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Do you fear your emotions? Do you see them as threats, or indicators that you are failing in recovery, or destined for disaster? Do you attempt to escape from your emotions or avoid them? You are not alone.
For full show notes on this episode, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/112
Emotions Are A Natural Part of Being Human
Every human being experiences emotions. Some are great. Some really suck. But all are normal and natural. While we may not always like our emotions, we do not have to fear them or see them as disaster. Regardless of what you think about your emotions, if you are reading this right now, then you have handled and navigated every last thing life has ever thrown at you. You have handled them and you are still here. You can handle emotions and emotional waves too! You are capable of this.
Is It The Emotion, Or The Reaction To The Emotion?
While all humans experience emotions, and often don't like them, not everyone FEARS emotions. Experiencing emotions is not a problem. Being afraid of emotions is a problem. If you see even just feeling some emotions as a failure or a disaster, you have developed this problem. This happens when we lose sight of the emotion itself and its surrounding context. Rather than dealing with the emotion or the situation that triggered it, we tag the emotion as a nightmare, put it aside, then write an entire additional fear-based story about the emotion. We construct elaborate tales detailing what the emotion says about you, what it means, why it proves that you are weak or broken, and how it must indicate that you are failing in recovery and doomed to wind up forever ill, depressed, or stuck.
So is the problem the emotion, or your reaction to the emotion? Are you dealing with your emotions, or are you really dealing with the judgements and stories you add to your emotions? It's very important to see the difference and to recognize when you're adding needless additional burden (judgements, interpretations and stories) to a natural and temporary burden (emotions and emotional waves).
We can address this reaction to emotions using the same tools and concepts that we use to address our physical and cognitive panic and anxiety symptoms. Unlike our panic and anxiety symptoms, emotions are valid. They do matter. But that doesn't mean that they are more than they are. They are just emotions and you are capable of feeling them and handling them directly, however difficult that may be. When you pile judgements and fear-based stories on top of those emotions, you are making things harder on yourself than they need to be.
My Links
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https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
You may think that you are afraid of an ever-growing list of places, tasks, people and situations. You are not. There is only ONE FEAR driving your anxiety disorder - fear of how you feel and what you think. Acknowledging the one fear can clarify and simplify your recovery path so let's talk about it.For full show notes on this episode visit https://theanxioustruth.com/111My Links:https://theanxioustruth.com/linksSupport The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
My friend Nick Maynard is an almost textbook example of how to recovery from panic disorder and agoraphobia. At one point Nick was in a panic on the ground in a Costco on Black Friday. He was then trapped in his bedroom for weeks, unable to even get a glass of water. But Nick changed direction and started putting in the hard work. Today he's back on his feet, excelling at work, and living a normal life again. Thank you Nick, for taking the time to share your story today!
My Comprehensive Anxiety Recovery Guide Is Here!
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https://theanxioustruth.com/recoveryguide
My Links
------------------------------
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
For full show notes and a link to download this tutorial as an MP3, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/109.
HOW DO I RELAX, BREATHE, AND FOCUS????
I've been asked to do something like this for a while. With some extra nudging from a friend, I took 15 minutes to record this little beginner's relax, breathe, and focus tutorial. This isn't my usual thing, but hopefully, it will be of use.
This episode will take you through the basics of what it looks like and feels like when you surrender to anxiety or panic. Instead of fighting and fleeing, this is how we relax into the fear, experience it, and let it pass. This is how we learn that we do not have to fear our anxiety and the sensations that come along with it. The basics are relaxing of your body, breathing into your belly, and focusing on your breath rather than on the symptoms and thoughts. This is a difficult skill to learn, and it will NOT make your anxiety go away instantly. Please do not use is a calming tool or an escape tool to make your panic attacks end. Use it as a LEARNING tool. Understand that even if you did none of this, your panic attacks would end. This is critical!
My Links
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
This Is Chapter/Lesson 3.6 from my book "The Anxious Truth". I wanted to release a chapter to give everyone a look at what the book is all about. This is likely the most important chapter I wrote, so it seemed the the best choice to release as a preview.
For the full written chapter preview, go to theanxioustruth.com/108
We’ve seen the three reactions that are driving that faulty brain link between fear and danger. The reaction before, the reaction during, and the reaction after. Now that we understand how they work; we can look at how to change them into something more straightforward and more effective. All by doing NOTHING.
When we change our reactions to anxiety, panic, and fear before, during, and after episodes of high anxiety or panic, we set our brains on a new path. We weaken incorrect links and build new productive and positive connections. We leave wrong answers and bad cognitive habits behind while learning proper lessons and developing good brain habits.
Changing our reactions is a simple idea yet challenging to put into practice. When you find your courage, get determined, and do the work, you will learn it will be well worth it.
Then the day will come—maybe sooner than you think—when you suddenly find yourself not gripped by fear and worry all the time. That will be a great day. I promise it will.
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
Many people are struggling with letting go of anger, guilt and bitterness over time lost to anxiety. Learning to "forgive yourself" can be difficult. While struggling with an anxiety disorder is certainly impactful in a big way, it is possible to learn how to change the habit of blaming yourself and revisiting guilt, anger, or regret over those struggles. It is possible to learn how to leave the past behind us.
For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/107
My Linkshttps://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
(For full show notes on this episode, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/106)
Today I was joined by my friend Monique Koven to discuss the concept of feeling safe and secure. Many victims of past trauma or abuse find that anxiety recovery is made more difficult because they are unable to ever feel safe or secure. This is understandable, and it absolutely adds a wrinkle to the recovery process that must be addressed for these people.
While your past experiences may have taught you that were not safe or secure, this does not mean that you are doomed to forever feel vulnerable in your life. Abuse and abandonment may have left you with nobody to turn to for support when you needed it. You may have taken those situations and carried them forward to conclude that you are always vulnerable and never on secure footing. You may find it difficult to ever really feel safe.
For the person wrestling with an inability to ever feel safe or secure, acknowledging why this happens is important. From there, it becomes important to understand and accept that just knowing and validating is rarely enough to remedy the situation. There are concrete steps - actions - you can take to teach yourself that the world is not inherently dangerous, that you are capable of feeling safe even on your own, and that it is possible to build nurturing relationships that provide the support you need at at times.
Find Monique online at cptsdcoach.com or on Facebook and Instagram as "cptsdcoach".
My Links
------------
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
For many, the fear of driving on the freeway, highway, or motorway is a big problem. Often I am told that this seems and impossible task. A typical person facing this challenge will insist that driving at high speed on a congested highway, involves real danger. They are convinces that disaster is imminent.
This is not true, and represents yet another fear driven distortion, courtesy of our old friend anxiety. While highway driving is in fact more risky for every driver (regardless of anxiety), experiencing anxiety does not instantly rob you of the ability to operate a vehicle. If you are reading this, you have survived every instance where you have experienced anxiety or panic while on a highway. You didn't "almost crash" or "almost die" or "almost pass out". You controlled your car, even when afraid and uncomfortable, and did what needed to be done to remain safe.
What you thought was going to happen did not happen, so you must learn to stop judging the situation based on the fear driven story you have in your head about certain disaster. Instead, judge the situation based on your actual experiences and the positive outcomes you've had.
Thank you to my friend Jay for both suggesting the topic, and for recording this one with me. This is the audio portion of a live video we did in my Facebook group, so you'll hear us discuss the topic, then take questions from group members that were watching while we chatted.
My Links
-----------
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Intro/Outro Music : Afterglow by Ben Drake (https://facebook.com/BenDrakeMusic)
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
Today I was fortunate to have spent 25 minutes on a Zoom call with Dr. Ingvard Wilhemsen, a respected expert in the field of health anxiety and hypochondriasis from the University of Bergen in Norway. We discussed the basis of health anxiety, what drives it, the underlying principles of uncertainty and safety, and some of the effective methods he uses when treating patients with health anxiety.
Dr Willhemsen has been kind enough to offer to do a follow-up episode with us, so if you have questions or comments, please follow the links to any of my social media channels. Feel free to reach out with whatever questions you might have and I'll do my best to get them answered in a coming episode.
To learn more about Dr. Wilhelmsen or any of his work, you can Google him here.
My Links
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
Send in a question or comment via text.
Inspired by a post I made on Instagram, here's 25 minutes or so on the difference between feeling OK and actually being OK. The highlights:
You do not have to feel OK, to be OK. You must be aware of the scanning and evaluating habit, and you must be aware of the mistake of equating how you feel to what you are capable of doing. You must ACT even when feeling less than OK. You must show yourself through experience that thinking that you are not OK is incorrect, and that you are able to manage and live a normal day even when feeling badly. The experience of doing this repeatedly will help eliminate the mistake you have been making and break the scanning/evaluating habit you have formed.
Remember, action is required. You cannot simply choose to believe that you are OK, you must ACT to show yourself that you are really OK regardless of how you feel.
Going through this process will teach you lessons about tolerating and managing the distress that are bound to impact every one of us from time to time. These are lessons that go far beyond anxiety recovery and will serve you will forever.
My Links:
https://theanxioustruth.com/links
Intro/Outro Music:
"Afterglow" by Ben Drake (https://facebook.com/BenDrakeMusic)
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!
Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.
Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.
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