this is important. When I saw someone insisting last week that she might have to “listen to her body” and cancel a dentist appointment for the 6th time (true story), I felt compelled to address that, so here I am.
Most people should probably listen to their bodies. I know I should listen to mine. But I can only do that because I do not have an anxiety disorder any longer. One day, when you don’t either, you can listen to your body again too.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Before you go on reading, take a few seconds and make a short list of things that you can’t do because of anxiety. If you’re listening instead of reading, hit the pause button.
I’ll wait.
OK, now that that’s done, I need to tell you something. You CAN actually do everything on that list. You CHOOSE not to, because you are afraid of how you might feel if you do them. This is such an important concept in recovery because we must accept this truth before we can really grasp why we are doing hard and scary things on the daily. If we continue to insist that we “can’t”, then we get frustrated quickly with this process and run the risk of declaring that it doesn’t work for you.
When we choose to avoid because we do not want to be afraid of uncomfortable, and when we do this again and again, things get a bit twisted in our minds. We perceive ourselves as unable or incapable, but this is not accurate. Think about it. When you first decided that you did not want to stay home alone for two hours, you were clearly making that decision based on the idea that you might feel anxious or afraid while alone.
“I don’t want to be alone because … what if I panic?”
See how that analysis says nothing about how capable you are? It identifies the obstacle (panic or anxiety or fear) and resolves the conflict with that obstacle by choosing to go around it or run away from it. In those early days of avoidance and escape, you did not say you couldn’t. You knew that you were choosing not to for a very clear reason.
Over time, though, this morphs. We stop seeing the avoidance and the escape strategy and instead we simply say things like, “I can’t work because of my anxiety.” This is a slow and quiet process, and it is insidious because after enough time, you have yourself convinced that you can’t do things any more. You perceive obstacles as limitations. You adopt the avoidance choice as a defining characteristic of who you are.
“I choose to avoid situations that make me uncomfortable.”
“I can’t do most things.”
Look at the huge difference in these statements! The first is accurate. Limiting, but accurate. The second is full of defeat and hopelessness for no good reason.
If you take anything out of today’s edition of The Anxious Morning, let it be the hard truth that you always COULD do things, but that you CHOSE not to, then repeated that choice. That doesn’t feel good, I know, but this realization is full of empowerment and hope. Let me be clear in saying that I am not accusing you of choosing to suffer or saying that your situation is somehow your fault. Not at all. Humans are experts at avoiding discomfort so NOBODY is blaming you. I am only pointing out that when you step back, blow the dust off, and really look beyond your assertion that you “can’t”, you give yourself a fighting chance to start moving in a new direction.
Thinking has, many a time, made me sad, darling; but doing never did in all my life... My precept is, "Do something, my sister, do good if you can; but, at any rate, do something". - Elizabeth Gaskell
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Are you trying to frame every thought you have and every thing you do within the context of recovery? Are you trying to get recovery right and working overtime to make sure that every waking moment is full of productive recovery stuff?
You can stop doing that. It’s not helping you.
We talk all the time about learning to let go. We learn to let go of the rope and allow ourselves to “fall into the abyss” of insanity, death, or permanent broken-ness. We let go to learn that there is no abyss.
Well, sometimes we have to let go of the letting go. Getting glued to recovery and completely wrapped up in to the point where you are trying to relate every last part of your life to getting better or not getting better is not helping you in any way. That’s counter-productive and can lead to becoming frozen by your need to not be frozen.
This is especially true for those of us that are dealing with the need to think obsessively, analyze everything, and ruminate on everything. If these are some of your thinking habits, it can be easy for you to you caught up in the mistaken idea that you should keep learning, asking, reading, refining, testing, analyzing, and measuring your recovery. You can’t. And shouldn’t.
Why am I saying this?
We do not learn to recover. We learn to do things that teach us lessons that lead to recovery. The things we do start to look quite a bit like just doing life again. So in the end, we are not really doing recovery or learning how to get better. We are doing life, and along the way that doing means we get better. The “better” is a happy side effect of doing life even when you’re sure you can’t. In this light, you have to stop looking at recovery as a task you must complete or a box you must check so you can do life again. That’s backwards. We live again, little by little, so that we get better.
See the difference? It’s really important.
So when you feel overwhelmed by recovery because you’ve been trying to manage and micro-manage and predict and measure every last shred of it … stop. Let go. Let go of the process, and just do life. Whatever happens, happens. Because that’s what life looks like for non-anxious people anyway. When you are “recovered”, that’s what you’ll be doing again.
Let go of the process sometimes. Take a break and go live to the best of your ability. Because as it turns out, even when you are not trying to recover, you are probably recovering anyway.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Every now and then I’ll write an edition of The Anxious Morning that shines a light on what my life and my mental health looks like post-recovery. Today I want to talk about the importance of maintaining good habits.
The lessons that I learned during my recovery, and the lessons life continues to teach me, tell me that it is important for me to maintain good habits with respect to my physical and mental well-being. For many years I made the mistake of believing that I am a machine and that the usual rules don’t apply to me. Well guess what? While we all have different “performance levels” even those of us with machine-like performance levels need to take care of ourselves.
Why didn’t someone tell me that?
Actually, lots of people told me that. I was just too stubborn to listen to them.
When it comes to good habits in my life, there are a few that I like to think of as my foundation. They include regular meditation practice, mindfulness practice, making an effort to not race through every day, taking time to relax and unwind, and moving my body regularly.
When I commit to these habits and to taking steps to practice them and maintain them, I find that my performance level remains pretty high, my stress level doesn’t get out of control, and that I am generally more satisfied and happy with the work I’m doing and with my life in general. When I allow myself to go off the rails - which does happen sometimes - I can feel the change within days. I get moodier and more withdrawn. I get short tempered. I start to feel physically sluggish and more tired, and my focus skills begin to suffer. It’s no fun.
Maintaining these good habits is effort. It doesn’t happen automatically. I’ve had to accept more routine and planning in my life than I’d otherwise like, but this leads to good things. I put my good habit things on my calendar and in my task manager. Every morning when I wake up, I know I have meditating, moving, reading/learning, and relaxing on my to do list as real things that must be done. Sometimes that seems silly, but the reminders are good for me. They help keep me connected to good physical and mental health, which makes my life better on many many fronts.
So when people ask me if I struggle with anxiety now, the answer is absolutely NO. I do not struggle with anxiety like I used to. But life after recovery is not automatically sunshine and rainbows all the time, because it’s not like that for any human being. We all deserve good mental health, but we also have to work at that, so even after recovery developing and maintaining healthy habits that tend to your body and mind is just a good idea for more reasons than I can list.
What good habits can you see for yourself beyond recovery?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we looked at the conflict created when you are trying to hold on to things that you say work for your anxiety, while you’re still trying to find things that work for your anxiety. We touched on the idea that the soothing and calming rituals designed to save you from discomfort are likely not working enough, or are not working all the time. This is why you read yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning, and why you’re reading this one too.
At the risk of being overly aggressive, I’d ask you why you need this information if you already know what works for you?
When people get frustrated because I steer our conversations away from the usual coping and soothing techniques, I get that. Here’s why I do that and will continue to do that.
When you insist that you must take special action to avoid feeling anxious, to manage bodily functions that were never designed to be managed, or to engineer a life completely free of any possible “trigger”, you are rewarding your brain for sounding fight or flight alarms inappropriately. When your brain keeps throwing you into a panic for no obvious reason because the panic itself has become its own trigger, responding to that alarm with all kinds of saving and rescue strategies is an admission that the alarm is justified and that it should continue to sound. When you treat your own body and mind as a danger that you must be saved from, it will continue drag you around as it likely has for some time now.
I know it seems like common sense to try to make yourself feel better immediately, or to do everything possible to try to stop your heart from racing or your mind from saying scary things to you. But none of recovery is common sense at first and often the things that you think you’re supposed to do are the very things that make it worse for you. In this case, hanging on to those things doesn’t make any sense, even while letting them go doesn’t make any sense either.
Assume that every time you try to drive to your friend’s house you wind up stuck on the same dead end street on the wrong side of town. The streets you drive on are lovely and make you feel good, but then you wind up stuck anyway. You don’t like that. You want to go the right way! You ask for directions that will get you to your friend’s house. What would happen if you ignored the directions you are given and continued to insist that the route you’ve been taking is working for you because the scenery is nice? Is it possible to somehow combine your dead-end route with these new directions to get to your friend’s house? It is not. You can’t drive down the dead end and also get to your friend at the same time.
The only way to solve that problem would be to stop taking the old route, and start taking a new one, even if that new route isn’t as pretty and might have some bumpy roads and traffic along the way.
You cannot hold on to soothing, calming, escaping, and avoiding as a primary anxiety strategy and also use facing, acceptance, floating, surrender, or willful tolerance to get better. One strategy leads one way. The other leads a totally different way. Pick one.
I’m going to say a thing here that I say often. This is a raw deal. But it is the deal we have been given. So take a few minutes to think about this even if you find the idea ridiculous and distasteful.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“But this is working for me!”
When we find things that calm us, soothe us, or help us go around or otherwise escape from fear, we often declare that these things “work for us”.
Here’s a common exchange I might have with someone new to this process:
New person: “Everyone is different and I know what works for me!”
Me: “Great! What are you doing that works?”
New person: “Diet. Exercise. Essential oils. Eliminating stress. Avoiding triggers.”
In this exchange the new person is usually arguing against the approach I am describing and trying to convince me that what they are doing is working for them.
Oddly these exchanges always take place in my anxiety recovery Facebook group or in the comments section of an anxiety related video or Instagram post. The conversation takes place in a space occupied by people that are struggling with anxiety and looking for answers. See the issue here? This is like listening to someone tell you that they’re winning the Tour de France as they bolt training wheels onto their bike.
The point is that you may have an arsenal of rituals and techniques that “work” for you. But you’re reading this so my guess would be that those things either don’t work enough, or don’t work all the time. I’d wager that you’re hoping to “fill in the gaps” in the wall you’re trying to build between you and anxiety.
I have a bit of bad news for you.
Your wall will never be complete. You will never fill in all the gaps. As soon as you fill one in, another will appear.
Unfortunately, ff you’re looking for a durable solution that actually does work without winding up in an endless game of whack-a-mole with your anxiety, you’re going to have to tear down that wall and start a new project.
It is very difficult to reach full recovery when your strategy is based on coping, soothing, escape, avoidance, and anxiety suppression techniques. You can’t hold on to those, then try to sprinkle acceptance and surrender on top as needed to try to cover all the bases. The two approaches are incompatible for the most part. If you insist on strapping 17 floatation devices onto your body before you get in the water, actually learning to swim is going to be a nearly impossible task.
I understand that sometimes I frustrate members of the community. When I steer conversations away from cherished soothing techniques, I am often asked why I bother trying to help with anxiety if I won’t let people talk about the things that they are certain are “working” for anxiety.
Tomorrow we’ll address this common point of confusion and frustration.
Note: This discussion was 100% inspired by some very smart things that were said by my friend Connie. Connie is one of the admins in my Facebook group and she knows a thing or two about a thing or two. She gets full credit for speaking this post - and tomorrow’s post - into existence.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
On the last day of every month, I ask one of my friends or collaborators to guest post on The Anxious Morning. This month we have a guest post from Joshua Fletcher, AKA Anxiety Josh. Josh is one of the people I collaborate with most often. He’s a qualified anxiety therapist in the UK, and a friend of mine. Josh did a great job of addressing what happens when anxiety “comes back”, so let’s hear what he has to say.
I speak to many people. Many clients, many members of the Instagram community, readers of the book, whatever. I speak to them a lot.
One of the common phrases I hear is,
“It's come back, I was having a great week, but it's come back.”
Obviously what they mean is anxiety. “My anxiety has come back”.
What I'd like to communicate to people is that it's really important not to anthropomorphize your anxiety. It is not a gremlin that crawls through your window to annoy you when you're having a nice time. No, if anything, it's a very overly protective mechanism that thinks it's doing you a favor when you're super stressed, or there's a potential threat.
A very important reframe is this. You may be someone that says, “Ah, my anxiety, it's come back!”. That may be followed by disappointment, annoyance, a fear of failure, frustration, or feeling like you're back at square one. Instead, reframe that as, “Here's a chance for me to willfully tolerate my anxiety”.
That is recovery.
Recovery isn't the occurrence of anxiety. Recovery is your willingness to experience it.
I still now as a psychotherapist struggle with anxiety now and then. But actually, I don't struggle with it. I always see it as a chance for me to tolerate it. My skill and all the skills of my clients and what I what I propagate is, “I’m good at tolerating this”.
My initial reaction if I get anxious is of intrigue.
“All right, okay. Well, okay. I'm gonna see how well I can do. I'm tolerating this.”
I've spent many years going, “Oh, no, it's back. This is awful. I've lost and waved the white flag. Go back to square one. Start doing rumination and safety behaviors.”
No. Here is a chance for me to perfect a skill. To start a skill and see the willful tolerance of anxiety as the same as learning guitar, practicing karate, learning a new language. You start off, it's tricky and it's difficult. But the more you practice it, the more proficient you get.
So go away and willfully tolerate your anxiety. Stop beating yourself, getting sad, or saying you're back to square one because anxiety has arisen. It hasn't.
You are safe. You are normal. You're okay. It's time to tolerate that anxiety.
Joshua Fletcher is a psychotherapist who specialises in working with anxiety and panic disorder. He is best known as Anxiety Josh across social media and has quickly become a renowned and reputable figure in the industry. You can find Josh online at schoolofanxiety.com.
“Just take it easy, man.” - Jeffery Lebowski (aka The Dude)
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Sometimes on The Anxious Morning I’ll try to give you a peek behind the scenes at what it looks like for me to produce my podcast, write books, and create social media content. When I have something to share that I think might be helpful, I’ll do that.
In edition number 67 I went over the differences between therapy and mental health information you find on social media platforms. In that edition I mentioned boundaries. Therapists are trained and encouraged to create clear boundaries that govern the relationship with their clients. Even early on in my graduate training as a therapist, that is being drilled into me on a regular basis. There are quite a few reasons for that including safety of both client and clinician, acknowledgement of an unequal power dynamic in a therapeutic relationship, and a need to ensure that the needs of a client are the guiding force in the relationship. It’s also important for a therapist to take care of their own mental and emotional health so they can be of service to others. Boundaries are important for this reason too.
I am not anyone’s therapist. My current role online as an educator, guide and advocate means I can provide you with information that might help you understand your problem and to understand what you can do to improve your situation. I can cheer for you, encourage you, and create virtual communities that also perform these functions. I can help you feel less alone by sharing my experiences and helping to connect you with others that are going through what you are going through. I am so grateful to be able to perform this function and fill this role.
However, I also have to do my best to operate from an ethical base to ensure that you remain safe in your interactions with me. People asking for help are vulnerable people. People providing that help are by default in a position where they can exploit that vulnerability, even when they don’t intend to. That’s complicated, so we develop ethical standard designed to keep proper distance so that things don’t accidentally go awry. As a social media content creator I am not obligated to adhere to ethical standards because there are none in that context. As a therapist in training I am required to adhere to the ACA code of ethics and to the best of my ability to all pertinent professional standards of conduct. This is in your best interest, and mine.
So what does all this mean?
When I do not respond to your direct messages, this is why. Instant messaging on the Internet is not an appropriate setting to provide anything that even remotely looks like therapy so I just can’t do that. I don’t know you or your situation so I cannot give you personal advice. It would not be safe or proper for me to do that.
When I do not accept your friend requests on Facebook, this is why. I understand that you are inviting me, but nonetheless even in this very loose relationship I am the helper and you are the person asking for help, which means that I must steer clear of forming any kind of personal relationship with you, even if that relationship is electronic. I must keep our interactions confined to the “comments section”.
When you ask about my personal life and want to know why I don’t share more about my family or friends or what I do every day outside the anxiety arena, this is your answer. Friends are engaged in mutual sharing and disclosure at some level. I can’t really create a friendship with you, and in a helper/helping relationship there is no expectation of mutual sharing or disclosure. Believe it or not, this is one of the things that makes your therapist so valuable.
I could go on, but for a while I’ve been meaning to address some of this and this seemed like a good time to do it. I am not trying to be cold or unfriendly and I am not rejecting you. I am not “too important” to interact with you. I’m just trying to do the right thing for everyone by acting safely, professionally, and ethically.
Besides, I’m really not all that interesting anyway. You’re not missing anything.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I have a confession to make. I’m growing tired of the word “reassurance”. I hear it probably 100 times every day in our community.
“You’re seeking reassurance!”
“This just your need for reassurance!”
“Reassurance seeking will keep you stuck!”
These are not inherently bad or wrong statements, but I think we’re collectively suffering from that disease where we use a word without necessarily always understanding what it means. Let clear this up.
Assurance is not a bad thing. It can be productive. Especially for someone new to the recovery process and new to disordered anxiety, access to accurate information and clarity about what’s going on is critical. Knowing that anxiety can feel like a heart attack or that fearing a psychotic break doesn’t make one possible is a needed step early on. Getting assurance is learning. Providing assurance is educating. Technically in our community we’d probably call it psycho education and its usually a major part of therapy at the start of the process.
Things start to veer into the wrong lane when assurance seeking becomes repetitive and automatic. There’s a reason we call it REassurance.
When you’ve been told fifty times that your anxiety symptoms are not dangerous and you want to be told fifty more, that falls into the realm of non-productive reassurance seeking. When you’ve learned that anxiety symptoms are normal and varied but you want to continually talk about the one symptom that you find most frightening, that can become unproductive reassurance seeking. This does not helps us, and can actually impede our progress and even feed the disorder. So when people are calling each other out for seeking reassurance, sometimes it’s not wrong.
HOWEVER … context matters. We have to be mindful of the bad habit of immediately yelling, “REASSURANCE” in every situation and in response to every question. Not every question or comment is reassurance seeking. Who is asking the question? What stage of recovery are they at? How much exposure have they had to the concepts and principles of recovery? Has anyone tried to teach them yet? What is their particular situation? See how many questions there are here?
This is one reason that social media is not therapy and can never be. We don’t know context. We don’t actually know each other. We can become more familiar with each other through repeated interaction, but that still isn’t enough. Sometimes we are seeking excessive reassurance and having that pointed out is helpful, but not always. This can be a tricky balance to strike at times.
Let’s at least start with keeping an eye on the difference between assurance and reassurance. If we can stay grounded in these concepts, we minimize the risk of misappropriating and misapplying a key idea in recovery when talking to ourselves, and to others.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
After reading yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning, about doing things you love to foster good mental health, you may be thinking that at the moment you don’t remember or don’t even know what you love. When in the grips of anxiety and fear, we can easily lose sight of the things that used to bring us pleasure. When we spend all our time just trying to escape from discomfort, we can lose touch with our values and who we really are.
This is really common. I was in that exact situation. If this is you, don’t get worked up over it. You’re not a lost cause and certainly not broken because you feel this way.
When we are working through the process of recovery, sometimes we have to just start trying things again, even when we have no idea if we’re going to like them or not. That’s not glamorous. This is not a process of creating joy or choosing happiness. Sometimes it’s just a matter of deciding to try painting, or cooking, or watching a film that you otherwise would not have watched. Maybe you can try learning a new language online or calling an old friend that you haven’t spoken to in some time.
Not because these activities will instantly make you happy and shine a heavenly light on your heart. We try different things because only through these experiences do we learn that we CAN try different things again and still be OK. Sometimes just the act of doing that, even when there’s no emotional payoff, is the point. When we’re stuck and acting only based on the need to avoid fear, we start to see life as challenging or even dangerous. So ordering take out from a new restaurant or dusting off the bicycle that you haven’t rode in years is just another recovery step, but they may also lead you to rediscover things you love over time.
If you’re feeling lost, like you don’t know who you are or what you love any more, just start trying things with no expectations and no judgments. This is the way forward because wringing our hands over feeling lost without then picking up the map and following it makes no sense.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
From time to time I like to share tips that help me in my life beyond anxiety recovery. Some of these come from lessons I learned as an anxious person. Some do not. But when I am asked if I am afraid that my anxiety might come back or that I will relapse, I can confidently say that I am not afraid of this at least in part due to these little tips that I share here and there.
Today’s tip is to do things that you love.
OK, so I won’t win any prizes for originality with this one because I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times from other people, but it is true. If you want to tend to your mental health and if you want to get good at managing the everyday stress that life can throw at you, start doing things you love on a regular basis.
For me, this means making time to do things like playing my guitar, even when I’m not so good at it. I’ve been reading more in the last few months and really enjoying that again. I like to do physical things like lift weights or go for walks and for the last couple of weeks I’ve been playing with rucking (essentially hiking and walking with a weighted backpack). I’ve even started cooking more which has been kinda relaxing and is also helping me eat better again.
It doesn’t matter what the activities are. I try different stuff all the time (more on this tomorrow). What matters is taking the time and making the effort to do the things that feed your soul and your spirit in some way. Notice I used the word effort. I did that for a reason.
We are surrounded on all sides by soul-sucking electronic devices that connect us to the endless cesspool that is the Internet. And to be honest, its far easier and takes far less energy to just scroll or mindlessly consume content without even knowing why you’re doing it. I’m guilty of that sometimes for sure. But in the end, while this takes no effort, there is also no reward.
When you take the time and make the effort to do things that you love, things that connect you to your values and bring you some measure of happiness (this does not mean unbridled joy or nirvana), you get something in return. Feelings of restlessness get replaced by feelings of peace. Agitation becomes calm. Frustration becomes satisfaction. When we make the effort to really connect with who we are and what we value, good things happen on a mental and emotional level.
I know that if I get caught up in bad habits where I’m scrolling all the time and staring mindlessly at screens too much, I start to feel it. My mood drops, I get a little short tempered, and I just start to feel generally uneasy and even a bit anxious. This is my signal to snap out of those bad habits, slow down, and return to the things I really love. Wouldn’t you know it, after a day or two, I’m usually feeling much better, and that’s not an accident.
I have to remind you that none of this is an anxiety cure or a shield against the anxiety issues you may be facing now. But when we aim at this goal and move toward the things we love, we get a positive return on our investment that makes everything just a little bit easier and smoother.
I know, right now you may be thinking that you are not even sure what you love any more. We’ll talk about that tomorrow, so stay tuned.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about the bad habit of beating ourselves up and calling ourselves failures when we fail to complete an exposure or meet a recovery or life challenge. Today let’s finish that discussion by looking at two things we can do to meet our failures and disappointments in a more productive way.
Let’s start by recognizing that failure feels awful, but it does not make us awful people. When we fail, we feel bad. We hurt. We want relief from that hurt. If we start telling everyone that we are awful failures that will never get better, we will get sympathetic responses that help soothe our pain temporarily. But there is a better way to get the support we need in those situations.
Try describing the situation with kinder words and in a more objective way without adding judgment about yourself.
“I really wanted to stay for the whole wedding today. I didn’t because I was afraid and didn’t feel brave. I’m really upset that I failed. I could use a little encouragement and support right now.”
See how that works? When you approach things this way, you acknowledge reality (there’s no sense trying to deny it), and you ask for emotional support in a way that does not use your emotional state as a weapon against yourself. Try that. See what happens when you do.
The second step we can take to process our failures in a better way is to recognize that the failure is the result of things we DO, not the result of who we are. Failure is just the result of a series of small choices and actions that lead to a result that you don’t want.
For example, a typical failure for me during recovery might have been running back home because I experienced panic while driving. Rather than calling myself a failure and gluing my self worth to that experience, I would do better to acknowledge how I feel, but to dismantle the failure so I could see it for what it really was. A series of small actions that might have looked like this:
I tried to use breathing to stop it instantly.
I kept poking and massaging around my heart.
I turned up the radio, then turned it down.
I opened the window, then closed it.
I turned on the heat, then turned if off.
I actively participated in the “OMG!” inner dialogue and even said it out loud a few times.
I wiggled and fidgeted in my seat the whole time.
These would have been the choices I’d have made that would have ended up with “giving in” and “failing”.
See how none of those little things is attached to me being a terrible failure or a bad father? Notice how this little sequence of actions show me things that I can work on doing differently next time? Can you see the objectivity and the lack of judgment in the list?
When we resist the urge to berate ourselves and get carried away by the emotions associated with failure, we can find more productive ways to get the support we need, and to see the lessons that failure can teach us. They are important. When we see them, even failure is a win in many ways.
I did not coin this phrase, but I use it all the time. We do not fail. We either win, or learn. Cliche as it may be, there is truth there if we make the effort to find it.
A leader is best when people barely know he exists, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will say: we did it ourselves. - Lao Tzu
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We all know that recovery is not linear. There are ups and downs and you will get frustrated, discouraged and upset sometimes. Sometimes, when meeting challenges and doing exposures, you will “fail”.
Maybe you couldn’t sit through the panic so you ran. Maybe you called for help, or went to the emergency room, or took your rescue medication to get through it. The specifics do not matter. What does matter is that even in what you call failure, there are lessons and there is value. HOWEVER, if you fall into the trap of beating yourself up, berating yourself, and calling yourself names, you will miss those lessons and completely lose out on the value of the experience.
The biggest mistake you can make when you fail is to glue yourself to that failure and to use it to define your worth as a person.
“I hate myself.”
“I am a failure.”
“What kind of mother does this?”
“What’s wrong with me???”
These are all common statements of self loathing and harsh self judgment that we hear in the community when our friends experience failure or disappointment in recovery. Have you done this to yourself? Have you “failed”, then lashed out at yourself and declared yourself broken, unworthy, less than, or awful in some way?
I know that the recovery process can get emotional at times. Big feelings are going to arise. And we all make emotionally fueled mistakes that can sometimes lead us to be less than nice to ourselves. That’s going to happen. The trick is to catch it when it does.
Start from the premise that failing at an exposure or recovery challenge does not in any way define who you are. It does not diminish your value as a human. If we start from here, we can then say that spending the next day or two beating up on yourself is pointless because it amounts to just telling a story - out loud - that isn’t in any way true. If someone you love stumbles while meeting a challenge, would you say bad things about them and call them broken? Of course you wouldn’t because you know that it’s not true.
Really, ranting and raving about being “the worst parent in the world” (for example) serves only to temporarily soothe your pain. When you say it out loud, and especially when you get others to respond with sympathy and reassurance, you get a little relief from that sense of failure. Nobody would blame you for wanting that, but you can get that without the self-flagellation if you start from the premise that failing feels crappy, but doesn’t define who you are.
There are two steps we can take to avoid falling into the “beating ourselves up” trap. One is speaking about ourselves objectively and with kindness. The other is looking at failure as something you DID, not something you are.
Tomorrow we’ll finish this discussion by walking through those steps to see what they look like.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Nothing about the recovery process is meant to be glorified or romanticized. Quotes about fear, warriors and goddesses do not apply here.
Recovery is about intentionally making oneself uncomfortable and afraid. It is the process of doing hard things to learn that we are capable of doing hard things and working through difficult sensations, thoughts and emotions. The process is literally dripping with the stuff of songs, poems, inspirational memes, and mediocre keynote addresses given at dime-a-dozen “level up” conferences.
But none of that matters here.
Recovery is not a test. Recovery is not initiation into the mentally superior club. Recovery does not earn one a certificate stamped with words like “enlightened” or “awakened”. Recovery is not about being a lion, a wolf, an eagle, or any other animal generally associated with badassery.
We do not do these things to be hardcore or extreme. We do not do these things to prove to the world that we are strong or brave. We do not do these things with pretense to signal that we share the virtues and characteristics of warriors or dead Roman emperors.
We do these things simply … to learn.
We learn about ourselves and what we are capable of. We learn about the nature of fear and thoughts and emotions and we learn that all have their place when treated productively and with respect. And even if the learning happens in the dark and in silence with nobody witnessing, it still happens, and there is impact. Nobody needs to see your recovery, approve of your recovery, or endorse your recovery methods for it to matter. If this tree falls in this forest and nobody is here to hear it, it ABSOLUTELY DOES make a sound.
It can be really difficult to do hard things without fully understanding why we are doing them. Never lose sight of why we DO recovery. We do it to learn. And even if you are doing it while feeling awful, with nobody watching, and nobody applauding you for the audacious display of warrior spirit, if you are learning …. you are winning.
Now go learn something about how capable you really are. Because that will set you free.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday on The Anxious Morning we talked about fearing emotions based on being fused with them and believing that your emotions are who you are.
Today I want to look at some other common misconceptions and mistaken beliefs about emotions. These unproductive beliefs about emotions can often become avoidance drivers and will stand in the way of recovery.
1. Positive Vibes Only
You may - for a variety of reasons - have formed the belief that only “positive” emotional states are permitted in life. This may drive you to avoid feeling emotions like fear, sadness, or anger. Some members of our community have learned this because they’ve been punished in the past for displaying negative emotions. Others have been told that negative emotions bring everyone else down and ruin everyone else’s day. Being taught that only positive emotions are allowed is a terrible situation to be in because no human can feel only positive all the time.
2. Control Yourself! Choose Happiness!
You may be laboring under the assumption that you should be able to control your emotions, or even to actively choose which emotions to experience. If this is the case, you may find yourself being judged as bad or unworthy (or judging yourself this way) for experiencing or expressing “negative” emotions. This can lead you to avoid situations that might elicit a negative emotional response from you. The idea that you can control your emotions or choose which emotions to have is ridiculous and absolutely unrealistic. Humans are designed to experience the full range of emotions that life will trigger. You are not bad or unworthy for feeling sad or angry. You are just human.
3. Weakness
You may have been taught that strong or capable people can keep emotions under wraps. I often see people claiming some kind intellectual and tactical high ground when asserting that they’ve removed all emotion from their thought process. If you were raised in an environment where keeping emotions under wraps was rewarded or praised, you may find yourself in a situation where you cannot risk being “overwhelmed” by your emotions and avoiding any situations that may trigger them. This is a huge mistake driven by some bad lessons. Humans are designed to feel and express emotion. Stifling emotions is no more an accomplishment than intentionally starving oneself. Both take tremendous effort and are incredibly unhealthy.
4. A Forever State
Some members of our community are afraid that emotional states can become so intense as to become permanent or never end. You may fear experiencing strong emotions and you may be avoiding this based on the mistaken belief that strong emotions might grow beyond your ability to handle them. You may believe that sadness - for example - can become so powerful that it turns into long term or even permanent depression. This mistaken belief can drive powerful avoidance behaviors designed to keep you FAR away from any possible interaction with negative emotions that may “overwhelm” you. To be sure, experiencing powerful negative emotions is one of the most difficult things for a human to do. But we are designed for that. It is part of life. And while it may be unpleasant and difficult, this does not make it in any way dangerous in the way you think it might be. Consider for a minute that you likely never worry about becoming overwhelmed by happiness and becoming permanently joyful. Why is that?
I could go on here. This is by no means an exhaustive list. They are just a of the most common mistaken beliefs and misconceptions surrounding emotions in our community.
Do any of these strike a chord with you? What can you do today to start to dismantle these mistaken beliefs? How can you learn that you are capable of handling emotions?
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Not everyone fears a heart attack.
Some members of the community fear emotions. For these people, panic and anxiety become nightmares because of the emotional states they produce. Feeling anxious or experiencing panic means feeling a wide range of emotions including fear, vulnerability, disappointment, anger, or sadness.
For our friends that are having a hard time handling these emotions, feeling these things will drive them to reach conclusions about being permanently broken, never getting better, being defective, being weak, or being a disruption or disappointment to their loved ones. Anxiety creates emotions, then those emotions themselves are seen as failures or disasters .
Commonly, this is the result of being fused with our emotions. When fused with our emotions, one may believe that they are their emotions. This can often lead one to declare that emotions are indicators of worth or value. Success or failure is based on emotional outcomes.
“Did I feel the right way?”
This often appears in the realms of parenting or intimate relationships. For example, feeling anxious while interacting with a child leads to sadness based on the mistaken idea that a good parent would not be anxious around their child. Another common scenario involves feeling anxiety while interacting with a life partner, or during times of intimacy. The mistaken belief that a good partner would only be happy or joyful during these interactions leads to declarations of failure or broken-ness.
This can create a really nasty self-fueling cycle. Anxiety creates feelings of failure, which then create negative emotional states like sadness, which themselves get judged as failure, which then leads to additional negative emotions, and the cycle is ignited.
In a situation where emotions are your feared disaster, you will find yourself avoiding not based on the usual fears, but based on feelings of failure or confirmation of weakness. Most people might refuse to drive on the highway because they fear that panic means a heart attack or passing out. But some refuse to drive on the highway because having a panic attack while driving means they are failing and confirms the self-belief that they are broken and will never get better.
IMPORTANT: You are NOT your emotions. Your emotions do not determine who you are. They only reflect what you are experiencing.
How does one approach this situation? The same rules apply in a general sense. While other members of the community may have to learn how to move through the fear of death or loss of control, you will have to learn to move through those feelings of failure and negative self-judgments.
“Just because I think I am weak does not mean I am. I can allow these emotions, recognize them as part of being alive, and show myself that I can handle them.”
I understand that this is a tall order. If you’ve spent a lifetime seeing your emotions as confirmation that you weak or broken, this will not be an easy shift to make. This can be hard work, but we don’t need easy here, only possible.
Tomorrow we’ll continue with a look at some common misconceptions about emotions.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
As much as we want to, we do not recover in big leaps. Recovery is not a big project. Recovery is the agglomeration of thousands of tiny projects that all add up and get strung together into a meaningful change in the way you react and relate to anxiety and fear.
Each of these tiny projects and activities originates with a choice and like those projects and activities, those choices are often also tiny. But they are choices nonetheless and they matter. You may wonder how you will get through today feeling the way you do. You will “get through it”. - as you always have - by making a series of small choices that lead to productive activities throughout the day.
We’re never solving the anxiety problem with a giant swipe or momentous mindset change. It never works that way. We solve it by accepting that we do have choice and therefore power. Then we practice the act of making good choices at the micro level each day whenever we need to, which in some cases is all day long. That’s OK. Everyone starts there.
When you have a choice between picking your chin up, and putting your head in your phone to distract yourself for another 5 minutes, pick your chin up and look at the world.
When you have a choice between speaking your fear out loud again, and remaining silent while you ACT toward what matters to you even while afraid, choose the latter.
When you have a choice between laying in bed for another 30 minutes examining your self or putting your feet on the floor to go brush your teeth, put your feet on the floor. Then choose to walk toward your toothbrush rather than getting back under the covers.
These are just a few small examples of small choices that confront us every day along the path to recovery. None of them is recovery by itself, but when we add them all up over time, we wake up one day and notice that life is starting to look more “normal” than it did five weeks ago. Then we use that to fuel more good choices and the continue on our march toward getting better.
No, this is not perfect. Mistakes will happen. Bad choices will happen. This is OK. The overall trend is in the right direction when we can make recovery-focused choices more than we make fear-focused choices, on a consistent basis. So if you ask me how I recovered, I would have to tell you that I made 100,000 tiny choices that got me there.
I might also tell you that in this context, the idea of “there” was not at all what I was expecting it would be, but that’s a story for another time.
“People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them.” - George Bernard Shaw
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I was recently asked about what I’ve learned from interacting with anxious people over the years. How do I know what to say to people? What have I learned about how to handle their fear or panic?
Good question. I can answer that in one sentence.
When anxious people want to hand me their fear, my job is to take it, then casually drop it on the floor while they watch me do that. This is not to be cold or uncaring. This is not to be dismissive. There is a method to this madness. I have learned that my response to an anxious person must be validating, caring and compassionate, but that my response to their irrational fear and runaway thoughts must be casual or even borderline disrespectful.
If you show me anxious emergency, I will show you calm indifference because that is what you need to see. You cannot see that you are safe, so I will show you by way of my reaction.
If you show me frantic fear, I will show you a casual, confident shrug of my shoulders. You are treating thoughts and feelings like urgent disasters, which they are not. You need to see someone treat them otherwise.
If you demand that I speak to your fear and argue with it as your proxy, I will refuse to do that. When you want me to prove your fear wrong, I will remind you that there is no need to do that and will show you how to treat your fear as irrelevant rather than wrong.
If you try to defend the basis of your fear, I will refuse to hear your argument. I will tell your fear that it is frivolous, pointless, and not worthy of attention.
I know that at face value, these statements will get me roasted by a large number of Internet mental health gurus. Again, always remember that the way I will address an anxious person and the way I will address their fear are two different things. YOU are always worthy of kindness and validation and compassion. Your FEAR is not, because it uses that as fuel and will simply take more and more forever without end if we let it.
So why a casual shrug of my shoulders? Because my job in this process is to help you move gently toward change and recovery, not to hold your hand while you run hysterically in the wrong direction.
We all want our hands held, but sometimes what we want and what we need are not the same thing. My recovery got a major boost when I came to grips with that idea and it is my hope that I can help you learn that same lesson.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We’ve all head of “fake news”.
We may think that the last President of the United States invented that silly phrase, but anxious brains have been in the business of fake news for thousands of years. Anxiety invented the idea of fake news.
When you are doing your best to move forward in recovery, you are learning to allow anxious thoughts without engaging with them. You work on allowing them to come without trying to stop them, argue with them, or otherwise interact with them directly.
Why? Why do we take this approach?
When your over-sensitized brain keeps screaming scary thoughts at you, it would seem like common sense to argue with those thoughts so you can prove them wrong. You want to feel safe. Those disturbing thoughts make you feel anything but safe, so you want to argue them away. It makes sense at face value.
In fact, the world is jam-packed with misguided mental health advice that will tell you to counter the thoughts with facts or to replace them with positive or happy thoughts. These seem like common sense approaches. Your own common sense and desire for soothing will compel you to ask your friends and family to assure you that the thoughts are wrong and that you are safe.
The problem here is that when you do this, you put yourself into a debate with an opponent that does not exist in the reality you exist in.
You are bound by the laws of physics, probability, unidirectional time flow, and everything else that makes reality into reality. Your anxious brain is not interested in any of that. Anxiety and anxious thoughts have no limits on them. They are not bound by the laws that govern reality. They can simply make things up for any reason and without regard for validity or veracity. An anxious brain will dismiss all of your arguments as “fake news” no matter how well grounded and watertight they may be. That same anxious brain will then respond with a firehose of actual fake news in the form of distorted, irrational, catastrophic predictions and thoughts that scare the hell out of you.
Arguing with an anxious brain is pointless, frustrating, and exhausting. Just when you make an iron-clad argument that proves those scary thoughts untrue, your anxious brain will shrug, call your arguments fake news, then bury you in it’s own fake news.
You can’t win an argument with an opponent that will just make things up without restriction while ignoring your arguments completely. Anxious thoughts are impossible to reason with. It’s like beating your head against the wall when you try.
So … we stop trying. We allow the EXPERIENCE of reality to prove our point over time, difficult though that might be. This is why we do what we do. Keep this in mind when you are feeling compelled to make yourself feel better … by beating your head against the wall. It’s never a good plan.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
When one famous person assaulted another famous person live on international television a few days ago, what struck me about that exchange was not the exchange itself, but the reaction I saw the next day on social media channels.
Half my social contacts were standing on their chairs, beating their chests and proclaiming to the world that getting up and throwing a right hand at someone is “how it’s done”.
PROTECTOR! WARRIOR! KING!!!! LION!!!! This is the value of “maleness”! This is what makes you important! Register for my weekend retreat and I’ll give you a t-shirt that confirms this to the world!
The heavy emotional and financial investment in that “alpha” label drives messaging that feeds on the male ego and encourages it to be loud and proud. Unfortunately, it also encourages the male ego to enforce a policy of silence, even when that policy is deadly.
It’s 2022. You’d think that by now we’d have figured this stuff out, but we have not.
When we tell men - or anyone that identifies as male - that men must be punch-throwing protectors and warriors to be true men, we are also telling them that fear, vulnerability, and weakness are off limits. When we build gender identify based on ego gratifying acts, we encourage silence when our mental health no longer fits that narrative. We drive men into what can be a deadly silence where struggles must be hidden, appearances must be maintained at all costs, and help must not be asked for.
After all, a lion does not ask for help! The alpha wolf doesn’t cry! They sit at the head of the table and get the job done. THAT’S what they do!
Except humans are not lions or wolves, as much as we want to identify with them. I love a good wolf reference as much as the next guy, but we have to recognize that promoting masculinity based on animal images and ego driven stereotypes completely ignores the fact that we are complex beings and that all humans - even the male among us - can struggle with mental health or emotional issues at any time.
I have had the privilege of not only speaking TO thousands of people about anxiety and mental health over the years, but also WITH just as many. I can tell you that men generally interact with me in a different way. Bro-code, traditional maleness, and the definition of “real man” all hang heavy in the air, coloring those interactions and in many cases muting the discussion. I can also say with certainty that there is a very large percentage of the male and male-identifying population that is absolutely suffering in silence, carrying mental health burdens that they should not have to carry alone. The fear of being seen as inadequate or less than based on mental or emotional state is a powerful fear, and it is driving far too many humans into what can become a deadly state of silence. I get a ton of private messages every day. A quick survey shows me that over 70% of those are from men, and they are private for a reason.
Surely we can do better than this.
I’m not terribly interested in Hollywood drama or gossip, but I am interested in how we treat each other. At a time when open discussion and de-stigmatizing of mental health problems is urgently needed, feeding the male ego at the cost of silencing the male soul is not a wise choice for us to be making.
Now let me get off my soapbox. Tomorrow we’ll return to some of the mechanics of anxiety and recovery.
On the drive back from Delaware last weekend I listened to “The Man Who Knew The Way To The Moon” by Todd Zwillich. I’m a huge space exploration fan so this story behind the story of the Apollo moon landing program was really great. If you have an Audible account and you dig this stuff, give it a listen.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Mental health is hard. Really hard. When it feels like your body and mind are betraying you, it’s easy to find yourself questioning who you are, what you’re doing, and what this even is all for. We work overtime to navigate through these issues. On some days just getting out of bed can feel like a major undertaking.
Now imagine not only having to work on anxiety recovery or depression recovery, but having to do that work while also knowing that the world often doesn’t even recognize you as valid or worthy of being here. You start every day not thinking about exposures or podcast episodes or a recovery plan, but by thinking about the fact that you are being actively rejected, marginalized, ignored, excluded, ridiculed, or even attacked for being who you are. Exposures will have to come later. You have to figure out how to navigate all that first.
We speak often about how the stress of life can make recovery more difficult. When the world throws crap at us, we can feel like we’re back to square one. When we are trapped in unhealthy situations, we struggle to find the room needed for recovery. For our LGBTQ+ friends, just existing can be one giant unhealthy situation. Someone that does not conform to “accepted” gender identities or sexual orientation standards probably feels like life itself is an abusive relationship. There’s no room to work in. No space left for recovery and mental health. No space to breathe.
I love this community. You all contribute to making this a space full of empowerment, encouragement, inspiration, and compassion. I hope for that. You make it.
So if we are to make this space, we must make this space for EVERYONE, especially people that might otherwise have no space. This has to be a virtual place where anyone can come and feel like they work on recovery without fear of being banished or judged simply for being who they are. Everyone must be welcome here.
Mental health is hard. Mental health is even harder when you’re fighting wars on multiple fronts. Let us be a kind shelter from that other war. Let’s help give our friends the space they need to breathe and maneuver.
I know I’m preaching to the choir here. I’ve seen nothing but love and acceptance and kindness from you guys and I am hopeful that what I’ve seen extends to everyone that needs a mental health tribe to belong to. But as I was writing tomorrow’s edition of The Anxious Morning I caught myself being accidentally exclusionary in my thinking, so I write as much as a reminder to myself that I have work to do as anything else. Part of that work is not remaining silent when these issues come up, so here I am.
Thank you for being excellent humans. ALL of you.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about how many anxious people - contrary to expectations - perform very well in times of REAL emergency.
I capitalize the word REAL for a reason. Because it is important to accept and understand that how you feel is NOT a real emergency and never has been. Feeling afraid - when there is no threat to base that fear on - is not an emergency. Thinking that something bad might happen when there is absolutely no evidence to support that is not an emergency. Being uncomfortable or thinking that you can’t cope is not an emergency.
At the risk of sounding a bit ridiculous, how you feel is only an emergency to you because you are in the habit of treating it like an emergency.
One of the most important turning points my own recovery came the day that I resolved that I would no longer treat my symptoms and fears like emergencies. None of what I feared ever came true, I got really angry at being dragged around by disasters that only ever existed in my mind, and I vowed that enough was enough. This was both liberating and quite difficult from an emotional standpoint.
Few things in life are more emotionally challenging than calling out your own b**t, but once I saw it this way and did just that, things really began to change for me. It was not an instant cure and there was no smooth sailing to recovery land. I still had plenty of hard work in front of me. But accepting that how I felt was NOT an emergency gave me a guiding principle - a bit of a battle plan - to work from. I didn’t have to make things up as went along. When I wanted to declare emergency and act accordingly … I knew that I had to do the opposite and treat the situation as if nothing was wrong.
I am sure that right now you are jumping out of your seat and wanting to scream, “BUT HOWWWWWW? How can I treat the feeling that (insert your fear here) as if nothing is wrong???”
The answer, to bring it right back to one of my earliest podcast episodes from years ago, is courage. That is part of the deal here, like it or not. When I decided to stop treating how I felt like an emergency, I had to start being brave on a regular basis. Not because I was doing dangerous things, but because it felt like I was, and I needed to be brave to learn that this feeling was wrong at an epic level.
The need and desire to “handle it” when a threat pops up is understandable. You just want to keep yourself safe and seek comfort. In a real emergency where real action is needed, this is quite useful. Unfortunately, however, this often gets turned inward. It becomes part of a never ending effort to “handle” an emergency that doesn’t exist and therefore does not need handling at all.
So if you want to know what it looks like to stop treating your symptoms and thoughts like emergencies, look in the mirror and give yourself the biggest most dismissive shoulder shrug you can dig up. It looks like that, even when that is hard, but not impossible, to do.
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
You would think that a person crippled by anxiety, panic and fear would be the LAST person you’d want involved during a real emergency. Wouldn’t an anxious person crumble and be useless if the chips are really down?
Oddly, the exact opposite tends to be true!
Many anxious people in our community regularly tell stories of actual real-life emergencies and urgent situations in which they perform capably and without fear or panic. They never see that coming, and they are almost universally shocked and amazed at how well they did once they get a chance to look back on the event. It’s amazing, really.
Why is this such a common situation? Why do we hear these stories so often?
The anxiety you struggle with - and the thoughts and sensations that come with it - are all INTERNAL events. Your threat detection and response system is firing in response to no identifiable threat in the environment. You search for the danger, but none exists, so YOU become the danger. Your own body and mind become the danger. You get dragged around by normal, predicable bodily sensations and the thoughts that pop up around them. It seems uncontrollable and makes you feel completely incapable of handling anything.
But what happens when your threat detection and response system is triggered by a real event happening outside your head that you can easily identify? What happens when the threat is well known and the response is fairly well defined and within the scope of your behavioral repertoire?
If your child falls off their bike and sprains an ankle, this is clearly defined event that requires a well known response that you are familiar with and able to execute. There’s no mystery and no ambiguity there. Panic be dammed, you scoop up your child and head to the hospital for x-rays, a cast, or whatever else is needed. You remain occupied with THEM and with the doctors and nurses taking care of them. Your body responds as designed, and your capable mind processes input and makes decisions accordingly.
Your usual anxiety, fear, and panic, do not enter into it for the most part. Afterward, you find yourself amazed, feeling pretty good about yourself, and also wondering why you can’t just do that all the time!
These experiences shine a bright light on some of the core principles of recovery. They teach us all the things our bodies and minds do when threatened are OK, and even useful in the right circumstances. They really bring the “proper response at the wrong time” concept into full view.
When this happens, take the lesson. I’m hoping you won’t have to make any emergency trips to hospitals in the near future of course, but if you are confronted with an emergency that play out this way, or if you have in the past, reflect on it as the ultimate proof of the irrational, baseless nature of fear that FEELS so real, but is built on … nothing.
Anxious people are often rockstars in times of urgency or emergency. But that means they’re rockstars all the time, even when they refuse to recognize that.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
In “Overcoming Unwanted Intrusive Thoughts”, Sally Winston and Martin Seif wrote:
Minds tend to get stickier when they are fatigued, overwhelmed by good or bad events, and dealing with illness, stressful situations, or conflicting emotions … Sticky mind goes along with feeling anxious.
What Drs Winston and Seif are showing us is that what we often call “setbacks” - times where anxious thoughts seem to return and drive us again - may very well be expected and normal reactions to the normal stress of life.
We’re seeing this often in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The community is full of people that recover from the virus but for whom the health struggle and fear that comes along with it leave a lasting impression that seems to impact anxiety recovery to some degree. “COVID set me back to square one” is a common statement I hear every day lately.
A person getting back on their feet will find that scary, anxious thoughts that they assumed were banished have returned with a vengeance. Everything is scary again. With a mind awash in catastrophic, distorted, thoughts, exposures that had been mastered are difficult again. It’s natural for someone in this situation to proclaim to the community that they are “starting over” and that everything has “gone out the window”.
COVID is not only trigger for this. Any life stressor - even good stress like getting a big promotion at work or moving to a lovely new home - can make us a bit less resilient mentally and emotionally. The same story plays out for members of the community faced with loss of a loved one, the end (or start) of a serious relationship, health issues in the family, or any number of stressful situations.
The important thing to remember here is that if you find yourself under stress and discover that your recovery seems to have been washed away or knocked back to square one, it hasn’t. Nothing is wrong. You’re not doing anything wrong. You didn’t make mistakes, nor are you broken or beyond hope. Your mind is just acting like any human mind will act under stress, so you are simply feeling things again that you haven’t felt for a while. That’s not a disaster or an emergency.
Two rules apply here.
First, be nice to yourself. If life has you under the gun, then acknowledge this and do not demand that you perform at peak recovery levels at all time. That’s not fair. Do your best to address the stressors and to find healthy ways to process stressful events and situations. This is part of being human.
Second, understand that there is no change in game plan recovery-wise. You’ll just have to do what you’ve been doing, leaning in toward that fear and acting even when those newly returned thoughts tell you that you should not. This is annoying and frustrating for sure, but this is not a disaster. You know how it’s done, so it will be a matter of getting back to the doing. What you do NOT have to do is bemoan your fate endlessly and repeat to anyone that will listen that you have “relapsed”. Understand the situation, acknowledge it, then relate to it in a productive way. Do not give the thoughts and fear and more power than they need to have.
Everything in life is transient in nature, including the stuff that is stressing you out right now. Over time, things change, recovery resumes, and you go back to the progress you’ve created before.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let’s take a few minutes this morning to talk about the important differences between social media, and therapy or actual mental health treatment of any kind. I know that we are sadly in an environment where finding a therapist - especially one qualified and experienced in the treatment of anxiety disorders - is a real challenge for many people across the world.
Social media sometimes plays a valuable role in the mental health community. But sometimes, social media is used as a replacement or substitute for therapy, which is not a good thing. Here are a few reasons why.
Social media influencers and content creators get rewarded when they drop boundaries, interact excessively, and never take time off. This is NOT healthy. This can lead an influencer or content creator into situations where they are creating content only for the sake of algorithms and not for the good of the consumer. A burnt out mental health influencer that creates mental health content just to get something out there so they don’t lose followers can be harmful.
A therapist or counselor, by comparison, is trained in setting healthy boundaries, taking care of themselves, and steering clear of burn out or overwhelm. A healthy helper is better equipped to actually help you.
Therapists are trained to follow professional and ethical guidelines. The credentials they hold are contingent upon following these ethics and best practices. It’s all designed to protect you, and the helper. Maintaining a safe and supportive space for everyone is vital Social media influencers and content creators can say anything they want for any reason without professional consequence.
And no matter what anyone says on Instagram in a pastel colored graphic or supportive-sounding reel, the Internet is NOT a safe space and never has been.
Social media influencers are there to capture and hold your attention, then to do that again and again by whatever means are necessary. Therapists are there to interact with you one-on-one in an intimate relationship based on trust, confidentiality and safety. Attention does not enter into it. There is no affinity based algorithm influencing your relationship with a therapist or counselor. The relationship is based on your well-being and very little else.
A therapist works for you and is ethically bound to protect your best interests. You (or your health care payor) compensate a therapist or counselor for the work they do. They are rewarded financially for helping you, or at least really trying to help you. A social media influencer is paid or otherwise compensated by others. They have a vested interest in satisfying needs that are not necessarily in line with yours. The income of an online influencer is based on how effectively they can grab and hold your attention, and how effectively they can get you to spend money on particular goods or services. This has nothing whatsoever to do with your well being or actual mental health, which are non-factors in the equation that leads to money for that influencer.
I can go on. There are issues that resolve around knowledge, training, supervision, scalability and even motive. But the lesson here is that while social media can be helpful, you must always consider the source of the material you are consuming and you must evaluate its appropriateness based on the concerns I’ve shared above.
There are plenty of exceptional, kind-hearted, well meaning and well informed social media content creators in the mental health space. But that’s not the whole space by any stretch of the imagination. One look at my email and social media inboxes will confirm that while in your eyes I may be a source of education and empowerment, in the eyes of a long list of companies selling questionable anxiety related products, I am a quick path into your wallet.
That is a sobering reality that you really should remain aware of.
I’m currently reading “Counseling Individuals Through The Lifespan”. No, I’m not that much of a nerd. I’m reading it because I have to. Its the textbook for one of my grad courses. This is kinda eating into my other reading, so this Tuesday feature might get a wonky going forward. ;-)
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“How are you feeling?”
This is a loaded question for people like us.
If you have people in your life that know that you are struggling with an anxiety problem, the odds are high that you get asked this question quite often. There are variations on this theme of course, but when we let the world know that we are anxious and afraid at least some people in the world will make it a point to ask us about that on a regular basis.
Is this a good thing? Are they wrong to ask us?
Of course they’re not wrong. People that care about us genuinely want to know how we’re doing. They care about how we feel. They ask this out of concern and as an expression of caring or love. They want us to feel good. I know I want my friends and loved ones to feel good if at all possible.
But you know what else I want for my friends and loved ones? I want them to feel powerful, strong, and capable. Almost as much as I want them to feel “good”. Why is this?
Because feeling good or bad is like the wind. It’s constantly shifting and changing and when a butterfly flaps its wings in Tokyo, the wind blows (or someone has a panic attack) in Oslo. Feeling good is nice, but it’s not where we want to plant our flag. We want to plant our flag on solid ground that remains under our feet regardless of our mood, or the weather. We want to feel - and to know - that we are powerful, strong, and capable. It’s much easier to feel good when you feel these things first.
This brings us back to that magic question.
“How are you feeling?”
It does not necessarily serve us to answer that question constantly, so when we want to move forward we must make a choice. We either have to work with the members of our support circle to teach them that they should not ask that question all the time, or we can choose to begin answering it in a new way. If we get asked all the time, and we reply with a litany of our symptoms, thoughts, and fears, we are choosing to camp deep in the heart of the disorder. The fleeting few seconds of relief we may experience by saying yet again that we are struggling and afraid is FAR outweighed by the obstacle this places in the way of our progress.
We should endeavor to be asked this question far less frequently, because this will teach us that we do not have to automatically speak our fears out loud to be OK. And when asked, we should strive to answer more productively for the same reasons.
Q. “How are you feeling?”
A. I’m anxious today, but I’m learning that I can handle that without making a major issue of it. Let’s talk about something else so I can practice getting better.
Try it. You might find that it helps you stand a bit straighter today.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
I have exciting news to share: You can now read The Anxious Morning in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Substack and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you are reading this, the odds are pretty high that you are anxious or uncomfortable or afraid. But that’s not all you are. You are more than just anxiety, no matter how bad you feel right now.
Anxiety is a thing you experience. We’ve talked about this in earlier editions of The Anxious Morning. But anxiety is not a thing you have, nor is it what you are. You are more than this. You have always been, and always will be more than this. Sometimes, we just lose sight of that.
One of the most important principles in recovery is that more than one thing can be true at the same time. This means that you can be anxious and uncomfortable, but that you can also be:
A painter
A parent
A musician
A teacher
A chef
A gardner
A partner or spouse
A friend
A sibling
A builder
or an almost infinite number of other things …
at the same time.
These are the roles you play in life. They are reflective of who you are, what you stand for, and what is important to you. They matter. They are substantive.
Anxiety, on the other hand, has nothing to do with who you are what is important to you other than trying to attack that and cast doubt upon it. Anxiety is just a state, and it does not define your entirety as a valuable human being.
Today on Instagram I posted a reel that asks the community to post pictures, video, or words that show the world who we are beyond anxiety. I asked everyone to use the hashtag “IAmMore”. Its only been about an hour, and the response has been quite amazing. Watching people step outside of anxiety for a few minutes to remind themselves, and the rest of us, who they really are, has been emotional, and even inspiring for me.
So when you are done reading this, take a minute and consider that you are more than anxiety. Take a quiet moment to remind yourself of what else you are, and have always been. It matters. It’s OK to be anxious today, but also … be more. Because you can.
“Never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing. -Ron Swanson
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
It’s the last day of March, which means a guest post on The Anxious Morning! Today my friend Bethany McLaughlin steps in to share some of her experience with recovery and the topic of being authentic and true to oneself along the way. Sometimes, the process of recovery seems to conflict with the ideal of authenticity and Bethany did a tremendous job of shining some light on this issue.
As I embarked on my journey out of disordered anxiety and learned about floating, accepting, surrender, and all the rest of what we talk about, I wondered if these concepts conflicted with being authentic. Authenticity has long been a core value of mine, and it's something that gets talked about a lot in mental health and self development circles. We’re admonished all the time to be ourselves, be true to ourselves, and express ourselves openly and honestly. If you’re like me and were raised in an environment where your thoughts and feelings weren’t heard and supported, you may have worked hard since then to practice speaking up, sharing your feelings, and showing up as yourself without hiding. Then you find yourself in recovery from an anxiety disorder, and you’re told to “model the behavior of a non-anxious person” and spend less time talking about how you feel! For me, that took a while to come to terms with.
If I’m really scared and experiencing a torrent of anxious thoughts and sensations, how can I just stand at the kitchen counter chopping vegetables for dinner? I need to devote myself to my fear! How can I be around people when I’m consumed with worries about my health and converse about other topics? I don’t want to be fake. If I don’t act according to my feelings, isn’t that inauthentic?
I had a negative connotation with “fake it till you make it,” which is a phrase we hear often. “Fake it" reminded me of all the times growing up that I’d been forced to do things I didn’t want to do and knew that it didn’t matter to anyone how I felt. But here’s what I learned: you can be authentically scared shitless and authentically brave at the same time. You can authentically feel like you need to scream and run from the room and authentically make the choice not to engage with anxiety and stay right where you are.
Authenticity is not believing and doing whatever your thoughts suggest to you. Authenticity can be much more about making active choices that support what you value while accepting yourself however you may feel while you do that. What could be more authentic than living out what is most important to us?
What could be more “fake" than acting in opposition to that? Yes, I may feel afraid or uncertain in the moment, but I also can be determined to move forward through that, and I can remember why I’m doing what I’m doing. Most importantly: I choose my actions freely—not because anyone is forcing me to, not because I don’t matter, but exactly because I do matter and because I want what I know is in my best interests and gets me where I want to go.
Authenticity accounts for everything. Within it, we acknowledge all of our feelings, but we get to decide what we’re going to do with them, being true to our values and goals.
P.S. Another thing that helped me internalize this concept was the following meme. There are few things I appreciate more than a solid, edifying meme.
Unlike some of our other guest writers, Bethany doesn’t have a social media presence or books or courses for me to point you at. She’s just an outstanding human learning, growing, and sharing here and there along the way. If you really want to see more from Bethany, she’s an admin in my Facebook group so the place is full of her wisdom and her kindness.
https://theanxioustruth.com/facebookgroup
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We all want and/or need support people. There’s no crime in having to lean on other humans sometimes, so do not labor under the mistaken idea that you must never ask for help. That’s simply not true.
Asking for help is not avoidance, cheating, failing, or going backwards. It’s just being human, which we are all allowed and even encouraged to be.
That out of the way, let’s talk about how to build a good support person when it comes to anxiety recovery. Imagine that we are building an anxiety recovery support robot. What code would we write to program that robot? What would we want to teach it to do so our robot would be as helpful possible as we go about the business of getting better?
Clearly, our friends and family members are not robots (unless you are a robot yourself in which case a robot family makes perfect sense), but here are some lines of code that you can feed your support people to help them to help you. Consider taking some time to sit with your support people to discuss these statements - our “lines of code” - so you can all come to an understanding as to how this should all work to everyone’s benefit.
“I am in charge of my recovery at all times. You cannot make me recover. Only I can do that.”
“You are not here to make me feel better. I am learning to do that myself.”
“You are not here to do things for me. I need to learn that I am capable of doing them.”
“Please do not participate in making excuses for my avoidance and irrational fear. I’m already very good at that and trying to break that habit so do not enable it.”
“When I am struggling, please remind me that am capable and always have been. “
“When I am afraid, please remind me that I always wind up OK no matter how I feel.”
“When I want to give up, please remind me of WHY I am traveling this path and doing these difficult things.”
“When all I want to talk about is how horrible this is, please remind me of my wins and my progress. I sometimes forget to acknowledge those things and this will help me.”
“Sometimes I need a hug and a shoulder to lean and/or cry on. Can you be that for me when I need it?”
“When I feel especially broken or like I just can’t do this because nobody understands and nobody is as bad as I am, please remind me that I am not doing this alone. Remind me that you are there cheering for me because sometimes I need to hear that.”
This is a good start. We could probably spend hours coming up with “lines of code” that we would use to program the ideal recovery support robot. But there’s only so many words in a morning email and I have to head to yet another Zoom call, so let’s continue this in the comments, shall we? If you’re reading this as a email, click the comments icon and tell me what lines of code you’d write for your support robot. I’d love to hear what you have to say.
If you’re listening to this as a podcast, head to theanxiousmorning.email if you’d like to participate with a comment of your own.
See you tomorrow.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Hang on to your hats. The “no days off in recovery” guy is about to talk about taking breaks and how that can be helpful.
Yes, Hell may be freezing over. Get your mittens.
One of the things I learned in the process of recovery was that the simple act of taking a short break - even a minute or two - can be very impactful. So I’m not talking about taking two weeks off to soak in the tub and eat chocolates. I’m talking more about what we can call “micro breaks” designed to create an air gap between us, and our thoughts and anxiety symptoms.
I used this technique to help me better tolerate and move through anxiety and fear while I was doing my exposures or meeting those challenges that life threw at me along the path to recovery. It worked quite well, so now I use it all the time as a general stress management and quality of life tool.
My encapsulated review of the “micro break” habit would be … “9.5 out of 10. Would repeat.”
What do micro breaks look like?
As that feeling of overwhelm begins to build to a peak and you are sure that the fear, anxiety, or stress is going to completely break you … stop. A micro break is simply the act of backing away for a minute or two, relaxing your body, adjusting your posture, and allowing yourself to just be. I tend to spend that minute or so breathing mindfully, but you can bring your attention to almost anything you choose. The point of the micro break is shift into neutral, disengage from the overwhelm and its source, and be mindful of something else for a minute or two.
Imagine yourself standing on a beach, watching a big wave build in the water. The wave gets larger and larger by the second as it rushes toward you. The roar of the ocean fills your ears. It’s deafening. The water is coming at you, faster and faster as it builds to greater heights. You are afraid. You are holding your breath and tensing as your brain works overtime to try to imagine a scenario in which you won’t be destroyed by the unimaginable and uncontrollable power of the ocean. You move from afraid to terrified as the wave looms over you and disaster is imminent.
Now just imagine taking a few steps backward, away from the wave. It crashes onto the shore a few feet in front of you, its awesome power dissipating as the water swirls around your ankles and knees, then washes back out, leaving you intact and unharmed.
That is the micro break. Those few calculated steps backward that put space between you and the breaking wave. The micro break doesn’t stop the wave, nor does it place a shield between you and its force. The micro break only creates space, and in that space we find both shelter and power. What seemed like certain doom has passed in a relatively uneventful way, allowing us to go back to the business of interacting with the ocean in a more pleasurable, productive way.
When I was struggling with anxiety and panic, I would use micro breaks to re-set during my exposures, allowing the current wave to break in front of me rather than engaging in my usual escape rituals. It worked quite well. I sometimes had to take many micro breaks in a 20 minute exposure, but that was perfectly fine.
Now on a particularly busy day where I’m going from call to call and task to task, I use micro breaks throughout the day to step away from the roar of the ocean and re-set. It releases the tension and reminds me to slow down and be more mindful about what I am doing rather than getting caught up in the moment.
So today’s post anxiety recovery tip is to learn to take micro breaks. Use them during recovery, then hang on to that habit for the rest of your life. You’ll be happy you did.
I’m currently reading The Accidental President by A.J. Baime. I’m not generally a big history buff, but this one is part of the Kindle Unlimited program and it seemed worth a try just as something different. So far I’m really enjoying it. Harry S. Truman may have been the most unlikely President in modern US history, and I had no idea. This book looks Truman’s path to the first four months of his Presidency which culminated in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
You can’t recover until you show up for your recovery.
That means that you are not going to get back living a normal life until you get out of bed, put on some clothing, and perform the basic tasks associated with getting ready for a day. Even when we don’t want to do this, we do this. It’s small, but it counts, and more than you think it does. That’s what showing up looks like.
You may be reading this at a point where you feel paralyzed by anxiety and fear and where you see yourself as simply unable to live the life you once lived or so desperately hope to live again. You may long for days occupied with work, hobbies, social interaction, travel, art, or whatever else you think makes life worth living. But at the same time, you may see those activities as so far out of your reach that they become impossible pipe dreams.
They are not. I promise. But you won’t get there in big leaps forward. So while that vacation to Europe may feel completely impossible for you, let’s just start the journey by showing up. Standing up. Getting ready to do something. Shedding the old posture and adopting a new one. We can’t get our lives back if we don’t at least show up ready for the process.
This might seem like silly life-coachy nonsense. And yeah, it does kinda look that way. But beyond the motivational message and the cliche, there is truth. And that truth is that there is always a first step to take. That first step is just the simple act of showing up.
So let’s get practical now. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself that can help you start to simply show up for your recovery. Forget the recovery itself. Just think about getting up on your feet and getting ready to get in the game. That’s a perfectly acceptable start.
What position are you in now? How are you behaving toward your anxiety, talking about your anxiety, and interacting with it?
How can you change that position or even just begin to question it so that you can start to turn in the direction of recovery?
What rituals are you engaged in now every day? What are you doing to “manage” your anxiety, avoid your triggers, or keep things from escalating into the “can’t handle it” zone?
How can you break one or two of those rituals so you can start to show up for for your recovery? Pick tiny things. They count. What crutch might you drop even for just a few minutes today that will face you toward your anxiety - and therefore toward recovery? You may not take actual steps forward today, but you can show up by at least facing in the right direction.
The idea of “showing up” is a bit amorphous. This is true. But if you chew on it a little, you may find it to be a powerful idea. How is it powerful? Because to use an awful sports analogy, you cannot win the game if you are not even present at the stadium.
So … go show up. That’s a start.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
For the last two days we’ve been exploring the concept of being saved and being soothed. Yesterday we touched on the idea that asking to be automatically soothed by your safe people is not such a good plan recovery-wise.
So what about self-soothing? Is that also a problem? Are we never allowed to engage in self-soothing techniques?
Some might argue - and I would not necessarily disagree - that the entire recovery process is one giant lesson in learning how to self-soothe in a productive way. In this light we do not want to demonize self-soothing techniques automatically and across the board. As with many aspects of the recovery process, this is chock-full of nuance.
When I’m having a crappy day where life is super annoying and stressful, I engage in self-soothing techniques. I meditate. I slow down. I take breaks. I listen to music. I might smoke a cigar to relax. These are all forms of self-soothing. I might not take hot baths, sniff essential oils, or tap on my cheek, but not all self-soothing conforms to a rigid standard. The point is, that we all use self-soothing techniques or even rituals as part of stress and mental health management.
When it comes to anxiety recovery, we only want to be mindful of a few traps wherein self-soothing can become compulsive, ritualized, or otherwise turned into safety or escape behaviors. Ask yourself one question:
“Will I be OK even if I do NOT launch into self-soothing rituals while anxious?”
The answer can be telling. The ultimate goal of recovery is to understand that you are capable of doing nothing in response to panic or anxiety, and still wind up OK. When we learn that we are supremely capable of moving through these states without the need for special response or evasive action, we are recovered, or at least well on the way.
“I can run a quick progressive muscle relaxation scan and focus on my breath when I panic to keep me from engaging in the spiral”, is a productive use of what might be seen as self-soothing techniques. In this context we use self-soothing tools to show ourselves to be capable of moving through rather than trying to get away from our thoughts and sensations.
“I tap my cheek and take grounding breaths when I panic because that helps it go away faster”, is not so productive. This puts those self-soothing tools into what I like to call the “conditional OK-ness” sphere, where we decide that we will be OK, but only if certain conditions are met.
See the difference?
It’s not always so clear. Intent, as usual, matters. In the ideal world and usually with lots of experience, we get to the point where we notice panic and acknowledge it, but simply continue on with what we are doing without getting involved with it. That takes time to learn, so especially in the beginning there will likely be some conscious and intentional use of self-soothing techniques involved. That’s OK. Just consider why you’re using them. Are you using them to help you learn, or are you using them to help you get away from the monster?
Those are two very different intentions, and that matters.
This is a bit of a confusing topic for many, so if you have questions, post them in the comments on Substack or YouTube and I’ll do my best to answer them as quickly as I can.
We’ll start next week with a discussion of why it all starts with just “showing up” for your recovery.
“Tell people there's an invisible man in the sky who created the universe, and the vast majority will believe you. Tell them the paint is wet, and they have to touch it to be sure.” - George Carlin
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we looked at how we confuse being soothed with being saved. If you have not read yesterday’s edition of The Anxious Morning, go check it out, then come on back for today’s. We’ll keep your seat warm for you.
If we are not going to be saved because we don’t need saving, where does this leave us? If we’re asking for soothing, is that bad? What’s so wrong about wanting to have someone sooth us when we are afraid?
At face value, nothing is wrong with that. It’s a bit of a basic human need. We all want and need someone to stroke us and tell us that everything is OK now and then. That is not a crime, nor is needing that a failure of some kind. Feelings - and life - are sometimes hard. We all deserve a little help at times.
But in the case of someone struggling with forms of disordered anxiety - where the fear of fear has gone off the rails - the continuous demand for soothing is just like anything else in life. Too much can be too much. When we demand to be soothed whenever we experience anxiety, we trample all over the important concept that holds the key to recovery. Asking our safe people to comfort and sooth us as standard procedure never teaches us the central lesson of recovery - that we are capable of being OK even when we are afraid or anxious.
In fact, it does the opposite. If you see being anxious as a disaster from which you need to be rescued, then being carried out of the flames every time teaches you that your assessment is correct. Demanding the rescue by way of soothing reinforces the mistaken belief that discomfort and danger are the same things. This mistake in cognition is what drives the disordered state. Rewarding the mistake keeps us stuck. So in this case, soothing crosses the line from useful to borderline harmful.
Think about it. In all the time that you’ve been relying on your safe people to save/sooth you, what have you learned about your own strength or ability to move through anxiety or discomfort? If you insist that you must be saved, what does this say about your belief in your own strength and capabilities? Digging your heels in and insisting that your partner, sibling, friend, or anyone else must be close by “just in case” is based on a premise that stands 180 degrees in opposition to the premise that gets you out of this jam.
We recover by learning experientially that we are capable of handling the things we are sure we cannot handle. This means that we learn to stand on our own two feet rather than jumping into the arms of a rescuer at the first sign of trouble. In the process of recovery we leave habitual and automatic soothing behind in favor of challenging experiences that show us that we ourselves are strong and able to deal with all aspects of our human-ness.
So soothing as a default strategy isn’t such a great idea if you’re hoping to enact change and move forward in recovery. This is not to say that you are never allowed to lean on another human ever again. Of course you are! As with anything else in recovery, we are learning to bring things back into a normal healthy position in our lives - the use of soothing included.
But what about self-soothing? Where does that fit in? Good question, Drew. Let’s talk about that tomorrow.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Do you have “safe people” in your life? If you’re reading this as an email, use the comment feature and let me know.
What is a safe person? Let’s answer that with a few real-life examples of what having a safe person looks like:
“I CAN get on the highway, but only if my partner is with me.”
“When my partner has to go out for even a little while, my anxiety goes through the roof because I’m afraid to be alone.”
“Whenever I feel really anxious I call my girlfriend and she talks me through it.”
Do any of these sound familiar to you?
We designate safe people based on the false assumption that they can rescue us, shield us, protect us, or otherwise intervene to keep us safe or alive when we panic or feel anxious or afraid. We think that our safe people somehow make us … safer. We see them as potential rescuers so we attach their presence and participation as conditions for doing anything that might trigger our threat response.
We expect our safe people - often those closest to us in life - to come and save us. That’s what support is, right?
Here’s bad news. Nobody is coming to SAVE you.
Before you hit the unsubscribe button, let me explain.
This has nothing to do with our safe people. In most cases, they’d be happy to save us. They love us, care for us, and want to support us. If they really did have to save us, they would. But they’re not coming to save us simply because we never actually need saving. We call it saving, but what our safe people are doing is soothing.
Soothing and saving are not the same things. You just have them confused at the moment. When a non-anxious person is feeling badly, they also want to feel better and be supported. But they are asking to be soothed, not saved. They feel bad, but they do not act as if this is an emergency. Soothing in that case is a nice thing. Dare I say an emotional luxury of sort. But not an absolute requirement.
For people like us, we want to be soothed too, but we see our state as predictive of some disaster so we mistakenly think that being soothed gets us out of danger. Same process. Totally different interpretation that leads us to demand that we be saved and to engineer our lives around that requirement in many cases.
Accept that nobody is coming to save you. Because you never need actual saving. You’re asking for soothing. Which is nice, but also not terribly productive when we see it as a condition for being OK.
And now that I think of it, this topic needs more discussion, so let’s do that tomorrow.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
The Goldilocks Rule says that humans maintain motivation in the face of challenge when that challenge is far enough beyond our current capability to be interesting, but not too far beyond so as to be discouraging.
You hear me speak and write continuously using the words “incremental” and “systematic”. This is one reason why. Approaching recovery this way can help keep us engaged and motivated without falling into boredom or discouragement traps.
How did I manage to get up every morning for months on end to do my driving and other exposures? The answer is that I was being incremental enough to challenge myself, but not drown myself in “failure”. Some days felt like wins, some days were kinda neutral, and some days were a struggle. But there was a good balance between the wins and the struggle so that the wins didn’t become too easy while the struggle did not become disheartening. I did not plan this. It was admittedly a happy accident. Hey, if I can help you stay motivated and engaged with the process of recovery by sharing my accident, then so be it.
When we go too slow because we seek comfort more than progress, we run the risk of becoming bored and even disillusioned with the process. I’ve written that when the walk around the block becomes consistently easy and you stop seeing it as a real challenge, its time to take things to another level. If you do not, you will declare that nothing is changing and that it all seems like it just doesn’t work.
Going too fast - more common than you might think - leads into experience after experience that stretch us far beyond our current perceived limits (we’ll talk about the word “perceived” later). Thinking that we are are “getting it over with”, we start pushing through difficult situations that wind up feeling like daily trips into a torture chamber. Imagine trying to become a great guitarist by literally challenging Eric Clapton to a daily guitar duel where you get crushed day after day. How long would that last for you?
The trick is to slide into that zone that provides enough challenge to make things interesting, while also providing enough “wins” to keep you from being discouraged. How do you find that zone? Mostly and error. Start by being brutally honest with yourself about what you find challenging or not challenging, then setting your targets from there. Try things, see how it goes, and adjust. It won’t take too long to find the “Goldilocks zone”, but be patient with yourself while you figure that out. It’s a good investment in your time.
Once you’ve found that zone, work it, and remember that the zone keeps moving as you keep progressing. Stay in it. Do not drop out or you run the risk of landing in the dreaded acceptable bubble, half recovered. Do not get ahead, or you may find that what was great progress winds in a ditch on fire while you wonder why.
Goldilocks was working overtime to find the bed that was “just right”. She was really onto something there.
Tomorrow we’ll confront the idea that nobody is coming to save you, and why it is so empowering.
I just finished reading “Field Guide to the Haunted Forest” by Jarod K. Anderson. It’s a really short book (took about two hours to read) of combined poetry and prose that I really enjoyed. Jarod writes many of the things I think.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I once purchased a Tai Chi DVD because doing things like Tai Chi are part of feeling good, right?
Spoiler alert. Tai Chi is wonderful and beautiful, but did not help me with my panic disorder. Not in any appreciable way, at least. In retrospect, I think I missed an opportunity to find value in a Tai Chi practice because I was shooting at the wrong target.
I was hoping that Tai Chi would make me FEEL GOOD. If it did that, then I’d have seen it as a wild success and I’d probably be writing books about THAT now. But it didn’t really make me feel good. It didn’t hurt, but I was a bit disillusioned because I did not finish my sessions feeling tranquil, grounded, calm, or connected. I felt about the same at the end of a session as I did at the start, so I called it failure.
So wrong. I missed the whole lesson. When I would pop in that DVD and spend 15 minutes practicing, I was learning to feel CAPABLE. I kinda felt like I couldn’t do anything back then, but I did 15 minutes of Tai Chi. I was being capable. Feeling good didn’t enter into it. I just wasn’t ready to see that.
There was no way I was going to create a "feel good" state while I felt weak, helpless, and out of control, but I kept beating my head against the wall to do exactly that. Meanwhile, there was capable Drew, right in front of me, but I was looking right past him and missing the whole point.
Odds are that the Universe is continually showing you that you are capable of handling anxiety and panic, and that you always wind up OK even when it feels bad.
Take. The. Lesson.
Pay attention to being capable and showing yourself that you are. This is far more important than feeling good, which sounds crazy, but it is true. Trying desperately to twist bad feelings into good feelings is likely not working for you in any consistent way, so first things first. Shoot for feeling capable
I was failing miserably at feeling good in my recovery. But first feeling CAPABLE sure made it easier for me to feel GOOD down the road in an organic, natural way that didn’t need to be forced or manufactured.
Amazing how that works!
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
My dog Lexie was awesome. She occupied a huge space in my life from the mid 90s through the mid 2000s. I still miss her to this day.
But as amazing as Lexie was, she did not know what a telephone was or how to use one.
Why is this important? Because when I was really struggling with my anxiety, I wound up deluding myself into thinking that she might be able to dial 9-1-1 for me if I needed emergency help (which I never did).
This is a true story. I was so afraid of my own body and mind that I became terrified to be alone even for small periods of time. I was convinced that at any moment my heart might stop beating, that I might snap and lose my sanity, or that any number of horrible fates would descend upon me. I was stalked by these fears and thoughts and close to crippled by them. I was sure that I needed a safe person around at all times “just in case”. Being alone in a situation where I needed help was the scariest possible thing for me in those days.
Try as I might, there was just no way to engineer a life in which I was NEVER alone. Sometimes it would happen. When I knew that was going to happen, I would instantly find myself in anticipatory panic. When the time came, it would feel like a tidal wave of fear and certain doom washing over me. I set timers, watched clocks, and tried desperately to distract myself in an effort to make the time pass more quickly. If you’re reading this, you might totally understand this.
Here’s the saddest part. I was so afraid, and so desperate to find relief from that fear, that I exhausted myself mentally running through scenarios where Lexie would be able to somehow dial the phone and get me help. I went over it again and again and again in my head. I thought of every possible variation on this theme, knowing it was ridiculous, but still hoping against hope that this would save me from what I was so afraid of.
It got so out of control that I would pick up the cordless phone, turn it on, dial a 9, then a 1, then put the phone down on the floor next to Lexie. Of course you can’t leave it like that for too long, so I would have to pick it up, turn it off, then repeat the process. This cycle would repeat again and again while I was alone. When she would get up and walk around the house, I would follow her around waiting for her to sit or lay down again so I could repeat the ritual. Can you imagine what that looked like? Can you imagine what it felt like to be doing that?
The point of the story is to shine a light on just how irrational and extreme fear - and the rituals we build to escape it - can become. I’m a reasonably bright guy, but there I was acting as if my dog could use a telephone to call for help. That’s not the only point of the story though. In those moments I felt completely frantic, powerless, fragile, and a bit crazy. I was trying to get MY DOG to save me from my own body. But now I’m just a guy writing about it, almost laughing at it as I do.
No matter how afraid, frantic, powerless, fragile and crazy you might feel today, that does not have to be forever. I’m not special. I’m not stronger, smarter, tougher, or better than you. I just took one scary step at a time, and here I arrived. With you. Sharing a bit of humor, a common experience, and maybe some hope.
Copper is sleeping behind me as I write this. I’m not in the least bit worried that he doesn’t know how to use a phone.
“Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death.” - Gen. Omar Bradley
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let’s get practical for a few minutes this morning.
Journaling is a topic that gets discussed fairly often in this community, so I want to give you a slightly different look at what the act of journaling might mean in the context of recovery.
Keeping a “success journal” is a really good idea. A success journal is simple. When you do something difficult, you record it. When you complete a new exposure or meet a challenge that life throws at you, write it down somewhere. When you do something that you were previously unable to do, or sure that you could not do, definitely write that down!
Here’s the most important part of a success journal in recovery. It only cares about what you DID. What did you accomplish? What did you DO? Forget how it felt, what you were afraid might happen (but never does), or what it “felt like”. Do not record those. That story does not need to be told … again. Your success journal entries will be boring and dry. Like this:
“Went to the supermarket. Got milk, bread, and something for dinner. It was scary but I did it and nothing happened to me. I didn’t think I could do it, but I did.”
Just the facts, ma’am.
Your success journal might exist alongside your regular journal, or you might make specific “successes and wins” entries in your journal and label them as such. If you don’t journal at all, then your success journal will stand on its down. That’s totally fine too. There is no magic way to journal. However way you decide to keep your success journal is fine. Just make it easy so that there’s no friction between your wins, and writing them down.
Why do we want to keep a success journal? Because every day in this community I hear a story about setbacks, or being back to square one in recovery. In every case, the person telling the story is laser focused on how they feel right now while completely throwing away everything they’ve accomplished up to that moment. Anxious minds minimize the positive and amplify the negative. A person that used to be housebound that is now regularly driving around town with their kids doing errands will declare “SQUARE ONE!” after a difficult day, totally ignoring the fact that they are no longer housebound as they once were.
This is such a common situation that can be easily addressed with a simple success journal.
When you want to say that you’re getting nowhere, go back to your success journal to see exactly where you’ve been getting. When you are sure that you will never get better, let your success journal remind you that you are getting better. When you want to yell, “SQUARE ONE!”, your success journal will tell you otherwise. You will tend to throw all your progress out the window when you feel bad. Your success journal will scoop it up and drop it in your lap do you can see it again.
Find a way to record your wins, even when they are small. Your success journal can save you from needless hand-wringing and wallowing, which can help you keep moving forward even when you are facing challenges.
Tomorrow I want to relay a story from my own recovery that illustrates just how out of hand things can get sometimes.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you have not heard volume 51 of The Anxious Morning, go back and check it out. This is a follow-up from yesterday’s topic.
Sometimes we need to look not only at the mechanics of recovery but the obstacles that can interfere with those mechanics. In this case, our potential to develop the belief that uncontrollable anxiety and fear are simply “normal for us” and therefore to be expected with no available avenue for improvement or positive change.
This can look a few different ways. For example, we may blame ourselves in some way for the position we’re in:
“This is just who I am.”
“I’m not strong enough so this will be the way life is.”
“I was just born to live a difficult life.”
“Things have always been hard for me, so they always will be hard for me.”
We can also blame others to some extent. We may decide the our anxiety problems are at least in part caused by family dynamics, narcissists, being gaslighted, a*e bosses, mean people, or the sorry state of discourse on social media.
There is no black and white here. No absolute right or wrong. How you got to where you are is likely based on a wide range of factors all working together. That’s not really what we’re trying to figure out. We’re just trying to become mindful of yet another recovery trap. That is, settling in to an almost fatalistic worldview where you’ve given up and accepted that “this is just how it has to be”. This can place you in a position where you see no point in even trying to enact meaningful change. This trap can trick you into giving up, or believing that you have no potential to get better.
A quick clarification:
I often use the word “surrender”. The word “acceptance” is heard often in these discussions. In today’s context, it’s important to understand that accepting and surrendering do not mean giving up on life, or reaching the conclusion that nothing is likely to change.
If you are finding yourself in this place, try to see how you got here. Declaring that you are doomed to a lifetime of anxiety struggles with no hope of improvement may just be the explanation you’ve arrived at when you were otherwise unable explain why all this is happening to you. Keep in mind that while it might be the only explanation you have left, this does not make it the correct explanation. Really, the exhaustive search to explain “why” isn’t even required in the first place, which is one of the counterintuitive parts of anxiety recovery.
When you’ve reached the conclusion that you can’t get better, realize that this may be because you feel like there has to be SOME conclusion to reach, and that this might be the only one that fits, so you’ve agreed with it even when it has little basis in reality.
You CAN get better. You are not structurally faulty, broken, flawed, or a victim of the world. This is not “just the way life is”. You don’t have to know why this is all happening. You only have to know how to respond to it, then do that, even when it is difficult.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Today’s edition of The Anxious Morning is something a bit different. It’s part one of a two part series, so be sure to come back tomorrow where we’ll take today’s assertion and apply it to the recovery process.
In 2017, a study conducted at the University of Michigan indicated that children that witness intimate partner violence can form the belief that people that get hit somehow deserve to be hit. These children can also form the belief that fighting is the proper way to resolve conflict.
A 2019 paper by Kate Ellis published in Child Abuse Review showed that all 15 voluntary participants in a study conducted by Ellis labeled themselves as being responsible for abuse they had endured at the hands of others.
In 1966, a famous paper was published in The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology that suggested that the need to believe in a “fair” world can lead us into a victim blaming mindset where bad things happen only because victims in some way trigger those things.
A common theory in the social sciences says that we seek a fair world in which we are safe. We want to believe that bad things do not happen to good people. In this framework, when bad things do happen to good people, we first seek to remedy them. If we are unable, a conflict is created between the world we desire and the world we experience. We resolve this moral, ethical, and emotional conflict by concluding that victims of misfortune are in some way responsible for that misfortune.
The 2017 and 2019 papers I referenced above would illustrate this theory in action. Experiencing first-hand abuse leads to self-blame. Witnessing violence as a third party leads to victim blaming and normalization of that violence. The 1966 experiment illustrated the path to victim blaming - a rationalization and normalization of bad things happening - in a controlled setting.
There is quite a bit of research and clinical evidence that points at our propensity to “accept” negative events in a way that makes them appear somewhat inevitable and explainable through fault or trait-based placement of blame and responsibility. A 500 word morning newsletter can’t even come close to an in-depth exploration of this phenomenon, but humans appear to be very good at maintaining a “safe” view of the world by denying the reality of negative events. We often make the mistake of therefore denying our ability to rise up and respond to them. We call them inevitable. We explain them as the result of structural flaws in ourselves or in others.
Why is this important to us? Because this is a way that we begin to normalize our anxious, restricted state. It becomes expected. It becomes just the way things are. We cannot explain why this is happening to us, so we find whatever means we can to fend off the idea that sometimes the world is unfair, and that life is full of seemingly random negative events and bad outcomes.
If we are not careful, we settle into the idea that this will be our normal state forever. That’s not a good place to be.
Tomorrow we’ll look at the practical ways that this can hinder the recovery process.
Reference Links:
Kids In Violent Homes Often Think Those That Get Hit Deserve It
Blame And Culpability In Children’s Narratives Of Child Sexual Abuse
Observers Reaction To The “Innocent Victim”: Compassion Or Rejection?
I recently blew through The Book Of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi. Very short read, and not at all what I thought it would be. The entrepreneur crowd seems to dig it for some reason but unless you are literally looking for a tersely worded lesson on how to use a sword, you can skip this one.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
One of the questions I am asked most often is, “What does being recovered look and feel like?”
I will take some time now and then to address that. I can share what recovery feels like to me, and how my recovery is still impacting my life on a daily basis.
People seem to want to know if I still get anxious, or if I experience panic now. The answer to both is, yes. I can have anxious moments, or even an anxious day now and then. I am human. That is part of being alive. I might even experience a panic attack once or twice a year. I never guarantee or promise that recovery means that you will be anxiety or even panic free forever. That’s not realistic. What I can tell you is that anxiety and panic no longer matter to me, so when they do show up, they are non-events and not worthy of declaring disaster, setback, or emergency.
Having built this new relationship with anxiety and fear means that I have had to come to grips with the fact that life will include “normal” anxiety and stress. Recovery means that I put anxiety back into its intended place in my life, so what does that look like?
I can tell you that for me, it means that I have learned to be aware of stress in all its forms. There is emotional stress, mental stress, and even physical stress. These are all part of life. Negative situations can be stressors - we all know this. But there is even such a thing as positive stress! Even good things can place demands on us, enjoyable and exciting though they may be.
As a recovered person, I take time to back up and examine the stressors in my life so that I can respond appropriately. Not to squash or eliminate stress completely, but to ensure that I do not let things get out of hand. I can take time to reflect on what’s happening from an objective point of view without being carried away by the emotions that come with stress and anxiety. I acknowledge that life is demanding at times. I allow the emotions that arise as a result. I plan accordingly to handle what needs to be handled while also making sure that I am disconnecting, disengaging, and making time for healthy activities that I enjoy and that provide balance in my life.
Sometimes I’m really good at this. Sometimes not so good. When I’m less than diligent, or when I am pushing myself, I am more likely to let the load get a tad too heavy. When that happens, anxiety might pop up to remind me that I am human and that I need to take care of myself. It doesn’t pop up to stalk me, terrify me, or trap me in a corner. I see it for what it is. A signal. A normal reaction that I can use to inform healthy choices and decisions. As a fully recovered person, my relationship with stress, anxiety and fear means that these things are not my enemies. They are guideposts. Sometimes they are teachers. They do not ruin my life. They are simply part of my life and sometimes they wind up being informative or even useful in informing positive changes that help me going forward.
Learning to see anxiety for what it is, without hitting the panic button, is a game changer that serves me well every day and will continue to do so.
I have exciting news to share: You can now read The Anxious Morning in the new Substack app for iPhone.
With the app, you’ll have a dedicated Inbox for my Newsletter and any others you subscribe to. New posts will never get lost in your email filters, or stuck in spam. Longer posts will never cut-off by your email app. Comments and rich media will all work seamlessly. Overall, it’s a big upgrade to the reading experience.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I’m having a bit of fun with philosophy so to end the week, let’s invoke Immanuel Kant at a very basic level. More specifically, let’s talk about Kant’s views of transactional behavior - behavior designed to get something in return or to create a specific outcome.
Kant wrote:
“Act that you use humanity, whether in your own person or in the person of any other, always at the same time as an end, never merely as a means.”
Kant was telling us that we should not behave in transactional ways. In terms of day to day living, just be nice to people because its nice to be nice. In Kant’s view, your niceness should not be a way to get them to be nice to you, or to provide anything in particular in return. Non-transactional behavior exists for its own sake and purpose. It is not intended to create any particular outcome or condition.
How can we apply this to the process of anxiety recovery?
As of this writing (February of 2022) I’ve been speaking and writing more about focusing on the process of recovery rather than the desired outcomes of recovery. Being process focused is really helpful. It allows us to do our recovery work and meet our challenges without demanding specific outcomes in the form of changing how we feel. Process focused recovery allows us to see each challenge as a lesson that teaches us something that we need to know in order to move forward toward our desired outcomes.
What does that look like? Here’s one fast example of how to be process focused in recovery.
Do your exposure work today not so that you will feel better, but because the exposure is just a thing that has to be done as part of getting better. Let the experience stand on its own. Let it have its own merits in the form of lessons that you learn as part of changing your relationship with anxiety and fear. Do not demand a specific outcome or judge the resulting outcome. Just do the exposure for its own sake.
Wait. What just happened? It kinda looks like we’ve described a non-transactional approach to recovery. I never met the man - because I’m not 270 years old - but I’m guessing Kant would be super proud of us right about now.
This might all sound a bit nerdy, but the point is simply to remind us that when we approach our recovery as a series of transactions, we can easily wind up frustrated and convinced that we cannot get better. We should not see our recovery work, or the challenges life gives us as opportunities to get something in exchange for doing something, but rather as experiences with their own purposes. Allow them to play out as they play out, and take what you can from each experience without demanding that you should feel or not feel a certain way as a result. Things tend to go more smoothly when we do it this way, even when doing it this way seems a bit odd at first, and is completely counter-intuitive.
Is anything about recovery intuitive?
Are you transactional or non-transactional in your recovery? Are you outcome focused, or process focused? If you have not listened to episode 196 of The Anxious Truth, maybe take 20 minutes to do that today. It will help you see the process/non-transactional concept in greater detail.
We’ll start next week with a little chat about how I learned to recognize stress in my life.
And what does your anxiety do? It does not empty to-morrow, brother, of its sorrows; but, ah! it empties to-day of its strength. - Ian MacLaren
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Today on The Anxious Morning we’re going to continue our discussion of hope by getting a little philosophical. Hey, we do this every morning. We have time to explore ideas that make us think now and then!
This is where Nietzsche asked us to look beyond the good and evil espoused by any belief system. He wanted us to accept life and death for what they are, warts and all. That means that we stop avoiding the uncomfortable truth of death and insignificance. Once we do that, we can go about focusing on the amazingness of all that’s in front of us now, rather than concerning ourselves with hope. Nietzsche even had a name for this embrace-the-void approach: he called it amor fati, which translates to “love one’s fate”. - Mark Manson, Everything Is F*cked
Yesterday we kinda dissed hope a little by saying that hope is not a recovery plan. Today, we call in Friedrich Nietzsche to beat up on hope just a little more. Nietzsche was talking in much broader terms beyond simply anxiety recovery, but we can use his words nonetheless.
The idea that we should hope for better days, better things, better feelings, and a better life suggests that the days, things, feelings and life we have right now are not enough. More accurately in the case of the anxiety community, they are likely “too much”. As anxiety sufferers, we tend not to hope for more, but for less. We feel overwhelmed by how we feel and declare that we cannot handle it.
We hope for better days in the form of less anxiety, less fear, and less emotion. We hope for serenity and a life of tranquility without fear.
Is this really productive? Do we need to hope for better? When we long for change in the form of more “handleable” circumstances, we are essentially throwing in the towel. We are acting based on the assumption that we cannot handle anxiety and irrational fear. But is this really true?
When we are fearful of outcomes that do not ever happen based on thoughts that though strong exist only in our minds, are we really overmatched? To be sure, when we are being abused, oppressed, assaulted, or otherwise truly harmed nobody would blame us for hoping for a better life. But when our perceived enemy lies within, do we need to hope the conflict away? Would it not be more productive on the long term to discover our true strengths and abilities to handle what we have been declaring un-handleable?
If you are reading this right now, then it is indisputable that you have in fact handled every anxious, fearful or distressing situation you have ever been in. You certainly do not like what it feels like when you do that, but you ARE handling it. Anxiety and fear never truly take you down, yet you declare that they do. You are still standing and always have been.
Think about this. You are bruised, but not broken. You are discouraged, but never defeated. Is this a time to wave the white flag and call on hope to transport you to calmer seas? Or would you be better served by putting hope on the back burner while turn your attention to learning the lessons that reality is trying to teach you about how capable you really are.
I’m not telling you to abandon all hope forever. I’m not that guy. But if nothing else today, I’d like you to really think about why it might be a better idea to stop hoping for a better life, and start seeing what you have in front of you already. You do not have a golden palace and unlimited comforts, but what you do have is competency, resilience, and the ability to learn and adapt.
I’d take those over hope any day. But that’s just me.
What about you?
Tomorrow we’ll use a little more modern philosophy to teach us another lesson about recovery.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Everyone loves hope. We hope to get better. We hope anxiety will go away. We hope we will find something that soothes us and makes us feel better. Hope is positive, right? We love to hope. There is always hope!
But hope, wonderful as we think it might be, is not a recovery plan.
This is often an unpopular statement, but that does not make it untrue. Hope is not a plan for recovery, and hoping to get better has never actually made anyone better.
Why would I say such a thing?
Because hope is simply thinking. It might be wishing too. Wishing is a thing that humans do. We think, and we wish. But regardless of what the law of attraction crowd wants you to believe, thinking and wishing (even when we call it hoping) does not create a damn thing. Hoping does not change the universe in any meaningful way. Not by itself, at least.
Sitting passively and hoping to get better does not create any change in your life. If hoping is thinking, then it stands to reason that simply thinking does not create any change either. If you could think recovery, or hope it, you would not be reading this right now, You’ve likely being trying to do that for quite some time without much success.
Anxiety recovery is an ACTIVE process. If we do not get active and take real steps in a new direction, we remain stuck. Thinking - hoping - is not action. Thinking can certainly inform our actions. If you want to think positively about getting better, then by all means, go for it. But then let that thinking and hoping inform ACTION. We MUST take action if we are to recover.
I say this often, so I will say it again here. That is a raw deal, but is the deal we have, so we must acknowledge that and work with it.
Hope is not only not a plan, but hope can be a sneaky hindrance to recovery in some ways. When we hope to get better, when we think about it and talk about it in a hopeful way, we can sometimes be fooled into thinking that we are recovering. But just hoping, no matter how hard you may hope or how earnest your hope may be, is not action, and is therefore not recovery. Do not let hope fool you into thinking that you are getting better while you sit on the sofa.
I am not trying to rob you of hope here.
Hope is lovely when kept in its proper place. Hope is the belief that things can change and that you can get better. In that light, hope is correct! You CAN get better. You CAN change things. There is - in fact - always hope! Do not let that go. But before there can be change, and therefore recovery, we must get active.
Keep hoping, but then start doing. That is a powerful combination that will serve you well.
Tomorrow we’ll take a little time to look a bit more about the concept of hope, and what it really means in our lives.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Anxiety will make itself the single most important thing in the universe at all times. It will kick and scream and make a scene and demand that you make every decision and take every action based solely on how it will make you feel. No matter the event, anxiety will invariably demand that you evaluate it based on how it effects YOU.
☕ “How does this make me feel?”
☕ “Is this making me anxious?”
☕ “If I do this, will I get more anxious?”
Sound familiar? Here’s the most insidious variant on that theme:
☕ “Did I FEEL right when I did that? Was I supposed to feel that way?”
This one really grinds my gears. Anxiety will demand that you ask this question after you face a challenge, complete an exposure, or do something that you knew would be difficult. You did it. You accomplished the task. But anxiety will twist things so that you only care about how you FELT while you were doing it.
This most often expresses as as sense of failure because you were afraid during an exposure, or because you experienced panic. You FELT a certain way, so only how you FELT seems to matter. What you actually DID goes right out the window and gets thrown away. This is also seen as a demand to feel a certain way. This is most prevalent when an anxious person can’t conjure instant feelings of nirvana, unbounded love and intense joy when interacting with a child or someone else they love.
“I was at the playground with my son but only felt fear. I did not feel love and joy, so not only am I sick with anxiety, but it has turned into me into a bad mother.”
That’s heartbreaking to see, primarily because it is so tragically wrong.
☕ ☕ ☕
How you feel is not the only thing that matters in the universe. It is not the ultimate measure of success, failure, or correctness. Judging recovery progress and measuring yourself against idealized feelings that you DEMAND to have is a huge mistake. Sometimes we will feel one way. Sometimes we will feel another. It’s all allowed, and all OK.
☕ ☕ ☕
Anxiety will demand evaluation based on how you feel, and many anxious people get caught in this trap. So if this email can offer one bit of advice, it would be this:
At least consider for a moment the possibility that how you feel - especially while in an anxious state - is simply not the most important thing and not reflective of anything in particular. This may sound ridiculous to you, but even if it does, just try to imagine what your recovery might look like if this assertion turns out to be true.
Just a little something to think about on a Tuesday morning.
Tomorrow we’ll start a little three part mini-series focusing on the topic of hope, and hoping for better days.
I’m currently reading “Living Beautifully With Uncertainty And Change” by Pema Chodron. It was gifted to me by my friend Lauren Rosen (@theobsessivemind on Instagram). Everything changes and nothing is ever truly certain. This book is a lovely guide to accepting and living with that uncomfortable fact, written in a very kind and compassionate voice.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Sometimes, the world seems scarier, because it is scarier. As I write this, we are now about a week into the Russian invasion of Ukraine. War is scary. War that involves a country with a giant nuclear stockpile is even scarier.
It’s not just war or military action that can make the world a scary place. Diseases, natural disasters, economic conditions, and shifts in crime dynamics are just a few more of the many ways that the world can really get nasty looking.
For an anxious person, things like this will often “trigger anxiety”. We hear it all the time in our community. Over the last week the topic of the Russia/Ukraine conflict has been front and center in the anxiety and mental health universe just as the pandemic has been for the last two years. Threats elevate anxiety levels. This is not a surprise since threat detection and response is literally the primary function of anxiety even in “normal” people.
But for people like us, it can often go horribly wrong. We are not only afraid and on alert for legitimate reasons, but we find ourselves inordinately focused on the state of fear itself. It takes on a life of its own in many cases. In these situations, the anxious response goes into overdrive. Not only must your brain track current events, but it must also track how you feel. It must create a raging storm of thoughts all designed to analyze how you feel while also desperately seeking certainty that none of the nightmare scenarios about both yourself and the war will come true.
What was once one full time job for your anxious brain now becomes two full time jobs. This creates some exceptionally bad feelings, and can quickly become mentally, emotionally, and even physically exhausting.
What we can we do on days like this? The first thing we can do is to remind ourselves of some basic facts regarding anxiety itself:
☕ Being afraid in these situations does not mean being broken.
☕ Being afraid in these situations does not mean you can’t get better or have gone back to square one.
☕ Being anxious in these situations is not disordered anxiety - its normal anxiety based on real external factors.
☕ Now try asking yourself a question. “Are you more afraid of what’s happening in Ukraine, or are you more afraid of how you feel about what’s happening in Ukraine? “
These are trying times to navigate. The closer you are to the conflict both socially and geographically, the more trying it is. There is no doubt about that. But you CAN navigate. The kindest thing you can do for yourself is to remain aware of the line between being afraid (normal), and being afraid of being afraid (not required). It’s that second part that winds up turning worries into a torrent of “what ifs” and nightmare scenarios that do not yet - and may never - exist.
Try going back to two basic statements:
I am feeling. Why am I feeling? Because there is a war going on and that’s scary for everyone. Why am I feeling even MORE than usual? Because I also see my own state as a threat so my body reacts to that too.
I am thinking. Why am I thinking? Because there is a war going on and its normal to consider possible outcomes of that war. Why am I thinking SO MUCH? Because my over sensitized brain thinks it needs to find absolute certainty not only about the war, but about the fact that I am thinking and feeling.
Being able to create a little space between scary events and being afraid of your own body and mind can help you see your state in a more objective light. When you can achieve that, you can start to see that compulsive thinking is not a solution to anything at all. You can take that vision, then do your best to begin engaging with life again. We’re are all engaging in life while in an increased state of uncertainty right now.
It’s OK to be afraid and concerned right now. We all are. But you are not at the mercy of your anxious brain. You can assert yourself to make some space and show yourself to be capable of handling this like you always handle everything else.
To wrap things up, I will say we really need ALL of this to be over sooner rather than later. It’s been a pretty trying couple of years, all coming hot on the heels of a pretty trying decade or so. We all kinda deserve a break, don’t we?
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We’ve spent the last two days talking about the difference between HAVING anxiety - making it part of who you are - and EXPERIENCING anxiety - making that experiencing something you do.
Anxiety is who you are, or anxiety is an experience that you have?
Which should you choose?
If we return to the idea that getting better - the process of recovery - is about building and sustaining recovery-focused habits, when which choice supports this activity?
I’ll tell you. Pick the experiencing option. It’s the one that will move you down the road. Why? Why should you invest your energy in removing anxiety from your sense of who are, and shift it to something that you simply experience?
Yesterday we saw that making this shift removes incongruence as an obstacle. You can’t do non-anxious things or act like a non-disordered person if anxiety is who you are. Not reliably. So really, you have no choice but to make this effort to shift. It’s worth it. I promise.
When you start experiencing anxiety without gluing it to who you judge yourself to be, it becomes possible to get positive feedback from your experiences. They may be negative in a given moment, but you can start to see that negative experience as instructional and required as part of the process.
“I was anxious again!” leaves no room for that.
“I experienced anxiety again and worked on changing the way I reacted to it.” speaks directly to the process. You can take that experience and learn something from it. You can begin to appreciate why all this is happening and why you are doing these scary and difficult things all the time.
Thank you for reading The Anxious Morning. This post is public so feel free to share it.
When you see the purpose, and when you become open to the value and lesson of the experiences, you start to construct a self-sustaining positive feedback loop in your recovery. Ask anyone that starts to string recovery wins together what that feels like. It feels like momentum. When you win, you want to win more. Small victories - EXPERIENCES - drive the desire to have more experiences and ultimately more small victories.
☕️ ☕️ ☕️
The more identity-independent experiences you have in recovery, the more you can start to build a sense of competency. Feeling competent means you need less courage as you go forward. It leads to consistency and persistence. It can even lead to feelings of pride and excitement. If you are in my Facebook group, you see this every day. Driving over a bridge, completing a visit to the dentist, or taking a weekend trip with the family become HUGE sources of pride. They light a fire that drives even more forward progress. And with each step forward, anxiety becomes less who our friends in the group are, and more something they are experiencing in new and even exciting ways.
☕️ ☕️ ☕️
I’ll wrap up this three day mini-series by asking you how long you’ve seen anxiety as something you have, and part of who you are? Is this a mental groove that you’re trapped in? Take some time to imagine what it would look like if anxiety did not define you as a person? What would happen if you allowed it to just be another life experience? What becomes possible?
This is always hard work. There are not many easy days in recovery. But struggling does not define you who are. How you experience that struggle defines what you DO, and what you DO ultimately determines who you are.
So, what’s your next move? ☕️
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about making a small shift in how you describe your anxiety situation. Moving from HAVING anxiety to EXPERIENCING anxiety. We talked about how deciding that you HAVE anxiety makes it part of your identity.
Why is this important?
If we look at recovery as the process of breaking old habits and building new ones, we are essentially trying to build the habits of a person that has a healthy, productive relationship with anxiety. We become non-disordered people by acting like non-disordered people.
What happens, then, if part or all of our identity is based on being a person that has anxiety? What happens when we believe ourselves to be anxious people while trying to act like non-anxious people in order to get better?
“Behavior that is incongruent with the self will not last”. - James Clear, Atomic Habits
What James Clear is saying about building new habits really resonates here in the recovery universe. If you identify as an anxious person and have made anxiety a core component of who you are, then we have two potential problems based on this identity.
If you HAVE anxiety and therefore believe it to be a part of who you are, then spending all day long trying to NOT be anxious is a very big ask, and leads to disappointment and frustration. That’s not the right target anyway, but trying to do that while also seeing yourself as a person that HAS anxiety is going to be even tougher on you. From your reference frame you are an anxious person trying to pretend that you are not.
If you believe yourself to be an anxious person at your core, then building and sustaining the habits of a non-anxious person as part of recovery will be difficult to sustain. From your reference frame, you are an anxious person trying to act like you are not.
See the problems here?
HAVING anxiety, and therefore incorporating anxiety into your core identity as a trait, is a giant obstacle that does not have to exist.
But if you look at yourself as a person that EXPERIENCES anxiety in a currently disordered way, that’s a whole different ballgame. It doesn’t ask for sweeping changes in the fiber of your being. It does not stand incongruently against your recovery efforts.
“I am currently experiencing anxiety in a way that isn’t ideal. I am working to change those experiences by creating new experiences that I will learn from.”
See how this statement does not define you as a person? It only defines what you experience and acknowledges that what you experience is pliable and changeable. It jives with your recovery goals and actions. It more accurately reflects reality.
Experiencing anxiety allows you to change what you DO, not who you ARE. No matter who you are, no matter your identity, you CAN have experiences and those can vary. This is way more approachable and leads to a far more self-compassionate approach to the process of recovery.
Tomorrow we’ll look at how choosing experiences over identity can help drive and sustain good recovery habits. For today, take some time to really think about how you’ve integrated anxiety into your identity and how you might become someone that experiences anxiety rather than someone that has it.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Let’s look at two different ways to describe your current situation.
“I have anxiety.”
This is a statement that most members of our community will make, almost daily.
“I experience anxiety.”
This is a completely different yet still factual way to describe what’s going on, but I suspect that we won’t hear this statement at all today outside of this newsletter.
☕️ The first statement glues anxiety to your identity. ☕️
HAVING anxiety is like HAVING blue eyes, or HAVING one leg shorter than the other. When you HAVE anxiety, you are describing that feeling as an unchanging and inevitable part of who you are. When you HAVE blue eyes, they are always blue no matter what you do. HAVING anxiety turns it into a personal trait. An identifying characteristic.
☕️ The second statement acknowledges that anxiety is something you can experience. ☕️
Experiences are just as real as traits or personal characteristics. Experiencing anxiety rather than having it does not invalidate what you’re going through at all. But when you decide to EXPERIENCE anxiety rather than HAVE it, you are open to change. Experiences can and often do change over time. This is normal and expected in life. You are currently EXPERIENCING anxiety, but how you experience it tomorrow can be different than how you are experiencing it now.
An experience does not define who you are, nor is it predictive or identifying. An experience is just a thing that happens.
I understand that these are just words in the end, but sometimes words do matter. Changing your narrative about the role that anxiety plays in your life can be a boost in your recovery.
Before we move on to talk about why this can be a recovery boost, we need to take a minute or two be clarify something. This is not some cliche mindset nonsense. The change in narrative is not an attempt to whitewash or ignore what is clearly a negative experience in your life. Deciding that you experience anxiety and no longer have it, has nothing to do with positive thinking, manifestation, or changing your life by changing your thoughts.
When we talk about shifting your words from “having” to “experiencing”, we are only trying to more accurately reflect reality. You ARE experiencing anxiety, so let’s acknowledge that and while we’re at it, let’s also acknowledge with our words that experiences can and do change over time. This word shift is only a first step designed to open you up to the possibility that things can change for you. When you feel stuck, and you’ve decided to identify yourself as an anxious person, having a pry bar handy to gently separate you from that identity is the first step toward real change.
Making the shift to experiencing anxiety is not going to make it go away. Operationally, it impacts nothing, but it does give you an opening to enact other changes that will have a positive impact in your life and will matter over time.
Tomorrow we’ll continue this discussion by looking at how behavior that does not match our identify is hard to sustain. Until then, start experiencing your anxiety rather than just having it.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you are terrified of your own heartbeat and find yourself focused on it during every waking moment, I get you. I used to be that way too. I walked around all day long thinking about how my heart might be damaged if it was beating too quickly, and gripped with the idea that it might suddenly stop for no reason at all. That’s no way to live. I understand how torturous that can feel.
These days anyone with a few bucks can walk around with a reasonably accurate heart rate monitor strapped to their wrist all day long. This is - most often for anxious people - not a good thing.
☕️ ☕️ ☕️
A smart watch or fitness watch is great when we’re trying to use the data it provides to track exercise goals, measure training progress, or get a rough idea of how we’re handling stress. Wrist based heart monitors are not perfect by any stretch, but they’re pretty good at doing these things.
You know what they’re NOT good at doing? They’re not good at protecting you against some cardiac disaster that does not and has never existed. If you are otherwise healthy, your fancy Apple Watch is not a protective device. If you’re afraid of your heartbeat and worried about heart problems that you don’t actually have, your Apple Watch is just a torture device.
☕️ ☕️ ☕️
Why would I go so far as to call your smart watch a torture device? Because it’s literally doing nothing useful. It is only gluing you to the cycle of checking and scanning fueled by the irrational fear that is in some cases ruining your life. When your medical team has assured you that there is nothing wrong with your heart, there is zero point in using your watch to monitor it for any reason whatsoever. None. There is no reason.
How can you use your smart watch effectively? Right now, maybe you can’t. If you are obsessed with the data it produces and trapped in the compulsion to check it repeatedly to make sure that you are “OK”, then you can’t use it effectively. If this is your situation, it’s time to lock away your watch until you’re in a better place. This may be very difficult, and may feel VERY scary at first when your brain tells you that you’re now unprotected and might die as a result. But there is only one way to break that checking behavior that cements the fear of non-existent heart danger, and this is it.
One day when you’ve learned that monitoring your heart rate - even during a panic attack - is pointless, then you can take your watch out and use it effectively for what it was designed to do. Until then, steer clear if you have to. Lock it away or disable the heart monitor function. It’ll make you cringe at first, but in the long run it will help teach you one of the recovery lessons you need to learn.
Tomorrow we’re going to talk about the difference between having anxiety and experiencing anxiety.
I’m currently reading the second edition of Acceptance And Commitment Therapy, by Stephen Hayes, Kirk Strosahl, and Kelly Wilson. This is a textbook aimed at clinicians, so it’s not exactly a fun book. The more I learn about ACT, the more I really dig it. It will absolutely be part of my toolkit as I move through my grad program and set up shop. :-)
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Every month I will ask one of my friends and collaborators to write a guest entry for The Anxious Morning. This month our guest writer is my friend and respected anxiety/OCD therapist Kimberley Quinlan. I love what Kim brought for us today. I hope you will too.
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Can I make space for this?
I am often asked, “What is the one skill you have learned that helped you the most in your recovery? The answer is quite simple. It is a simple question.
Can I make space for this discomfort?
I remember going to my therapist many years ago when I was in the early stages of treatment. I told my therapist a story of a recent event and how much fear I was experiencing about it happening again.
She sat quietly with her hand rubbing the side of the leather couch. Then, gently, she asked, “I am wondering, instead of us reviewing this event and addressing the probability of this event ever happening again, could we first just make space for the discomfort you feel?”
Ugh! Doesn’t she know that requires me to FEEL my feelings? Does she not know how much I would prefer to “solve” this problem instead of leaning into the discomfort I felt?
Together we sat for maybe 15-20 seconds as she continued to run her hand back and forth over the leather arm of the chair. We practiced just allowing space for ALL the feelings I felt.
Fear of the future.
Annoyance at the activity.
Sadness that I felt this way.
Frustration that my mind was messing with me.
It was hard to make space for these feelings, but I quickly understood what she was trying to achieve. There was much benefit to just making space for what I was feeling instead of solving it.
I want to take this special time with you (Thank you, Drew) to offer you an opportunity to consider just making space for YOUR discomfort.
Creating space for discomfort can feel painful and irresponsible, I know. Fear can convince us that we are doing the “smart” thing by calculating the probability of our fears coming true. Uncertainty can feel so urgent and propel us toward safety behaviors that keep us in the painful loop of anxiety and keep our minds stuck.
Now that I am a therapist and educator, I often ask my clients and listeners the very same question, “Is there a chance you can make space for this experience?”
We giggle together when I tell them I remember being asked this same question, acknowledging that no human enjoys making space for discomfort. However, when we do a cost-benefit analysis, we quickly learn that allowing discomfort has way better outcomes than pushing discomfort away or wrestling with its validity.
Sure, when you put in the time and solve this one fear, you WILL feel some semblance of relief. But, what will you do next time fear comes by with a new super-duper, important and urgent concern?
That’s right! You will have to solve it all over again. And in that process, you will keep believing that you cannot tolerate or handle the discomfort of just allowing this fear to come and go as it pleases.
So here we go. Let's practice together?
Can you allow whatever you are experiencing to be here, just how it is, right now?
Can you make space for it to be messy?
Can you drop your shoulders and loosen your jawbone and be kinder with the struggles you are having?
Can you make space for this experience without assigning meaning to what it means about you or your future? Remember, this discomfort will not hurt you. Instead, it will rise and fall with time if you allow it.
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Kimberley Quinlan, LMFT is dedicated to providing outstanding therapy and counseling for those with OCD and related disorders, Eating Disorders and Body Focused Repetitive Disorders. She is also passionate about advocating for those with Mental Health Disorders. Kimberley is dedicated to ongoing advocacy and education within the community for OCD, Eating Disorders and BFRB’s.
Find Kimberley online at https://cbtschool.com.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Learning about anxiety and recovery is certainly important. We seek out and consume words, sounds, videos, and images that teach us about the nature of anxiety, fear, and recovery. In 2022 there is no shortage of that just a few taps away on the device you have in your hand right now.
This is a good thing. We call this psychoeducation. It’s a critical component in recovery, especially when one is just getting started down the path. A good therapist or counselor will make it a point to provide plenty of psychoeducation in early sessions because knowing and understanding is an important first step in recovery.
First step.
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Almost nothing in life gets done with just one step. Seeking and learning might be your FIRST step, but they are absolutely not the only step. In my opinion, they are not even the most important step in the end.
It’s time for another word from my old friend Seneca. You know I dig him and the rest of the great Stoic philosophers.
“We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application — not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech — and learn them so well that words become works.” - Seneca
Seneca tells us that we should go out and find helpful teachings, but he is also telling us that once we learn them, they are best serving us when they become more than just words. They become works. Actions. Behaviors.
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This rings VERY true in the case of anxiety recovery. You can read every word I ever write on the topic, but until those words become works in your own life, they will tend to remain meaningless, even if you find them profound. Learn the words, then allow them to become works. Make time for seeking and learning, then make time to develop systems of doing and experiencing.
Go do recovery. Have the experiences you need to have. Let your seeking systems - the learning foundation - guide you through those experiences. When you do this, seeking, learning, doing and experiencing become enmeshed. They grow organically together when we practice taking action.
It is true that recovery is about learning and understanding. But recovery is also about making behavioral change. When we allow the words we seek to become works we do, good things happen.
Those crazy Stoics. They knew a few things, even about recovery.
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We’ll start next week with a discussion on how to use - or throw away - the heart rate monitor on your wrist.
“The only means of strengthening one’s intellect is to make up ones mind about nothing—to let the mind be a thoroughfare for all thoughts. . . . Dilke will never come at a truth as long as he lives; because he is always trying at it.” - John Keats
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
A few days ago on a Zoom call, I had someone say this to me:
”You think I’ve come a long way? Look at you! You’re writing in journals, telling me to be kind to myself, and making reels with Kardashian audio!”
We laughed. Then I got off the call and laughed even harder. Then I got kinda emotional over what she said to me. I had not even considered any of that. I’ve been talking to this person for over a year now as they go through their anxiety recovery journey. I can clearly see the tremendous changes they’ve undergone and the amazing progress they’ve made. But I had totally looked right past the fact that I am making changes and progress too.
Who knew?!
When this person trained floodlights on the changes I’d undergone in a year, it brought up an idea that I already knew, but had mistakenly abandoned and forgotten. It is a powerful idea that really had a huge impact in my own recovery journey.
Helping also helps the helper!
It’s true. While I’m fortunate to not be dealing with recovery any more, the act of helping in this context is STILL helping me. It helps me to become more well rounded in my approach. It helps me to stay aware of the real struggle, even many years after mine. It makes me a better more empathetic listener. It teaches me to be more of a cheerleader and less of an instructor when the situation warrants it. Helping aids me in developing tools and strategies that I can use in my own life. I can go on. The point is, helping is STILL helping the helper, even many years later.
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Why am I telling you all this?
Because helping other people can also help you.
When you share your experiences, your struggles, and the lessons you learn along the way, those lessons become deeper and broader. When you give a struggling person advice, you also help yourself recognize and take the same advice that you may sometimes struggle to take. When you explain a thing that you know, you take a step beyond just knowing and toward truly understanding. And when you understand, you can start to utilize and integrate.
When you help others by showing kindness and compassion when they need it, you learn to show kindness and compassion to yourself, and to anyone struggling in any context even outside anxiety recovery. When you shine a light for someone who is behind you on the recovery path, you also shine a light on your own wins and your own progress - something we often forget to acknowledge.
Helping helps the helper, even when the helper feels like they need help themselves. So today, think about how you can reach out to help someone else. How can you inspire? How can you encourage? How can you empower? What have you done or learned that you can share? You may think that you are in no position to help anyone, but the odds are high that you have something to offer.
Offering it can be surprisingly impactful, so give it a try.
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Tomorrow we’ll look at the relationship between seeking, searching, and doing in recovery.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“One of the most effective things you can do to build better habits is to join a culture where your desired behavior is the normal behavior. New habits seem achievable when you see others doing them every day.” - James Clear, Atomic Habits
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Let’s talk about your anxiety support system. Who are you surrounded by? Who are you leaning on and sharing with? What do they believe about your anxiety? What are they doing about theirs?
These are important questions because who you surround yourself with can have a real impact on your recovery. Let’s look at the definition of “support” for a moment. What is support? What does it mean to you?
Almost by default, support is seen as having a place where you can share, vent and commiserate with people that understand and/or share your struggle. Having support means not being alone in with your problems. I won’t argue against that. This is certainly true in my eyes.
But that can’t be the only definition of support. I would argue that support also means cheering for you and believing in you when you are struggling to believe in yourself. Support involves encouraging, inspiring, and empowering. If you listen to these emails as a podcast, those words are going to sound very familiar since they’re in the opening of every Anxious Morning podcast episode. I put them there for a reason.
Especially when it comes to online support systems, ask yourself if you are demanding encouragement, inspiration, and empowerment, or if you are content with just hearing yet another person tell you that they also feel dizzy today. Are you surrounding yourself with people that only mirror your fear back at you and focus on comparing horror stories, or are you traveling in circles based on more than that.
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I would argue pretty loudly that it is in your very best interest to demand more from your support systems. Find places and groups full of people that not only share your struggle, but who are also committed to actually getting better by making real changes. The best support systems are full of people that understand what you’re up against, but that are not content to just passively wait for something to happen that might make things better. The best support systems are full of people actively engaged in the work of recovery.
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If you’re struggling to move forward because you’re having a hard time accepting the fact that you have to do difficult work to do that, surround yourself with people who are doing that difficult work. It will matter.
Who are you surrounded by?
Tomorrow we’ll follow-up on this topic by looking at how helping can also help the helper.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
From time to time I’ll share some of the post recovery tips I use in my daily life. I’m often asked what life after an anxiety disorder looks like, so I’m happy to share some of that with you here.
One of the great lessons I learned in my recovery is that speed is an almost automatic response to anxiety, fear, and stress. As soon as I had an anxious thought or experienced a sensation in my body that scared me, I would start walking faster, talking faster, breathing faster, and generally acting like I had just been shot out of a canon.
Once I noticed this, I started to work on intentionally slowing down when I felt anxious. It took all kinds of work and lots of practice to break my speed habit. But over time, I did train myself to slow down when that wave of fear hit me. I would intentionally slow my breathing and move myself through space at what sometimes felt like a snail’s pace. It wasn’t, but it did feel that way to my anxious brain.
This worked quite well for me.
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Learning to slow down when I was anxious, afraid, or even in a panic, became a key component in my new default response to anxiety and panic. When I went slower, I told my amygdala that everything was OK. Over time, it started to get the message. Slowing down helped turn giant panic attacks into smaller panic attacks. It helped turn long periods of intense anxiety into shorter periods of more tolerable anxiety. Slowing down was a good idea.
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To this day, I use this tool all the time. Training myself to slow down carried over long past recovery. I am a human being. This means that I experience stress from time to time. Life is difficult, life is not always fair, and life will piss you off randomly. Stress happens. As a recovered anxious person, anxiety or even irrational fear can happen too sometimes.
So what do I do now in those situations? The first thing I do is slow down. I catch myself rushing around, take a quick pause, and slow everything to a bit of a crawl for a few seconds or a minute or so. This helps me to disengage from my reaction, put some space between me and my thoughts and sensations, and re-focus on a healthier and more productive response to what is going on at the moment. The specifics of that more productive response will vary depending on context but the most important thing is that I do not wind up swept up and carried way by pressure, stress, anxiety, or even panic when it happens now and then. I am WAY better at managing stress because I taught myself how to slow down instead of automatically rushing around.
Slowing down isn’t the whole story when it comes to responding to the demand of life at this point, but it is a pretty important part of the story. Knowing how and when to slow down also helps when it’s time to relax and enjoy life moment by moment. So one of the answers to the question, “What does my life look like after recovery?” is that it looks slower. Not all the time, but certainly when appropriate.
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Learn to slow down. It will matter in recovery, and it will be helpful long after you’ve stopped needing to read these emails.
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I feel so strongly about this idea that I even wrote a book about it! You can check out my book - Seven Percent Slower - on my website. All the ways to get it are listed there.
Tomorrow I’ll ask you to think about what your anxiety and recovery support system looks like.
One of the books I’m almost always reading in one way or the other, is Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius. This book is amazing not only because it embodies so many principles of Roman Stoicism, but also because when the last of the good emperors wrote it, he was not writing a book at all! He was simply writing for himself as a way to deal with some of his struggles in life. Here we are over 2000 years later, still reading his words and learning from them, hopefully like Marcus did when he wrote them.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“Drew, have you ever considered becoming a therapist?”
I’ve been asked this many times over the years.
One month from today - on March 21, 2022 - I will actually start that process.
I am now a graduate student in a clinical mental health counseling program. Classes start in a month. I could not be more excited about this. I don’t even want to tell you when I got my undergraduate degree from the School of Architecture at the University at Buffalo. If you see me on video, you can see the grey in my beard, so it’s been a minute or two.
Even all these years after graduation from UB, I still miss being a student. I love to learn. I love the process and act of learning. It’s all just super fun to me. The fact that I now get to learn more about the topic I was clearly put on this planet to help with is just amazing and astounding to me. I’m a lucky guy by all measures.
I’m also up against some serious challenges. The extended “break” between undergrad and graduate school means I’ve gotten a bit rusty when it comes to academically oriented reading and writing. When I got accepted to the program this past Fall, I had to come to grips with the fact that my schedule has to change to accommodate coursework and studying. I’ve had to really make some serious choices with regard to how much time I have in any given day and how I want to spend that time. Quite a bit has had to change to prepare for this, and quite a bit will continue to change.
But what fun is life without challenge? So here I go.
From time to time I’ll keep you guys updated on interesting things I’m learning about. I’ll talk about how I’m handling the increased demands on my time and therefore the increased stress level. I’ll fill you in on how I’ve been able to use lessons I learned in recovery to make all the changes that needed to be made for all of this to happen.
Maybe you’ll be interested in those posts, or maybe not. But I figure if I can’t share the experience then I’m ignoring one of the primary reasons that I’m having the experience to begin with. As this journey helps me, I’ll see if I can turn it into something that helps you too. I get to nerd out on things I love, I wind up as a credentialed therapist when its all over, and maybe you get some insight and information that will help you move forward at the same time.
Winning! Just the way I like it.
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Speaking of lessons learned in recovery, tomorrow I’ll kick off a series of posts where I talk about the lessons I learned in my recovery, and how I use them in my life even today.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
One of my favorite movies of all time is The Big Lebowski. The late 90s Coen Brothers cult classic is jam-packed with great dialogue and quirky characters that I just love.
(Fun fact. I am an ordained minister in The Church of the Latter-Day Dude. I have a certificate and everything! Cost me like $10 or so a few years back and it still cracks me up.)
Anyway, my favorite character in the movie is Walter Sobchak, played by Jon Goodman. I’ll just say that Walter is an interesting guy. He’s generally really hot-headed in comparison to the even keeled Dude (the Jeff Bridges character). But when the st hits the fan at several points in the movie, it’s Walter that winds up being the voice of reason, even if he is the one responsible for said st hitting said fan.
When The Dude is beside himself because he is convinced that he and Walter have just guaranteed the death of Bunny Lebowski, he kinda loses it. The normally chilled out Dude, who doesn’t really seem to get excited about much of anything, comes a bit unglued. He’s clearly agitated and exasperated by his prediction of Bunny’s demise. In his mind, he is playing out a scenario in which Bunny is killed by the kidnappers, and it will be all his fault. He is gesturing wildly and yelling at Walter.
Walter’s response to the dude’s imagined disaster?
“Nothing is fcked, Dude. Come on, you’re being very un-Dude.”*
(Program Note: If you’re not listening to the podcast version of this email, you really should. A clip of Walter telling the dude to chill out is included, and it’s pretty damn funny from where I sit. Listen using the play button at the top of this email/webpage.)
Walter doesn’t see the same future that Dude is constructing in his mind. Walter knows that Bunny is not dead right now, and that they still have a plan to execute at the moment. He is calm and confident in the knowledge that while the Dude thinks that everything is f*cked, it really isn’t. At least not yet, and maybe not ever. Walter remains grounded in reality while The Dude is highly entangled with “what if” thoughts.
Can you relate to a situation where you think that everything is a disaster, but it really isn’t?
Have you been in a position where you are trying to predict the future in your head?
How often have you gotten worked up like The Dude was, turning “what if” thoughts into certain catastrophe in your mind?
When this happens, what can you do?
Sometimes we find guides in the strangest places. Sometimes even in silly movies about stoners, Nihilists, and other unusual characters. Once in a while we can extract recovery wisdom from sources that were never meant to be wise.
What would Walter say to your anxiety? Better yet, what would Walter tell YOU to DO?
“Our worst misfortunes never happen, and most miseries lie in anticipation.” - Honoré de Balzac
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Are you trying to recover while also keeping everyone around you happy?
The need to belong and be accepted in family and social groups is a core human need. Being part of something bigger than ourselves has historically signaled safety and increased chance of survival. It’s natural to want to be accepted.
Sometimes this can get a bit twisted by the dynamics of the group we are hoping to belong to. Dysfunctional family systems that use negative reinforcement to encourage conformity are good examples of this. Groups like this can teach us that our actions must always take into account the reactions of those around us. We tiptoe around on eggshells, hoping to never make waves lest we be punished, or even worse, expelled from the group.
In this context, we can sometimes wind up trying to engineer a recovery by committee, where the goal is not only to improve your relationship with anxiety, but to keep the group happy and “off your back” at the same time. This can present a real problem, especially when the role you’ve been given by the group includes staying quiet, not making waves, and not “screwing up”. If you’ve been taught that what you do is a primary factor in everyone else being happy, this can really gum up the works when it comes to your recovery.
Let’s look at three examples.
Anxious, frightened people are often unsure of what to do next. If the group is making choices for you based on the role you must fill, the group may not be pointing you in the direction of recovery at all. The “committee” may be steering you deeper into the disorder, or at least encouraging you to remain stuck.
Recovery involves intentionally being afraid or anxious on a regular basis. This is difficult work that involves being anything but calm. Inviting panic when the committee demands that you never “make a scene” becomes a no win situation. Get better, or be punished for being “too much”. This is not a helpful choice to have to make.
Effective recovery means that you must make yourself and your recovery work a bit of a priority. Scheduling exposure sessions and having space to sometimes work through intentional discomfort can disrupt group routines and schedules. If your committee can’t tolerate that and threatens punishment for being too disruptive, or labels your actions as “selfish”, you’re going to find yourself struggling to serve two masters. Recovery, and the group dynamic. This is another no-win situation that will make recovery more difficult than it otherwise might be.
If you find yourself sometimes stalled or even paralyzed in your recovery because the act of getting better means risking the wrath of your tribe, then you may be in a “recovery by committee” situation that can at least partially explain your struggle.
To be fair, a committee is not always a bad thing. A strong support system that works WITH you in recovery is really helpful. But a group dynamic that works AGAINST you and threatens punishment for the act of getting better is going to be a problem.
We can’t solve the problem in one short email, but for now, please know that it is not your fault if you find yourself in that situation. We’ll return to this topic from time to time because I know its important to many of you.
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Tomorrow, we’ll have a little fun by looking at how one of my favorite movies teaches us about the irrational nature of anxious fear.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We speak often about the benefits of focus training and learning to pay attention as part of the recovery process. I will continue to do that, because cultivating the ability to decide where to place our focus and to keep it there is hugely helpful in moving us forward.
I’ve written and spoken at length on the ideas of meditation, mindfulness, and learning to slow down as key aspects of focus and attention training. I’m always on the lookout for more.
Recently I came across “The Twelve Monotasks” by Thatcher Wine. In The Twelve Monotasks, Thatcher examines twelve activities that can be used as exercises in doing one thing at a time, and remaining fully engaged with that one thing while you’re doing it. If you followed my “learning to slow down” video series I ran when I released Seven Percent Slower, you would recognize some of these tasks as I covered them in that series.
While I spoke about things like walking, listening and eating as basic mindfulness and focus tools, The Twelve Monotasks takes that idea a step further by concentrating on the act of ONLY eating, ONLY walking, or ONLY listening at any given time. When walking ... just walk. When eating ... just eat. When listening ... just listen. Put down your phone, silence all your gadgets, and just do that one thing.
This is not a new idea of course, but in a world where we are praised for “multitasking” and surrounded by distractions designed to get and keep our attention, the idea of monotasking seems almost archaic. There is a method to that madness, though!
When I talk about re-focusing and paying attention to things other than your anxious thoughts and sensations, these can be challenging asks. If you find yourself struggling to learn and practice these ideas, maybe take a look at monotasking. You may find that the simple premise that you will do just one task at a time crystallizes these concepts. Committing to doing one thing at a time may make it easier for you to work on your focus and attention skills.
Give it a try.
Turn off your phone for a while. Turn off the TV. Stop scrolling. Stop reading. Stop listening. Stop talking.
Just walk. Just eat. Just breathe. Just drink. Do one thing at a time. Resisting the urge to go for the distractions and giving yourself permission to just do one thing for the next few minutes can help quiet things down, slow things down, and create an environment where you can practice paying attention, remaining focused, and being mindful of each moment.
But don’t tell all your entrepreneur hustle friends that you’re doing one thing at a time. Their heads might explode, and we don’t want that.
Tomorrow we’ll examine the “recovery by committee” phenomenon that can accidentally become a trap.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Our community is quite full of people that identify very strongly with their thoughts. They have formed the habit of latching on to their thoughts almost automatically. They see thoughts as sacred, powerful, and worthy of attention, honor and respect at all times.
“This must be important. It comes from inside ME!”
If you feel that statement in your bones, then you are likely used to following some basic rules surrounding thinking and interpreting your thoughts.
Do any of these statements about thinking sound familiar to you?
“I must trust my gut.”
“My thoughts are my intuition telling me something. I must find out what that is!”
“My thoughts are who I am. They signal my virtues and represent the core of my being.”
“My thoughts are the voice of my soul. To heal, I must examine my thoughts to find out what my soul is saying.”
These are just a few short examples. If any of them resonate with you, then there is a chance that you are in the habit of identifying with your thoughts and treating them as very important automatically and by default. This is likely having a real impact on your mental state by helping to fuel your anxiety or at least keeping you stuck and struggling in recovery.
Let me be clear on this to avoid any confusion. Nobody is ever telling you that you’re not allowed to have thoughts or that nothing you think ever matters. This is not an Ayn Rand book. I am only saying that automatically treating all or most of your thoughts as sacred and worthy of attention and examination can be problematic.
Why?
To put it bluntly, our minds are capable producing extreme genius and astounding beauty, but they are also capable of producing mundane nonsense or even complete garbage. The ability of a human mind to produce crap becomes especially pronounced when under stress. A stressed out, anxious mind will throw all kinds of stuff at the wall to see what sticks. Much of it winds up being unhelpful, to say the least.
If you’re reading this, the odds are high that you’ve experienced rapid, persistent thoughts that tell you that you are in continuous danger of dying, losing control, going insane, or performing unspeakable acts against your will. These thoughts never come true no matter how loud and powerful they may seem, yet they persist. Here we have real world examples of the ability of a human mind to produce content of questionable value.
Before you freak out, take a breath. You are still a beautiful being, but sometimes your mind doesn’t bring it’s A game. That’s OK.
When you stop and look at this situation, can you start to see why operating from the assertion that you must follow every thought could cause a problem? Maybe you can start to see how viewing your thoughts as sacred and important has already contributed to anxiety and recovery problems in your life. If you’re in the habit of following your catastrophic “what if” thoughts every time they pop up, you know what I’m saying.
The goal today is to point out the habit of living as if every thought is special, and why this not terribly helpful, especially in the context of anxiety and recovery. This is a topic we will return to and touch on pretty regularly.
For now, see if you can take a few minutes today to consider how you relate to your thoughts and what you believe about them. Are you relating to your thoughts in a way that is helping you, or hurting you? Do you want to BE your thoughts?
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the benefits of doing one thing at a time.
I just finished listening to “Long Story Short” by Margot Leitman on Audible. It’s a really interesting analysis on the art of effective storytelling as a form of entertainment. I really enjoyed it. It even gave me some creative writing and journaling ideas!
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“Everyone is different, and I know what’s best for me!”
This is a thing we hear all the time in the online mental health community. I do not disagree with this principle. As long as nobody is getting hurt, everyone has a right to make their own mental health and well being choices and I believe that we have to respect that.
What I really want to look at is the idea that we automatically know what’s best for ourselves, and that we will therefore act accordingly. As is so often the case when it comes to significant anxiety issues, this can get a bit twisted so let’s talk about that.
I think we need to be mindful of how we define what is best, and why we consider it to be best. This is a typical values versus fear situation. When we assert that we know what is best for us in terms of anxiety recovery, are we basing that statement on what we truly value, or the desire to avoid discomfort and fear?
We can also look at this is a short-term versus long-term situation. When we choose avoidance over what we really desire and value in life, we are choosing short-term comfort at the expense of long-term loss, regret, or dissatisfaction. That is a choice everyone is free to make, but it should be made with an awareness of all the implications and consequences.
“I know what’s best for me, and exposure isn’t for me!” is a fair statement to make. If an avoidant lifestyle full of limitations and conditions is the desired outcome, then that is a value driven assessment. If that is not what one wants, then we could argue that in this context “best” is really serving fear, not fulfillment.
I am not here to pass judgment on anyone, condemn choices, or shame anyone into making different choices. But at least in the case of anxiety recovery, it serves us well to remain aware of how conventional wisdom and generally accepted “correctness” can get twisted to some degree. This awareness can help us make choices that more closely align with our values and what we truly want out of life.
So, we return again to values verses fear. You know what’s best for you. Nobody can deny that. But are your recovery choices “best” for moving you toward what you really want, or are they “best” for soothing fear based on an incorrect and misguided threat detection habit in your brain? That’s something to think about.
Tomorrow we’ll examine idea that you are your thoughts and why this assertion can cause so many problems.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If hanging on to prevent disaster is a central issue that helps to fuel our anxiety problems, and learning to let go is central in recovery, then we must practice and build that particular skill. Yesterday we examined the idea that like any new habit, we can learn to let go little by little without jumping directly into the scariest most difficult situations.
Today’s lesson is less about my words and more about making you think.
Take a while and consider ways that you may attempt to control things outside the context of anxiety or panic. How do you hold on in your daily life? What little holding on habits do you carry throughout your day? What things seem just so hard to let go of?
Are you quick to correct things you think are “wrong”?
Do you feel the immediate urge to argue, disagree, criticize or otherwise comment on things you may not agree with on the Internet?
Do you make your daily life choices about things like meals or entertainment only after checking with others to see what they want or like?
Do you resist change in all forms, instead putting your energy into trying to keep things the same all the time?
Do you spend your time trying to stay busy or distracted in an effort to not hear your thoughts or feel you emotions?
These are all common examples of holding on and control habits. Make a short list of yours. There are no wrong answers here. This might take you some time to come up with because our habits are often hidden from us until we really step back and look at ourselves objectively. When you have a few items on your list, think about what you can do to act in opposition to those holding on habits. For example:
Cook a meal without asking your family if it is the meal they want.
Set a timer for 10 minutes. Scroll through your social media feed WITHOUT commenting or telling anyone what you see.
Remain silent when you detect an “error” in something you hear or see. Don’t correct it. If it does not directly impact you, let it be.
Set a timer for two minutes. Sit silently on your sofa and just be, allowing that two minutes to pass in whatever way it passes.
These may seem like silly little changes, but silly little changes add up to big changes over time. These are ways to start letting go, and while they may seem insignificant when you read them here, you may find them challenging when you actually try them. If they are challenging, that’s a good sign. You’re on the right track.
Take some time today to examine your holding on habits, then look at ways that you can start to exercise your “letting go” muscles every day in small ways and in small bits. The more you practice, the more familiar it becomes, and the more confident you will be that you CAN allow the world to just spin without trying to prevent disaster all the time. Becoming an experienced “letting go-er” will matter when you find yourself in anxious and fearful situations where letting go is required as part of your new relationship with irrational fear.
If you want to overcome panic and anxiety, try making something different for dinner tonight without asking anyone if it’s OK to do that. You might be surprised at how that turns out.
We’ll start next week with a talk about knowing what’s best for ourselves, and how that sometimes gets twisted by anxiety.
“Negotiation is not an act of battle. It is an act of discovery.” - Chris Voss
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
For the last few days on The Anxious Morning we’ve been examining the idea that much of our response to anxiety can be reduced to the fact that we’re just hanging on as a response to fear. We’ve looked at how the path to lasting recovery is in learning that we can actually let go. When we loosen our death grip and allow reality to show us that we’ve always been OK, good things happen over time.
I understand that letting go, loosening your grip, is a very tall order. Allowing the chips to fall where they may probably sounds terrifying, especially if those chips have words like “death” or “psychosis” stamped on them.
Like much of the recovery process, we can look at the act of letting go as a practice. This is a skill we first become aware of, then we embrace it, then we practice it so we may get better at it. Letting go is not an automatic thing for most people, especially most anxious people. This is a thing we must work at. Like all new things, we stumble, we get it wrong, and we learn and grow stronger as part of the process. Part of recovery is taking your “letting go” muscles to the gym to build them up.
How can we do this? How can we practice letting go?
The answer, as usual, is that we take small steps in the direction we wish to go, then we repeat those steps. Understand why you are learning to let go, accept that it will be a difficult thing to do, embrace the process of learning as itself valuable, then start taking your steps. This is how we learn to do the things that move us down the path to recovery. Learning to let go is no exception to this. This is how we learn to let go. Little by little.
The idea of allowing nature to take its course without intervention may seem completely ridiculous or even reckless to you, but that’s because you are only considering the worst case scenarios where anxiety and panic are overwhelming you and you feel an intense sense of danger. If I ask you to instantly let go in those situations, you would struggle. But if I ask you to start letting go of little things that you may not even be aware you are holding on to, the process starts to seem a little less intimidating.
Letting go is a big deal, but we can learn to do it by starting small. Tomorrow we’ll wrap up our discussion of holding on and letting go by looking at real world ways to begin your practice.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we examined the idea that while we think that we are protecting ourselves from anxiety, panic, and fear, we are likely unable to do that, and are really just hanging on. We adopt a strategy designed to keep anxiety and fear at bay. Then we delude ourselves into thinking that we are succeeding when in reality we are doing nothing more than holding on tightly because we are terrified of the consequences of letting go.
To be certain, the idea of “letting go” is a difficult one for most people to cozy up with. We hear about letting go all the time. As general life advice designed to teach us to not sweat over details and small stuff, it makes sense. But when confronted with what you see as a real threat to your life or your sanity, letting go is not exactly going to be at the top of to your to do list.
That’s OK.
Nobody starts the recovery journey intending to totally let go and let the chips fall where they may. That seems patently absurd at first glance.
But it is not. Letting go and allowing the worst to happen is exactly how we take our first tenuous steps toward recovery. We let go, we stop trying to hang on, and we resign ourselves to allowing the worst to happen. When reality shows us again that the worst never happens, and that we are always capable of moving through that fear to wind up OK, things start to change. This is the essence of recovery. This is how we do it.
If you could just decide to let go right now, we wouldn’t have much to talk about, would we? If it were that easy, everyone would just stop fighting and recover six days later. Clearly this does not happen, so we need a plan. We need a plan for how to let go. How can you learn to do this insanely scary thing? How can you learn to let go?
Practice!
You can’t hang on for dear life all day long as a matter of standard operating procedure, then expect that you will be able to let go when fear is at its peak during panic. You can’t go from tightly wound with a death grip on everything to totally letting go when you fear that you are about have a psychotic break. That will never work. Instead, you need to practice.
You can practice letting go in small bits. You can exercise and strengthen your “letting go” muscles by experimenting in smaller situations where much less appears to be “on the line”. The odds are high that you rarely practice letting go, so you will likely suck at it when you start this, but that’s OK. Practice makes progress. If you can work on letting go on a smaller level, the idea of fully letting go when in the grips of extreme panic and fear starts to sound less absurd over time.
Tomorrow we’ll talk a bit more about the concept of letting go as a practice.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
When we brace against our anxiety and fear - when we run from it or try to escape, avoid, and stop it - what are we really doing? Are we guarding ourselves against fear, or are we already afraid and just desperately trying to hang on?
Our escape and avoidance strategy is likely based on the idea that we can guard against anxiety and fear. If we guard against them, we can keep them from catching us. If we remain vigilant and on alert, we can at least run away from them if they do manage to slip past our defenses, right? We relate to anxiety and fear the way we do probably because we are hoping that we can keep them at arm’s length.
But are we really accomplishing that? I would suggest that we are not. We are hoping to keep the invaders outside the city walls, but we are failing at this task.
We guard. We brace. We scan. We evaluate. Yet, we ARE afraid even as we do these things.
We ARE anxious. We ARE experiencing all the scary sensations and thoughts that come with it. They are here. The walls are breached. Our guarding strategy is misguided and ineffective. We are not effectively protecting ourselves against a damn thing. We remain vulnerable to the full force and effect of our anxiety and our fear at all times. They are not at arm’s length. They are here and they will be heard from.
Guarding and protecting never really works because anxiety and fear arrive anyway. It’s a whole lot of effort with very little consistent payoff.
Where does this leave us? It leaves us with the fact that anxiety and fear are here anyway, so we must hang on to avoid falling into the abyss that they bring with them.
We hang on because we are afraid that if we really let go, the worst will happen. Death. Incapacitation. Insanity. Complete loss of control. These are terrifying outcomes for us, so we tighten our grip, we hang on, and we hope that the storm will pass.
We think we are protecting, but we are really just hanging on.
Why does this matter? I think it matters because when we acknowledge that all our guarding and managing is fruitless, we can start to move in a new direction toward solutions that will bear fruit. Hanging on is not battling, fighting, or guarding. It’s just ... hanging on. This might sound a bit depressing at face value. But really, giving up the illusion of the fight can lead us to actually give up the fight and this is critical in a war that we only win when we put down our swords.
There is tremendous power in abandoning the fight. There is great potential to be realized when we accept that we are only hanging on, and that true recovery is found in letting go.
Let’s keep going with this tomorrow, when we look at the power of letting go and how to practice it.
I just started reading “The Antidote” by Oliver Burkeman. It’s an excellent review of what we’ve started to call “toxic positivity”, and why trying so damn hard to be positive rarely actually leads to lasting results.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I know that many members of this community deal with all-day anxiety. I often hear descriptions of continuous anxiety that just sits in the background all the time, making one very uncomfortable. Often there are no panic attacks, or they may be few and far between, leaving the all-day anxious person confused and clinging to that three letter label:
G-A-D
It’s important to understand that being anxious all day does not automatically mean you have GAD. People with panic disorder, agoraphobia and health anxiety are also often anxious all day too, so be mindful of of that. You may get a diagnoses of GAD from a qualified clinician, or you may not. Either way, the label is not all that important because it does not indicate that you are in a special situation that is impossible to deal with. GAD is not a life sentence. Even if you do have GAD, you do not have to be doomed forever to be anxious and unsettled during every waking moment.
One of the hallmarks of GAD is persistent worry, focus or rumination about a number of things that may change from day to day or even hour to hour. That worry, focus, and rumination shows up as anxiety and it is very unpleasant. Someone with GAD isn’t necessarily anxious about being anxious in the same way that someone with panic disorder might be. But the GAD person often winds up more anxious than they need to be simply because they can’t find a way to solve the problem of the anxiety that makes them uncomfortable (though maybe not afraid).
This is not really news though, because people with GAD often get anxious about trying to solve, know, understand, fix and control EVERYTHING. In fact, there is a segment of the professional mental health community that will point at traits like perfectionism, people pleasing, overthinking, over-planning, excessive worrying, and excessive focus on problem solving as common underlying drivers of GAD.
Odds are that you are well aware of the “Allow it and let it be there without engagement” advice when it comes to dealing with anxiety.
This really hard for someone with panic disorder because they fear immediate danger from the anxious state itself. This is also hard for someone with GAD because ”leave it alone” is not a thing that feels right to do EVER under any circumstances. This is especially true in the face of a really uncomfortable anxiety problem that they can neither understand nor solve. An unanswerable question wrapped around a seemingly unsolvable problem? This is a damn near nightmare scenario for many people that suffer from all day anxiety or that have gotten a GAD diagnosis. Why? Because ... problem solving and knowing!
So maybe you have GAD. Maybe you don’t. Even that statement might make you anxious to some degree because ... uncertainty. But if this is a thing you are struggling with, take some time to think about your propensity to problem solve, know, fix, predict, control, or perfect. Are you the hyper-responsible person that feels like the health and happiness of the world is on your shoulders? Are you driven to please everyone to avoid being judged or plunged into conflict?
If you’re wondering why you’re anxious all day, and wondering “What about GAD?”, considering some of this may start to shed some light on your situation. The mystery of all day anxiety and GAD sometimes begins to reveal itself when examined from this point of view.
Tomorrow we’ll examine the difference between “managing your anxiety” and just hanging on because you are afraid.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
The process of anxiety recovery has nothing to do with seeking positivity or a positive life. “Good vibes only” is not part of the language of recovery. We’re not in this to declare the world toxic and therefore to disconnect from it in an attempt to find peace and security. What would be the point of trying to build a better life if that life must be lived sequestered in a fantasyland where nothing negative or challenging exists?
I would argue, especially based on my own recovery experience, that the process of anxiety recovery does exactly the opposite. Traveling this path presents us with challenges that teach us how to handle adversity. We learn to move through negative situations rather than to retreat from them. We practice flexing our tolerance muscles in order to discover just how capable we are of dealing with situations that are hardly ideal and are most certainly not positive or full of good vibes.
Sometimes we are handed a misleading image of what a recovered life looks like. Social media will bury us in images of well lit happy people peacefully sitting on beaches or on mountains, suggesting that this is where we must arrive to call ourselves recovered. But this is not true. Beaches and mountains are awesome, but they are not all of life. They’re not even most of life. Those images aren’t terribly accurate or realistic.
The recovery process teaches us the skills we need to become healthy participants in the real world, which is sometimes not such a pleasant place. It makes us productive, not isolated. It prepares us for reality, it does not drive us into a fantasy world where only sunshine and rainbows exist. The trial by fire that is recovery makes us capable of handling life, whatever that means.
I’m not saying that you have to intentionally drown yourself in b**t for the rest of your life just to prove that you can. That is not required. But neither is a total retreat into a space where everything is positive, nobody ever rubs you the wrong way, and everything remains placid at all times. Do not base your recovery on that notion, or you run the risk of winding up very disappointed and feeling ill-prepared for what the world is going to hand you beyond anxiety.
I’ll end today with another reference to Stoic philosophy that may give you something to think about and something to aim for in your own recovery.
Bestselling author Ryan Holiday wrote:
“The image of the Zen philosopher is the monk up in the green, quiet hills, or in a beautiful temple on some rocky cliff. The Stoics are the antithesis of this idea. Instead, they are the man in the marketplace, the senator in the Forum, the brave wife waiting for her soldier to return from battle, the sculptor busy in her studio. Still, the Stoic is equally at peace. “
Tomorrow we’ll take our first look at a popular topic. Generalized Anxiety Disorder.
“Remembering you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose.” - Steve Jobs
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
We’ve been looking at the concept of observing the process of anxiety and fear rather than evaluating it. This is a great way to put some distance between you and the fear spiral that may drag you in when things get rough.
Yesterday we started our practice of observing anxiety with the simple statement, “I am thinking.”
Today we will look at a second simple statement that holds just as much power in this process. This statement is designed to acknowledge all the uncomfortable, scary and disturbing sensations and symptoms that anxiety and fear will throw at you. You know them. I don’t have to list them for you.
Next time you find yourself experiencing a flash of fear based on an anxious sensation in your body, insert a short pause, then try this statement.
“I am feeling.”
“Why am I feeling? Because fear creates sensations like this in human bodies.”
In the same way that we can resist the urge to interact directly with specific anxious thoughts, we can also use “I am feeling” as a way to back away from interaction with specific symptoms and sensations. A sudden sense of being off-balance does not have to be evaluated based on how it feels because it is just a feeling. It is a normal, expected, predictable, sensory experience that occurs repeatedly in very large numbers of healthy, safe, but afraid human beings across the world.
In this light, and given that you’ve likely experienced this sensation many times without serious consequence, you can take a short step back and declare simply ... “I am feeling.”
This statement does not concern itself with how fast your heart is beating, how nauseous you are, if you will vomit, if you will pass out, or if you will fall down. It only accurately and dryly acknowledges the PROCESS of anxiety and fear in your body.
Anxiety recovery is all about learning to recognize less productive reaction habits and replace them with more productive and recovery focused reaction habits. When we recover we learn to react to and interact with anxiety and fear in a new way. Steering clear of the usual fear spiral by acknowledging and observing rather than evaluating and predicting is a really good first step to take on in this journey.
Using the “I am feeling” statement can give you that little extra space that you need to make new and different choices about how to respond to your anxiety and your fear. It can keep you out of the fear spiral and in a position of influence as you move through your anxious moments with a purpose rather than being dragged around against your will.
When we pair it with “I am thinking”, “I am feeling” can become a solid stepping off point for your new recovery direction. Give them a try. They won’t be automatically easy to use, so be nice to yourself while you learn to use them. But when you get a grip on why these observational statements matter and how to use them, things can start to move in the direction you are hoping to move in.
Tomorrow we’re going to look at why recovery has nothing to do with seeking positivity or good vibes.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about observing the process of anxiety rather than evaluating its content. If you missed that email, go back and re-read it. Remember that an archive of all past Anxious Morning emails can be found at https://theanxiousmorning.email.
One very simple yet powerful statement can start us down he path of observing rather than evaluating our anxiety and fear.
“I am thinking.”
“Why am I thinking? Because I am afraid.”
When you pause for a few seconds and consider this simple fact, you will see that in all cases, it is true. When you are anxious and afraid, you will be thinking. In most cases you will be thinking about all kinds of scary things and what-if scenarios. As scary and disturbing as those thoughts may be, however, the fact remains that you are thinking in those moments.
You have heard me say that thoughts are just thoughts, even when they are scary and unwanted. Anxious thoughts - I have said in the past - have two characteristics. They are very strong, but also very wrong. They are not telling you something. They are not accurately predicting some danger or disaster. They are not premonitions, omens, visions, or manifestations of your intuition.
Anxious thoughts are just thoughts. They are thoughts designed to protect you against a threat, which makes them naturally very STRONG. But since no threat actually exists, this also makes them very WRONG.
If we start from this premise then taking a few seconds to pause, then simply observe that you are thinking when anxious and afraid can be a game changer.
“I am thinking”, objectively and accurately describes the process at play. This simple statement does not concern itself with the content of your thoughts nor does it attempt to interpret or interact with them. It merely acknowledges that your brain is doing what brains do ... you are thinking.
It’s OK to think. Thinking is a normal human experience. It certainly has importance in a human life. But while thinking may be important, this does not make it automatically predictive or even accurate in the way it describes reality. Thoughts can feel important while also being wildly inaccurate and twisted. You are not required to interact with, argue with, or otherwise engage with or respond to inaccurate and twisted thoughts.
Why? Because in simplest terms, when you objectively look at what it happening in any given moment, you are just thinking. That is all.
It may take you a while to come to terms with this idea. I know, it feels like the thoughts are so important and that you must take action to stop them, escape them or prove them wrong. Odds are that has not worked very well for you, so take a few minutes today to consider what you’ve read here. Maybe you really are just thinking, and maybe those thoughts are really only just thoughts. If you look at the track record of reality (rather than your imagination and fear), I think you’ll agree that what I’m saying rings true.
I. Am. Thinking.
Step one in observing the process of anxiety.
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the second observational concept that I found incredibly useful in my recovery. Tomorrow we’ll examine another simple statement:
“I am feeling.”
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
When anxious, we have two choices in terms of how we interpret what is happening.
The obvious choice is to evaluate the content of what we are thinking and feeling in our anxious moments. We examine our anxious sensations and symptoms, trying to figure out where they come from and what they mean. Are they harbingers of doom? Do they signal impending disaster in the form of incapacitation or even death? We engage in frantic inner dialogue with our anxious thoughts, attempting to convince ourselves that nothing bad is going to happen. We try to throw reason and logic at the thoughts, mistakenly believing that we can reason against what is ultimately baseless and therefore irrational fear. Sometimes we try to run from the thoughts and sensations, treating them as if they are truly dangerous and must be stopped or avoided at all costs.
This is what it looks like when you evaluate and judge the content of anxious sensations and thoughts. If you’re reading this email, odds are you are very familiar with this scenario.
There is a second less obvious option. This option does not involve trying to escape, or seek certainty. The second option doesn’t acknowledge any danger at all. It’s not something you are likely considering when anxious, but it is the better option in the long run.
Your second option when anxious is to observe the process in progress without evaluating the content.
Look, there is virtually no way you are going to simply ignore your fear and all the things that come with it. You’re going to have to acknowledge it. But acknowledgement can come in the form of observation rather than judgement. When we observe the process of anxiety, fear, symptoms, and thoughts, we take our best shot at remaining objective and detached from the specific threat we appear to be facing.
We do not try to convince ourselves that our hearts are strong. We do not seek reassurance that our sanity will remain intact. We do not hold on to the shopping cart or run out of the restaurant in response to specific worries, fear, or predicted disasters.
Instead, we stop, pause, and ask ourselves what is happening in the moment rather than attempting to predict and avoid future moments. Recognizing the process of anxiety, observing and acknowledging it, helps to keep us from falling into the fear pit. When we practice doing this - even in the heat of the moment - we stand on firmer ground and are able to more productively move through our anxious and fearful episodes.
Evaluating the content of your anxiety traps you in the fear spiral.
Observing the process of your anxiety keeps you at arms length and allows you to make better recovery focused choices when when you are certain that you can not.
Over the next two days we will examine two key components that go into observing the process of anxiety. Tomorrow we’ll start with one simple statement:
“I am thinking.”
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
Here’s another fun read. I just finished this one. Transfer of Power is a political/action thriller in the Tom Clancy spirit. If you dig stuff like Patriot Games, you might like this one. It had me turning pages eagerly until the end. I might even consider reading more from Vince Flynn.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Every month I will ask one of my friends and frequent collaborators to write a guest entry for The Anxious Morning. Our first guest writer is my friend Dr. Bridget Cooper. Dr. B was gracious enough to contribute on the topic of acceptance, compassion, and accountability. I hope you enjoy her contribution as much I do.
Acceptance, Compassion, and Accountability
By Dr. Bridget Cooper
Do you ever get frustrated by how recovery advice seems so complicated and full of contradictions?
ACCEPTANCE
Take acceptance, for instance. Drew dropped some truth bombs about it the other day, throwing up caution flags about applying it to everything in our lives. Acceptance does offer some recovery process magic, though!
When we accept that we are exactly where we are, despite our desire to be elsewhere, we can stop investing our limited energy in trying to fight what IS and work toward what CAN BE. But we can’t stop there. Acceptance isn’t the destination; it’s a tool on the road to recovery.
Why might we want to start with acceptance when we are drowning in frustration, sadness, anger, hopelessness, confusion, and uncertainty? Because acceptance opens the door to one of the two biggest tools in our toolkits:
COMPASSION
If I want to change something about myself, I need to be compassionate.
In order to get stronger, I have to commit to being kinder to myself.
More times that I care to admit, when I was in the throes of my own pain journey, I often attacked myself:
“I suck. I’m the worst kind of failure. I’m miserable and I can’t fix it. Everyone else seems to have things figured out, but nothing that works for others works for me. I’m clearly doing it all wrong and I’m permanently broken. I can’t be fixed.”
Maybe you can relate? My self-talk was negative and critical. Honestly, it was downright cruel. Shame-based. Inflammatory. Punishing. And wholly unproductive. What could I have done instead?
Show myself a little compassion. Regard myself as worthy of understanding, of kindness, of empathy. ACCEPT that I am exactly where I am AND be COMPASSIONATE about how crappy that feels and how hard it is to feel all those big, ugly feelings.
Then what? Am I suggesting we stop there and just bathe in self-compassion? Eat bonbons on the couch and lose ourselves in avoiding anything that feels uncomfortable and hard?
Nope.
ACCOUNTABILITY
Compassion’s twin is accountability.
In a recovery process, and in life, compassion and accountability must be in balance. We must hold COMPASSION for where we ARE while simultaneously holding ourselves ACCOUNTABLE to do something to be somewhere better. We have to be willing to be uncomfortable and do things that feel awful, knowing that growth is messy and painful, but so worth it.
The next time you’re feeling those all-too-familiar big, ugly feelings, ask yourself two questions:
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How can I show myself compassion for how I’m feeling right now?
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What can I hold myself accountable to do that will move me away from my current situation?
Listen to your answers. Be compassionate enough to feel comforted; accountable enough to take action.
The only surefire way to move from where you are to where you long to be is to:
Accept where you are as what IS.
Show compassion to yourself for the discomfort and distress of that.
Be accountable to yourself to do whatever is necessary to change your circumstances.
Ready? Life’s waiting for you.
Dr. B (aka Dr. Bridget Cooper) is a cage rattler, change strategist, and thought shifter. She’s also a best-selling author of six books on communication, conflict, change, and empowerment. Her latest, “Pain Rebel” offers us a roadmap out of pain with no purpose and into empowerment and abundance. Her ambitious mission is to change the world, one hopeful life at a time. Born onto the welfare system and raised by wolves, she’s made her own success, one broken fingernail at a time.
She knows heartache and hopelessness and she also knows the power of the mind and spirit to carry you upward.
Find Dr B and all her digital goodness at
https://linktr.ee/DrBridgetCooper
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
“Thoughts and feelings are interesting and important, but they should not necessarily dictate what happens next.” - Steven C Hayes, et al, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Second Edition
Humans think. Humans feel. This is, contrary to the belief of many anxious people, not a problem.
Our thoughts and feelings do not exist in a vacuum. They are contextual. They arise in many different situations and for many different reasons. It follows that there is also a wide range of possible responses and reactions to thoughts and feelings based on context.
Thoughts and feelings can be like rain. How we respond to them can be like rain boots. If you walk out the door dressed nicely for work and it is raining very hard, you may choose to go back inside and put on your rain boots, placing your nice work shoes in a bag to protect them.
Now let’s imagine a different day. It’s raining when you go out, but this time you are on your way to a camping trip, so you are wearing hiking boots. Would you run inside and put on rain boots? Maybe. Maybe not.
On a third day, you are heading off to work and it isn’t raining yet, but the sky is very grey and full of clouds. In that situation you would likely consider how long a walk you have, how imminent the rain seems, and what the weather might be on your walk home. You may or may not put on your rain boots depending on the conclusion you draw from your deliberation.
When it comes to rain and boots, you likely see the need for flexibility in how you respond and in what actions you take. The idea of “rain” does not exist as an absolute. You will consider the context surrounding the rain before responding. You would not formulate a rigid plan that instantly demands a “boots response” whenever you see rain, hear the word “rain” or think about rain.
This is often exactly what we do with our thoughts and feelings. Especially when in an anxious state, we can fall into the trap of automatically responding to thoughts and feelings in the same way all the time. We fail to see that sometimes thoughts and feelings mean one thing, and sometimes they mean other things. We forget that sometimes they matter, and sometimes they don’t. We lose sight of the importance of context and flexibility. We declare that what we think and feel must automatically and immediately be responded to and followed based on a literal interpretation at all times without exception.
An anxious thought about death, for example, triggers an instant, urgent, intense anxious response . There is no consideration of context. No understanding of the situation that created that thought. There is no nuanced strategy for how to respond to that thought based on that particular situation. There is only a knee-jerk reaction based on fear and the belief that thoughts and feelings are ALWAYS vitally important.
Sometimes, thoughts and feelings require a response or inform some action. Often, they do not. Often a thought is just a thought that requires no response. It may seem impossible or unthinkable to NOT react immediately to powerful thoughts and feelings. This is common.
First, recognize the context in which your thoughts and feelings exist.
“I am thinking and feeling in an anxious state where thoughts and feelings can seem extra powerful and more important than they really are.”
This can be a useful first step in wrapping your brain around the idea that your thoughts and feelings do not always matter, no matter how strong they may be at any given time. Start here, and we’ll talk more about this as we go along on The Anxious Morning.
We’ll start next week with a few days on observing the process rather than evaluating the content of anxious thoughts and sensations.
“My greatest strength is that I don’t know what I’m doing.” - Tom York (Radiohead)
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
As you move down the anxiety recovery path, you will most certainly hit rough patches. There are ups and downs. Good days and bad. Keep your expectations in check as you go. Be careful about declaring the bad days to be “setbacks” or indicative that you are back to “square one”.
We’ll talk about setbacks and the concept of “square one”, but this morning I want to give a brief overview how to handle the bad days when they happen.
American football teams use playbooks to guide their actions in a game. For any situation, the playbook will indicate what should be done next. Teams practice the plays in the book so they know what they’re doing before they do it. Playbooks exist because when the chips are down and the pressure is on, even the most experienced players and coaches do not want to be making it up as they go along. They recognize that pressure makes it difficult to think clearly and make sound decisions.
What else makes it difficult to think clearly and make sound decisions?
Hint: The answer is “anxiety”. But you already knew that.
In “The Anxious Truth” I wrote quite a bit about having a bad day playbook. I’ve recorded podcast episodes about it. If you’re not familiar with the concept, here’s a quick outline of what your “bad day playbook” might look like. These are the pre-defined actions you can take when struggling, rather than simply retreating, or trying to make it up as you go along.
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Recognize the difficulty, the struggle, and the emotions that come with the bad day. We're not trying to stomp out emotions, so give yourself some time to cry, be angry, vent, and otherwise express what you need to express. That is NOT wrong to do. Just don't let it drag on for an extended period of time.
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Return to your success journal. Do you have one? Are you recording your wins when you have them, no matter how small they are? A bad day will convince you that you are at square one and will never get better. Keeping a success journal means you can go back to it and see in an objective way that you have made progress and that things ARE changing for the better. If you’re not keeping a success journal, consider starting. More on that another day.
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Go back to more basic simple exposures and repeat them. Take a short walk. Call a friend. Watch a movie. Read part of a book. Sing along with a few songs. Draw a picture. Find something that you know you can do even when feeling anxious and afraid, then do that thing. ACTION is needed on a bad day. Go SHOW yourself that a bad day is not a nightmare. This is a far better idea than sitting around for 14 hours thinking about how you feel.
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When you’ve made room to express yourself, then taken some action to show yourself that you’re still OK, circle back at the end of the day and record it. You'll be able to use the record of this bad to help you with future bad days.
“Started off like st. Felt hopeless. Cried for an hour. Went through my journal to remind myself of the changes I’m making. Took a walk through the park. Chatted with a few friends. Made myself dinner. Reminded myself that I am still capable. Nothing bad happened.”
Nobody wants to struggle. Nobody wants to have bad days. But they are a reality in recovery and in life. Having a plan in place for how you will handle those days can make the difference between a bad day and a bad week or two.
Tomorrow we’ll look how we can put our thoughts and feelings into a healthier, more productive place in our lives.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
True story.
Recovery is NOT about changing your anxiety, your symptoms, or your thoughts. Those will generally stay as they are. Recovery is really about changing YOU.
Before you get all worked up thinking that you have to become totally new version of you, don’t worry about that. Recovery is not about totally reinventing yourself. Recovery is about changing how you react to your anxious thoughts and sensations. Recovery is about changing you, but only insofar as how you relate to anxiety and fear.
This might seem like a “WTF?” moment for you when I say this. Most people would assume that the recovery process is about making anxiety go away, or at least quiet down. They would hope that the process of recovery means finding ways to make all those nasty symptoms and thoughts disappear. That is the result that we’re all after, but that is a happy side effect of engaging in this process. That is not the primary goal.
When we spend our time trying to make the anxiety itself change or go away, things get frustrating. If you’re just starting out on this journey, reading this now is going to give you a head start. Now you can point your efforts at the proper target. If you’ve been working the recovery process for some time now and feel like you’re not making real progress or that you continually slide backward, this might explain why this is happening.
When I tell people that I am fully recovered from my anxiety disorders, they usually ask if I ever “get anxiety” or if I still have panic attacks. The answer is yes. I can experience anxious days. I may even experience a panic attack or two in a given year or so.
How can I call myself recovered if this is the case?
Because I simply don’t care.
I experience anxiety like a “normal” person does now. When I get anxious, I recognize it for what it is. I do not see it as cause to sound an alarm and take special evasive action to get rid of it. Even panic is mostly a non-issue for me as a recovered person. A panic attack starts, peaks, subsides, then ends. When it’s over, it’s over. The event does not ruin the rest of my day or cause me to retreat and declare “SETBACK!”.
Did I get this way by wrestling my anxiety into some new, smaller form? No. I did not change my anxiety at all. My heart still races. I still feed edgy and agitated. I still experience that short of breath feeling. I can still experience depersonalization and/or derealization. Those things did not change.
I CHANGED. The anxiety just kept on rolling like biology will do. I formed new habits and reactions. I practiced them. I accepted the exposures and challenges as lessons. I took the lessons in, and adjusted accordingly. Over time, I built a new relationship with all the nasty stuff.
It’s the same as it always has been, but it’s not so nasty any more.
This is the process of recovery. Take a few minutes and let this sink in. When we accept that WE are the variable that must be changed in the equation, we find tremendous power in the process. You can control you. You can make choices. When you stop trying to change the anxiety and start trying to change you, good things happen.
Tomorrow, we’ll look at what a “Bad Day Playbook” should look like and what you can do when you find yourself struggling.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
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! Recovery happens all the time, every day, to people that have struggled with anxiety for almost no time, and 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 hole several times only to fall back in, you might be expected to conclude that you’ve missed your chance and that its 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? Because in the end recovery is based on recognizing reactions, changing them, practicing, and learning new lessons to replace old habits. While our 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’re 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.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
I am trying to read for fun again lately. Right now I’m reading “The Langauge Of Thorns” by Leigh Bardugo. It’s a series of short stories that read a bit like fables. I’m really enjoying it, and even reading along with a friend for extra enjoyment!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Overachiever.
Perfectionist.
Worrier.
Problem solver.
These are common labels we see self-applied in our community. They’re not the only labels, but they are among the most common. People often label themselves with certain traits that tend to drive anxiety, then wonder why they find themselves anxious most or all of the time.
This is an odd thing when we see it. An anxious overachiever knows that the drive to achieve is not really healthy, but will still wear that label as a badge of honor or accomplishment. The chronic worrier will tell us that they are being driven to extremes because they can’t stop worrying, but they will also often confess that they take pride in their worry because they see it as a sign of being a loving or caring person. The anxious problem solver finds themselves mentally exhausted by their problem seeking and solving habit, but will still happily and proudly tell anyone that will listen that they are the “one who keeps things on track”.
Human beings are labeling machines. We LOVE to name things, categorize them, evaluate them, and know about them. We do this as a matter of course. It’s quite a useful trait for us to have as it comes in handy quite often. But like all traits and habits, it can get a bit twisted, especially when we bring this skill to bear on ourselves.
We label ourselves as a way to show the world who we are. More importantly, we label ourselves to try to convince ourselves that we are who we hope to be. We use self-applied labels to gain acceptance, understanding and validation. We sometimes use our labels to gain accommodation, permission, or forgiveness. Our labels can become identifiers, shields, and weapons, all at the same time. We use them for so many purposes that they become prized possessions for us.
We love them ... even when we hate them for what they describe.
Self-labeling is going to happen. We can’t avoid it. But what we can avoid is the trap of thinking that the labels we stick on ourselves are unchanging, immutable, and forever in nature. In most cases, they are not. More accurately, the traits and habits they describe are not.
You may not want to be a worrier or overachiever any more. The good news is that those things can be changed with work over time. The bad news is that changing means that you may have to abandon the label(s) you’ve seen as so precious for so long. That can be scary, and it can shake our sense of who we really are.
That’s OK. Everyone has to find themselves again once in a while. It’s not a crime to abandon your labels, and it is not a disaster to have to do some work on yourself as part of the process.
We’ll talk more about labels, traits and habits down the road, but today I will leave you with one question.
Are you clinging to labels that you’d rather not have to cling to?
Tomorrow we’ll talk about how recovery is possible, no matter how long you’ve struggled.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Utter, utter acceptance.
- Dr. Claire Weekes
We hear the words accept and acceptance every day in our community. The idea that we accept our anxiety rather than fighting it or trying to banish it is central in recovery. Do you remember the first time someone told you that you must accept this monster that has been stalking and torturing you? Did you think they were clearly insane to suggest such a thing?
Don’t worry, most people have that reaction initially. It’s pretty common. What’s also pretty common is to see disbelief become enthusiasm as an anxious person learns, absorbs, and begins to realize that the idea of accepting is in fact better than the idea of fighting. As understanding grows, they may take their first steps toward putting acceptance into action. They go toward the things they fear bit by bit, working hard to face the anxiety and move through it. Things begin to change. They get a glimpse of the reality that recovery really is possible using what seemed to be such a crazy idea.
At this point, the idea of acceptance may morph from an anxiety recovery strategy into a general life philosophy. This is where we start to see things get a bit fuzzy, or even go off the rails a bit. When we find things that work for us, give us hope, and make us feel better, we become enamored with them. We look for ways to use them not just in recovery, but EVERYWHERE.
The idea of acceptance is woven into many philosophies that are then woven into the underpinnings of cognitive behavioral therapies like CBT, DBT, and ACT (which even has “acceptance” in it’s name). But this does not mean that the solution to every problem lies in accepting it and floating through it.
When in an abusive relationship where you are being harmed, we do not accept and float through that.
When facing real danger in the form of an assault, attack, or continued harassment, we do not accept and float through that.
When confronted with major life events like the loss of a loved one, we do not attempt to “accept away” the resulting emotions.
When we are confronted with health issues that require us to make lifestyle changes or other accommodations for our own well-being, we do not choose to just accept and float instead.
Sometimes real action and real change are required. Sometimes immediately. And often we are faced with situations that will demand that we feel strong emotions or experience unpleasant or uncomfortable interactions with others. Acceptance is a powerful tool. I do not deny this. But acceptance is not always passive, and acceptance is certainly not a universal strategy for handling all possible situations that life brings our way.
Acceptance is a concept that we will return to now and then on The Anxious Morning. It can be beautifully simple, and also staggeringly nuanced and complex. It requires discussion and examination.
For today, take a few minutes to check your view of acceptance. You may find that you’ve been making some off-target assumptions about what it is, and where it applies on a wide scale.
On Monday we’ll talk about labels, and how sometimes we cling to them.
“The truth is not always beautiful, nor beautiful words the truth.”
- Lao Tzu (translated)
This one I love so much that I have it tattooed on my left forearm.
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we looked at the common mistake of confusing fearlessness and courage. We saw that being afraid does is not the opposite of being courageous. We learned that being courageous means being afraid but acting anyway.
The idea that a frightened person is automatically not courageous is an error. This error gets corrected quickly when we start to do the work of recovery.
How does recovery correct this error and teach us about the true nature of courage and being courageous? It teaches us this part of the lesson by forcing our hands. At first, we wait to “feel brave” before doing the difficult, scary things that we must do in order to move forward.
We wait. And we wait. Then we wait some more. Yet the feeling we are after never arrives. We stay put, hoping for the day when the fear will subside so we can take those first steps. But the waiting proves fruitless. The fear remains despite the effort we put into wishing it away, reading about recovery, talking about recovery, and asking questions about recovery. We work so hard to intellectually and emotionally soothe the fear so we can move forward, yet we remain stuck. No amount of hoping, wishing, thinking, reading, discussing, or “mindset engineering” helps. The world continues to pass us by, while we remain frozen in place.
Frustration may set in. We may begin to doubt our ability to ever take those first steps, or to recover at all.
“If I can’t be brave - if I’m still so afraid - then how will I ever do this????”
The endless analysis and questioning all leads to one conclusion ...
“Wait. So I have to do this WHILE I am afraid??”
Here, the lesson is revealed. Recovery forces our hands. It does not permit progress via thoughts or words. It demands progress via ACTION. Recovery remains disinterested in our desire to not be afraid, then it gets right up in our faces and tells us that being afraid is not only unavoidable but required. It informs us in no uncertain terms that acting while afraid is the way out.
Damn you, recovery. Why must you be so cold?
One of the great paradoxes of recovery is that we must do things we think we are incapable of doing so we may learn that we are in fact far more capable than we think. This applies to being courageous. When we take that terrifying leap of faith and act even when afraid, the first lesson is courage is revealed to us. It’s only in the doing and the facing of the fear that we find our bravery.
I say often that this is a bad deal, but is the deal that we have. When it comes to finding your courage, this unfortunately rings true.
If you are afraid, and you are feeling that you possess no courage, know that in many ways courage is something we learn more than something we have. We act when afraid, we find success, and our courage grows. This is how it works.
You are not weak. You have merely not practiced flexing your courage muscles.
Tomorrow we’ll look at why acceptance is NOT a universal life strategy.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
There are themes that we will revisit from time to time on The Anxious Morning. One of those themes involves courage and bravery. Today we will take our first look at courage.
The lesson of courage is an important one in recovery. It’s one we learn early on. What is the lesson of courage? What does recovery teach us about being courageous? What do we learn about ourselves and our ability to be brave when the situation requires it?
First, we learn that courage is not defined by the absence of fear. We learn that courage is defined by the actions we take even when afraid. That is where courage shows itself.
Eddie Rickenbacker was the greatest American flying ace in World War I. He spent his time not only flying primitive, inherently dangerous aircraft in the early part of the 20th century, but it did it while being shot at. Repeatedly.
He was by all accounts a very brave man, but he was also afraid. Eddie once said,
“Courage is doing what you are afraid to do. There can be no courage unless you are scared.”
- Eddie Rickenbacker
This is such an important yet misunderstood concept for most. The word “courage” seems to evoke images of steely eyed warriors with ice water in their veins, remaining calm and fearless in the face of certain doom. Steely eyed, maybe. But fearless? Nope. I’m not sure when we started confusing the words courageous and fearless, but clearly we have.
This confusion and the resulting misconception about courage can cause some real problems for an anxious person seeking recovery. Convinced that feeling afraid means having no courage, an anxious person may consistently call themselves weak and will declare that they are simply unable to engage in the process of recovery because they’re not “built that way”.
Every day people will tell me that they are just not as strong or brave as I was in my recovery, but they are wrong. They’re just afraid, and they think that being afraid means they are not strong.
Do you think this about yourself?
Tomorrow we will examine how this misconception surrounding fear and courage gets corrected when we do the work of recovery.
For now, take heart in the idea that being afraid does not mean you are incapable of being brave. Being afraid is merely the first half of being courageous.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we talked about why the people who can most benefit from exposure therapy tend to hate exposure therapy.
When people recoil at the mention of exposure based recovery methods, they are often missing the part where we start with very tiny steps.
If you’ve been stuck on your sofa for the last 6 months, you’re not going to be driven into the woods 100 miles from home and left. That’s not exposure.
Effective exposure incorporates two main principles that can really bring down the “terrifying factor” in a big way. So if you’re imagining that doing exposure work would be like having a continuous panic attack for 6 months, you’re mistaken. Here’s why.
Exposure is based on incremental progress. There is a reason why it is called GRADUATED or GRADED exposure. When treating something like agoraphobia, exposure work can often start with simple visualization exercises, or practicing the act of putting on one’s coat or tying one’s shoes. There is no need to start with “moon shot” exposures. In fact, the vast majority of therapists would simply not allow that. Starting with very small steps is the most effective way to get the recovery ball rolling and to build a strong foundation that more challenging tasks can rest on.
If you’ve ever seen the hilarious movie “What About Bob?”, you know the value of “baby steps”. Baby steps aren’t nearly as scary or difficult as what you are imagining!
Exposure can be anything at all. A good counselor or therapist will understand that you are not really afraid of the supermarket, but rather that you fear the discomfort of anxiety or panic in the supermarket. This being the case, an exposure plan won’t necessarily involve being forced to sit in the frozen food aisle for 40 minutes, but might instead find easier to execute ways to trigger discomfort even in your own home.
Sometimes simply changing a morning routine, or working on modifying the way you talk about your anxiety can be difficult and triggering. These smaller more subtle tasks and modifications are perfectly acceptable, effective, and quite common in the early stages of an exposure based therapy plan.
If a trip alone to a crowded shopping mall makes you want to run screaming from any discussion of exposure therapy methods, consider that sometimes just changing your toothpaste or sleeping with your phone in a different room can be effective and less daunting ways to start you down the path to recovery. Anything can be an exposure. It doesn’t all have to be challenging and terrifying at an epic level.
Of course, a successful exposure based therapy will involve an incremental and systematic increase in the level of difficulty of each exposure over time. This is part of the deal and without it, there is no lasting progress. Starting small and being resourceful and creative in the beginning means that you’ll build a stronger base to stand on, making the larger tasks and challenges you’ll face down the road less difficult and frightening than you are imagining them to be right now.
Exposure therapy is hard. It involves being afraid and uncomfortable intentionally and by design. In reality, though, exposure is not torture.
When properly designed and under the guidance of a good therapist or counselor, exposure can be far more manageable than you think, and will therefore be far more fruitful and rewarding in the long run. Take some time to look past your initial distaste and disapproval of this type of recovery plan. You may find yourself feeling empowered to give it a fair try once you do.
Tomorrow we’ll take a look at the concept of courage and how it’s often misunderstood.
I’m currently reading Atomic Habits, by James Clear. This is a good one! I’m taking a copious amount of notes as I go through each chapter because a whole lot of this wildly popular book will relate directly to the recovery process. Can’t wait to start sharing about it!
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you want to get 61 agoraphobic people to hate you, try telling 100 agoraphobics that the solution to their problem lies in intentionally doing the things they fear most. If you do it right, at least 61 of them will declare you incompetent and will, on some level, hate you.
Mission accomplished.
While at this point there is virtually no valid argument against the effectiveness of exposure based therapies in treating anxiety disorders, the idea of intentionally doing hard and/or scary things to get better remains a very hard sell.
In my experience with literally thousands of people suffering with various anxiety disorders, it is clear that humans will generally try just about anything before intentionally facing fear and discomfort.
Even when presented with the many rewards that await on the other side of fear, a person suffering with panic disorder (for example) will often strongly resist the idea of going toward fear as a potential path to recovery and the “normal” life they so desperately want.
To be sure, the drive to seek safety and comfort is strong in us. I can’t find fault with anyone for wanting to try easier and more gentle ways to solve a serious anxiety problem. Going toward the things we fear, even when we know intellectually that our fear is baseless and irrational, is not natural. We are generally wired to avoid discomfort, not invite it to dinner or see it as a tool. So when someone brings up the idea of facing anxiety triggering tasks and situations rather than running from them or avoiding them, it stands to reason that the reception would be less than warm.
Are exposure and exposure therapy scary? Yes, they are. Without spending too much time delving into the mechanics of intentionally experiencing fear in order to reveal it’s baseless nature (being afraid doesn’t always equal being unsafe), I will freely admit that exposure based therapies are hard work and involve being afraid as a matter of procedure. That being said, however, using exposure as a tool in anxiety disorder recovery is not a nightmare ride on an out of control roller-coaster.
A good exposure plan isn’t as scary as you might immediately think!
Tomorrow we’ll talk about how a good exposure is based on small steps and may be just a little easier to handle than you would expect.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Worry and worrying is a common theme in our community. You may label yourself an excessive worrier or tell me that you are unable to stop worrying about things. Many things. All the things. Worry becomes a trap that for many feels inescapable and creates a somewhat torturous loop.
I have written and said many times that worry is not a plan. Worry is thinking. Worry does not accurately predict or solve specific problems. Worry does not create any specific future nor block a specific future. Worry exists only in our heads. Worry, for the most part, is not required.
“Nothing happens to the wise man against his expectation.”
Seneca
Given my stance on worrying, why would I bring this quote into the picture? It seems to almost encourage worry!
Seneca was one of the great Stoics. I’ve been a practicing Stoic for years without ever really knowing it. Stoic philosophy will arise now and then in The Anxious Morning because there are many recovery lessons to be taken from it. And no, being “stoic” does not mean being devoid of emotion. That’s one of the big misconceptions about Stoicism.
Seneca was not talking about specific worry or rumination. Rather, the Stoics teach us that we should live in accordance with the natural order of things. In the natural order of things, stuff goes wrong. We make plans, then sometimes they break. We want things to go smoothly, then sometimes they do not. Life happens. Sometimes it is not what we want, and it remains largely out of our control. Stoicism teaches us that we must acknowledge this, but also that we must acknowledge that we are inherently capable of handling it if things do go wrong.
In this light, Seneca is not teaching us that we must worry. He is teaching us that we must simply be aware and accepting of the fact that things can, and sometimes do, go wrong. Being aware and accepting of this fact does not require an attempt to think our way out of that. We can’t, no matter how hard we try. Worry does not create or influence the future in any way, so it is a pointless exercise in every sense of the word.
What would Seneca, or any of the great Stoics, do about this inconvenient truth about the Universe we live in? They would take some time to consider in general that things may go wrong. They may make practical plans to address some general conditions. Then they would trust that regardless of what does or does not happen, they will handle it and be OK.
Take a moment to consider your worry habits today. What do you believe about worry? What do you think it is accomplishing? Might you shift from worry to planning, then from planning to disengagement and acceptance? The trick in that sequence is learning to recognize when planning has reached its practical limit. That takes time and requires that we navigate through the discomfort of leaving some plans un-made when our fear is telling us that this is a mistake. But this exercise is well worth it.
You can’t just decide to stop worrying, but you can start to understand the role it plays in your life and it’s limitations. That’s a step in the right direction.
On Monday we’re going to visit the topic of exposure and exposure therapy for the first time.
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
- Benjamin Franklin
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
This morning, as with almost every morning, I sat on the sofa in my usual cross-legged position and intended to sit in silent meditation for 10-15 minutes.
My brain had other ideas.
Sometimes in life we are slogging through the mud to get from point A to point B. There are things on our minds that are stressful, or that cause us emotional upset or distress. The challenges we face at those times can sometimes drag us into worry, overthinking, or rumination traps. We can easily become consumed with our problems. We can become overwhelmed by our discomfort and our fear. When this happens we often find ourselves focused intently on the discomfort, the fear, and the thoughts that drive them and fan those flames.
These are the times when a strong meditation practice can really help. We get glued to our thoughts and how we feel. Sitting for a few minutes to practice detaching from the negative or unpleasant chatter in our minds helps us more effectively and confidently navigate through it. During these times meditation makes undesirable things easier to handle.
But what happens when the chatter isn’t based on fear, worry, or rumination. What happens when there is no discomfort?
I am currently working on quite a few excellent projects, including the launch of this email newsletter that you’re reading right now. I really love what I am doing, and I am excited about it. There is chatter in my mind now, but this is positive chatter. I am not being driven by fear or avoidance. I am not building catastrophic stories in my head. I am feeling no anxiety or worry over my thoughts.
Do I need to detach from that?
Must I try to slow the stream of my thoughts or make “space” between me and them?
I would argue that I most certainly do not!
The context around our meditation practice matters. When we sit to practice, we are often going against the grain. In recovery we are going against what most of us would call a negative grain. We’re trying to navigate through a negative context, using our meditation to help us do that.
But what if the grain is positive? Must we go against that to detach and focus elsewhere? My focus this morning was exactly where I wanted it to be, and for all the right reasons. Still I tried to sit and meditate by focusing on my breath. Instead I spent the entire time thinking about The Anxious Morning and what I wanted to write today. I should have just opened my iPad and started writing. Forcing meditation was not required in any way.
When you find yourself in a positive context where you are genuinely excited about something and are enjoying thinking about it, then think about it! Anxiety gives thinking and feeling a bad reputation. But thinking and feeling are not always automatically bad. If thinking and feeling is working for you in a given context because it is moving you toward what you want (rather than just way from what you fear), then think and feel. Go for it!
We do not always have to meditate against the grain.
Tomorrow we’ll take our first look at worry and worrying.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Stoic philosophy is something that speaks to me. More than that, you can draw a direct line from the words of the great stoics to the emergence of cognitive behavioral therapy in the 1950s and 60s. Once in a while I’ll bring some of that here for discussion.
”There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living; there is nothing harder to learn.”
Seneca
Seneca is reminding us here to be mindful of where we are placing our attention and expending our energy. Are we staying “busy”, or are we actually living? For many people, busy takes precedence over living most of the time. Anxious people are no exception. Your anxiety is likely keeping you cemented in the busy zone.
But what does busy look like for for us?
To the rest of the world, anxious, avoidant people don’t look busy at all. An anxious person may spend most of the time at home or in a limited number of safe places doing a limited number of safe things. But this person is nonetheless busy in a different way. This anxious person is occupied during every waking moment by thinking, scanning, evaluating, guarding, dreading, remembering and anticipating. This hidden busyness of the mind is exhausting and will suck all the air out of the room, all the time.
Anxious busyness can also be clear and obvious. For some anxious people being busy becomes a purpose all on its own. Hurrying from task to task and place to place in an attempt to outrun thoughts, emotions, and anxiety symptoms makes them some of the busiest people on the planet, thought not necessarily the most productive for obvious reasons. Choosing to be overtly and literally busy during every waking minute as an escape and avoidance strategy is also quite exhausting and all consuming.
Where then is there space for this “living” that Seneca is concerned about?
What does living even mean for us?
In the context of anxiety recovery, we can interpret “living” as the act of engaging with the things that we want to do. Moving toward and embracing the things that matter and hold value to us without regard to fear or anxiety. In an anxious state this represents a challenge. Doing “normal” things at a “normal” pace will induce discomfort, so often the anxious person will choose to retreat from these challenges. Remaining anxiously busy - rather than actually living - becomes the default.
Seneca recognizes this universal human challenge when he tells us that living is the hardest thing to learn. If you are stuck in a state of anxious busyness, longing to actually live your life, do not despair. You are not alone. Your predicament does not indicate that you are broken or unfixable. You are delightfully human in this respect. For the anxious person, the challenge of learning to live may be more literal and basic in its actions. But at its core is the same challenge we all face from time to time throughout our lives.
Take a few minutes today to consider how you may be choosing anxious busyness over living. What does that look like in your life? What would living look like in comparison? What steps can you take - however small to start - that can start to move you from busy to alive?
Tomorrow we’ll talk about the idea of “meditating against the grain.”
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yesterday we looked at breaking the habit of talking about your anxiety all the time. Learning to remain silent when you want to speak your fear repetitively is part of the recovery process.
This causes confusion in some cases. People hear me say this, and they respond in disbelief. Sometimes people hear me saying that they must never express themselves. This is not what I am saying.
At no point is anxiety recovery about hiding or suppressing your emotions, ideas, or opinions. I would never teach that or encourage that. We are not trying to be robots, just better, healthier humans. You are allowed to express yourself, and encouraged to do so.
What I AM saying is that you must be careful about how you define “expressing yourself”. Being afraid of your heartbeat for the 17th day in a row and speaking that fear to your partner again is not part of that definition. Insisting to your online support group that it feels like you are going to pass out - when you never do - is not a healthy form of expression. That is maladaptive expression that fuels and cements the disorder. Speaking irrational fear over and over does not help us, and it does not fall into the realm of productive expression of who we are.
When someone says something hurtful to you, speak up. When you lose a loved one and need to express your grief, speak up. When you are frustrated at work because of politics and bureaucracy, speak up. When you can’t watch the New York Jets lose another game and you want to scream, speak up!
But when you want to tell me for the 47th time in 22 days that it feels like you are about to go insane, take a break for a minute. Think about what that statement is going to accomplish. Do your best to acknowledge that it’s not helping you to do that. Try to remain silent. Show yourself that you can navigate through that fear without asking the world to carry it or soothe it for you.
See the difference?
You may be resistant to this idea. This is quite common. If you are having a hard time hearing what I am saying, just think about it. Take some time today to think about how you may be defending a maladaptive repeated speaking of fear as being some form of required “self expression”. Consider the common but unhelpful habit of insisting that we must “vent” our fear all the time to get better. Be honest with yourself in assessing how this is all working out for you. Is it helping you, or just reminding you that you are unwell and reinforcing the belief that this is all just too scary or too hard.
Sometimes recovery is about taking a brutal look at our habits so we can begin to change them for the better.
Tomorrow we’ll look at the idea of being anxiously busy rather than actually living.
I’ve been reading “Feeling Good”, by Dr. David Burns. Feeling Good has been in print since 1980 and it’s often referred to as the self-help bible for depression. I’ve struggled with depression on several occasions and I know it’s a big topic in the community. Some of the book is a bit dated in terms of being more old school CBT, but there’s still a lot of good stuff in there that I’ll share from time to time.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
I often talk and write about being mindful of your habits when it comes to talking about your anxiety.
There are some anxious people that default to silence. They withdraw, isolate, and never talk about how they feel. My experience tells me that they are in the minority, or at least that the nature of building an online community based on anxiety disorders self-selects for people more likely to want to talk about all of this.
If you’re reading this email, I’m guessing that you want to talk about how you feel. You want to tell people how you feel. You want to ask if anyone else feels that way. You may want to ask me why you feel that way and what you can do about it. You may find yourself talking about this most of the time. This does seem logical since you’re probably also thinking about this most of the time. If you’re thinking about it, you’re going to want to talk about it. It makes sense.
The problem here is that talking about how you feel all the time is not terribly productive. When we’re hyper focused on the sensations of anxiety and the thoughts that come with it, talking about them in an effort to solve them, stop them, or otherwise soothe them has the opposite effect.
We become fixated even more intently on them. That’s not even the worst part. The worst part is that when we talk about our anxiety constantly, we make it the most important thing in the room all the time.
Recovery is about NOT making anxiety the most important thing, even when it is screaming at you to pay attention to it. We learn to detach from it and let it be. Recovery is about learning that you can be capable and functional even while anxious because anxiety does not have to be the center of the universe at all times.
This means we have to catch ourselves when we fall into the habit of speaking our fears out loud repeatedly, or talking continuously about how we feel. This is not easy, but part of recovery is learning to change our habit of anxious words.
Remaining silent when our fear tells us to speak so that we may be saved is so difficult, but it is an important part of moving forward.
Tomorrow we’ll talk about the difference between repeated speaking of fear, and expressing yourself in a healthy way.
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
On some days, I not only felt like I was failing, but I felt like a failure.
Sometimes in these emails I will share stories from my own anxiety journey. I feel strongly that I can’t suggest action that I have not taken myself, and it helps me feel like everything I went through was not for nothing.
Everyone fails. We all make mistakes and do things that don’t turn out the way we want them to. I fail. But by nature I am not one to fail quietly. When I fail, I don’t go down easily. Maybe this is a feature of my personality. Maybe this is a flaw. It depends on the day.
When I struggling with anxiety and depression, often felt like I was failing. The worst part of feeling that failure was that anxiety made me feel like I was failing easily and passively. I was giving up too easily. I was retreating and letting things happen to me rather than making them happen.
I really felt pretty lost on some days. Like I had completely lost my grip on “me”. It was a really horrible feeling. When you are generally bold in action and proactive in the way you approach life, sitting on the sofa afraid to go get milk and eggs when your wife asks for help is not where you want to be.
The anxiety and the fear had taken something from me. That was not Drew sitting on that sofa. I don’t know who it was, but I did not like him.
Fear is hard for everyone. I was certainly afraid. I’m totally OK telling you that. In fact, I was afraid all the damn time if I’m being honest. But really, the worst part was not the fear. It was that feeling of passive failure. And the worst part of the worst part was that for a long time I would respond to the feeling of passive failure with more passivity. I would sit and think about it, ruminate on it, hate it, and get more and more upset with myself. I would go over all the ways I could fix it, but that was only happening in my head while I continued to sit on the sofa. Then my passive failure to fix my passive failure problem made me feel even worse.
These were the moments when feeling like I was failing became feeling like a failure. Those were not good moments.
So what’s the point of the story? The point is to simply tell you that if you are feeling like a failure, I get you. There’s more to this than just panic attacks and intrusive thoughts. There are emotions, and feeling this sense of failure will trigger a bunch of them. If you’re feeling them today, that’s OK. I’ve been there.
Do your best to take a small step or two in the right direction, and tomorrow will be another day. This will not be forever. You are not alone in what you feel. I - and a very large community of lovely humans - will cheer for you when you are down.
Sometimes, we just need to hear that.
On Monday we’ll talk about the habit of always speaking your fear out loud.
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.”
- Winston Churchill
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
- Viktor Frankl
You may want to tell me that when anxiety or panic overwhelm you that you have no choice but to obey its demands. When panic tells you to call for help, you must call for help. When anxiety tells you to run from the supermarket and go home to be safe, you must do what it says. You know these actions are not helping you, but you will assert that you have no choice and that you are compelled to follow the orders that your anxious brain barks at you.
This is not true. Between the initial flash of fear, and your response, there is a space. It is admittedly a tiny space, stretching maybe only a few seconds at the most. But the space does exist. Recognizing that space is a huge part of moving in a new more productive recovery direction.
Every day in my community I hear people tell me that they have no choice when afraid, that logic “goes out the window”.
They will say that they simply must do what panic and anxiety tell them to do, even though they know this is keeping them stuck. They are adamant about this, and often get offended and angry when I suggest otherwise.
Curiously, every day I also hear people come back, after the benefit of a few weeks or months of recovery work, to acknowledge that the space between fear and responses does in fact exist. These people were also initially adamant about not being able to resist the commands of anxiety and fear, but they learn over time that they actually could.
What changed for these folks?
Accepting that the tiny space between stimulus and response does exist was the first change. Accepting that in this space is choice, and therefore power, was the second change.
The third change was in the hard work needed to learn how to exercise that choice and find that power. That’s the real heavy lifting that we talk about all the time, but you can’t start that part until you are willing to accept that in those few seconds between panic and retreat there is a choice to be made and that you are responsible for making it and powerful enough to make it.
Recovery does not happen in big chunks. It happens in tiny bites. And really, it happens bite by bite each time we move into that tiny space between fear and response and make new choices. These are difficult choices that require understanding, commitment, and courage, but they are the choices that set us free in the long term.
Recovery happens a few seconds at a time in that tiny space where we find our power and our strength. Take a few minutes today and think about that.
You may find that tiny space terrifying, and therefore want to insist that it is operationally non-existent for you, but consider that being afraid of a thing does not make that thing irrelevant or useless.
On the contrary. In recovery, the things we fear lead us to huge reserves of power and confidence. Oddly, those huge reserves are held in the tiniest of spaces. Strange how that works, isn’t it?
Tomorrow I’ll talk about how my anxiety felt like failure.
My friend and regular collaborator Dr. Bridget Cooper writes and speaks wonderfully on this topic. I want to give her credit for sparking this entry, and I encourage you to visit her and her work at drbridgetcooper.com.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
US Navy Admiral William McRaven said, “If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
He was right. We’re not Navy SEALS. This is not the military. We are addressing the topic of anxiety, not warfare. But what Admiral McRaven said can help us make better choices.
When you start your day with a challenge, no matter how small it may be, you will often find yourself in a noticeably better place come afternoon and evening. One small action first thing in the morning can help bring about bigger and more consistent changes later.
Why?
Starting your day by meeting even a small challenge sets the tone for the rest of the day. Laying in bed thinking about how you feel is not helping you. Get up, put your feet on the floor, and go brush your teeth, no matter how you feel. Do not start your day just thinking about how you can’t possibly handle anything. Start your day by actually handling something, even if that something is just basic dental hygiene. SHOW yourself that you are capable of doing this small task when you wake up.
Dread and anticipation are often the main themes of an anxious morning. Dread and anticipation light the anxiety fire. Starting the day by meeting a challenge takes the heat out of that fire. Taking some positive action first thing in the morning helps to break the anticipation and dread cycle.
Get up, get yourself ready, then go do your first exposure or handle your first life task, even when you hate how you feel while you do it. This is far better than waiting, thinking, and despairing over what lies ahead.
Having a purpose when you open your eyes matters. Having a pre-defined plan to execute matters even more. A person in the grips of anxiety and panic is often confused, unsure of themselves, and has difficulty making decisions and choices. An unstructured day that starts with a totally blank slate often adds to anxiety and fear when the anxious person can’t think of what they should do next to feel better. Building structure into your day starting with a pre-planned morning action means you don’t have decide what to do when you wake up and you’re feeling afraid and unsure.
Meet a challenge to start your day, even though that is hard to do.
It often makes for a better day where you feel more confident and in control. It can lead to being more satisfied at the end of that day. You’ll likely find yourself a bit more motivated and less susceptible to negative judgment about your progress. Even if you have a less than desirable afternoon or evening, you will be able to counter that with the knowledge that you were moving forward for at least part of the day rather than passively wishing and hoping another full day away. If things get bumpy - and they often will - starting the morning off right helps you to look forward with hope and some sense of power and influence rather than with despair.
The morning matters. Use it to your advantage as best you can.
Tomorrow we’ll look at the power you can find in a very small space.
(I wrote about the morning effect in chapter 5 of The Anxious Truth - A Step By Step Guide To Understanding And Overcoming Anxiety, Panic, and Agoraphobia)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
If you struggle with panic attacks or panic disorder, you may be gripped by a very common fear. You may be afraid that one day you will have a panic attack so big, so intense, so severe, that there is permanent impact. The most common variations on this theme revolve around panic or high anxiety that simply never ends, or that trigger a psychotic break or slide into insanity.
This is the “ultimate” panic attack. Do you fear this ultimate panic attack? Are you afraid that you will wind up in a state of insanity of permanent torture?
So many members of our community harbor this fear. So many live each day in a state of hyper vigilance, always scanning the horizon for the approaching threat. Bracing. Holding on. Knowing that surrender and acceptance is the way, but unable to bring themselves to truly let go for fear that they will be overtaken once and for all by the ultimate panic attack.
Let me give you some good news. No such panic attack exists. It never has. There is no such thing as permanent panic, and no direct path from a panic attack to a state of insanity or psychosis. I am aware that at its peak, panic will often have you believing that you are mere nanoseconds from “snapping” and completely losing control of your mind and/or body. I know how that feels. It is quite terrifying, however that fear does not have any connection to any real potential outcome.
“Ultimate” panic that never ends or drives one to insanity simply does not exist, no matter how much you fear that it does or feel that you are inches away from it.
I can tell you this 1000 times over the next four days. You may believe me and feel relieved temporarily, but as it is so often said in this community, “When the panic hits, everything I know goes out the window.” The minute you sense signs or signals of rising anxiety, you will forget what I told you and your fear will return.
So how can you finally believe once and for all that your fear of the “ultimate” panic attack is unfounded?
Sadly, you will believe this once you let ultimate panic come and get you, then experience repeated outcomes where it does not. Let go. Allow the worst outcome. Then it never happens. Repeat. Over time you will finally believe that there is no such thing as the ultimate panic attack and you will lose the belief and fear of permanent torture or insanity.
Right about now you’re probably cursing me under your breath.
“I KNEW he was going to say that!”
Of course I was. But that is always the way.
I’m guessing that the next question in your head is,
“OK Drew, but HOW do I let go, surrender, and accept the worst outcome?”
That is what The Anxious Morning is all about. As we go down this path together there will be many lessons on many different topics that ultimately all converge at “How?”
“How?” is a short question with a very long answer. Long enough and complex enough that we’ll do our best to answer it with at least 259 more short tips, lessons, essays, thoughts, and questions for us to read and ponder together in 2022.
Tomorrow we’ll look at why the morning is full of power and promise, regardless of what your anxiety is telling you.
Every Tuesday I’ll let you know what I’m currently reading. I read quite a bit on psychology and philosophy, but really you never know what I’ll have in my Kindle or Audible libraries! If you’re on Goodreads and into books, you can follow/friend me over there. Here’s a link to my “currently reading” shelf. I’d love to see what you’re reading and what you recommend.
I’m currently listening to Steal Like An Artist, Show Your Work, and Keep Going by Austin Kleon. I love creativity and creative people so these easy, entertaining books by a super creative guy are really awesome. Check em out if you’re into that sort of thing. :-)
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
This was the worst day of the year for me.
The Anxious Morning could really only launch today. There is poetry and justice in the fact our first edition is being published on January 3.
This is the day that the holiday break officially ends for most of the world and we return to reality. Did I mention that it was the worst day of the year? I did, right?
For a struggling agoraphobic, a 7-10 day respite where the world places no demands on you and it is permissible to hide in your house all the time is like a gift sent from above.
You mean avoidance is OK now? I can spend a week or so at a safe distance from all my panic triggers and all the scary things?
Sign me up!
The sense of relief at the start of the break was awesome. But after a few days, I would become aware that what I was doing was likely not healthy. I knew that not leaving the house for three straight days was not OK, but I did nothing about it. I would stick my head between the cushions and deny reality. It was was only December 28. I still had time!
Come New Year’s Eve, the end of the break was looming before me. Depression would start to creep in. Dread would start to build. It was almost over.
My avoidance and retreat “hall pass” was going to expire in a few days and there was nothing I could to do stop it.
The break would end, and I would start a new year in a dark place, feeling worse than I did before. Worse about everything. I felt like I was failing (more on that in a few days). I was on a rollercoaster of panic, anxious moments and really low moods. I was afraid of pretty much everything in front of me, and I was incredibly unhappy about all of it.
How could such a great thing turn into this? I would ask that every year, yet I would repeat the same mistake every year. The first 7-10 days of January was a mighty struggle. The whole world was in “new year, new me!” mode, but I had taken a giant step backwards. Everything - including my own emotional state - was a challenge. By January 10, I would be exhausted just from trying to get back to my “normal” state of anxiety and avoidance.
That was simply no way to live.
If you’re struggling today like I used to struggle back then, know that you’re not the only one and that it doesn’t have to be like this forever.
This is not the worst day of the year for me any more. Things are different now. As we launch The Anxious Morning together today, I am hopeful that if I do a good job and things work out just right, maybe I can contribute to things being different for you too. Maybe today will be your last “worst day of the year”.
I’m so glad that you’re here at the start of The Anxious Morning. I’m excited about what we have ahead of us.
Tomorrow morning we’ll ask the question, “Does the ultimate panic attack exist?”
Let’s go!
Hey it’s Monday and that means that today at 2 PM Eastern I’ll do my “Recovery Monday” livestream on YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. Come join in!
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Yes, I am aware that we were supposed to run the first edition of The Anxious Morning on Monday, but I’m impatient so here we are with a special bonus edition.
Happy New Year! 🙂
January 1 can be a day of reflection, remembering, evaluating, and planning. While I’m not a big fan of making it a special thing or hyping it up, I can totally understand this.
The New Year can also bring some challenges for an anxious person. The whole “New Year New You” narrative can be difficult to handle. On one hand it brings hope, optimism and motivation, but lurking behind all that can be some traps.
In our community, thinking tends to get sticky. Emotions and thoughts become far heavier than they otherwise would be. Almost anything can morph into fear, disappointment, or despair. In this context well-intentioned narratives like “new year new you” can get twisted. We should remain mindful of the propensity to interpret this kind of message in counterproductive ways that can lead to unrealistic recovery expectations, disappointment, or even accidental avoidance habits.
How do we do this? How do we give ourselves the best chance of moving forward in the new year without winding up disappointed, discouraged, and seeing ourselves as failing yet again?
Self-Judgment
First and foremost, consider that do not really need a NEW you this year. The current you is fine. You are not broken. You don’t need to rebuild yourself.
You just need to learn new ways to interact with yourself so you can start to see how capable you really are.
I know that your social media scroll will tell you that “new you” is the thing today, but let’s start from the premise that you do not need be replaced with a new version of yourself. That’s needless negative self-judgment that can set the stage for bad outcomes.
Unrealistic Expectations
The narrative around “new year new you” is often laced with idealized references to amazing, life-changing transformative experiences that look great in pictures, but are kinda unrealistic or at least exaggerated. Those images and ideals not real. They are romanticized and exaggerated because we LOVE that stuff when we’re in the endless scroll of doom every day.
In reality, “new year new you” might simply mean getting up and brushing your teeth in the morning rather than laying under the covers ruminating and dreading.
That totally counts! “New you” happens in tiny, gritty steps that rarely involve good lighting, and are not good social media content. Please keep this in mind.
Accidental Avoidance
Reading more books and listening to more podcasts is a common “new year new you” theme I see. You know what else I see? Potential avoidance. Why? Because more reading and listening will FEEL like you’re doing recovery. But unless there’s some real work being done alongside that, it can lead to nowhere in a hurry. This can happen even more easily when your social media feed is patting you on the back for that reading and listening. It creates the illusion that you are recovering. If you’re enjoying the books and the podcasts, that’s awesome. But if you’re enjoying them and still refusing to go to the supermarket without a safe person, then that can be problematic if not acknowledged.
The Disappointment Trap
Finally, getting swept up by grand, dramatic changes made on January 1 can lead to disappointment quickly, and that leads to more negative self judgment for no good reason.
Recovery is an incremental process. It’s not social media worthy in most cases. It’s up and down. It’s day by day and hour by hour. It’s not always smooth. Sometimes it goes fast. Sometimes it goes slow. But most important, recovery is granular. It’s not grand and it does not lend itself to the idea of special days full of promise and epiphanies that change our lives in big shifts.
Expectations matter. Do not let yours get lead astray.
Take the day to reflect, revisit, plan, remember, and use it for what it is. But also acknowledge that you have work to do, that it will go at its own pace outside the bounds of a calendar or demand for rebirth or transformation, and that you are capable of doing all of it whenever and however it looks.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com
Welcome to The Anxious Morning. Every weekday morning we’ll take a few minutes to go over important lessons that you can use in your anxiety recovery journey. The Anxious Morning brings you support, education, inspiration, encouragement, and empowerment.
Read or listen quietly on your own time, free of the endless noisy scroll of social media. Use the information to help you along the path to recovery from panic disorder, agoraphobia and other anxiety problems.
For more, visit us at theanxiousmorning.com
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This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com