The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast

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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

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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:

• Your anxiety disorder has you in the bad habit of scanning and evaluating your state all the time
• Your anxiety disorder has you interpreting how you feel through a distorted lens of fear and misguided threat assessment
• You then make the mistake of nailing your assessment of how you FEEL, so your assessment of what you are capable of doing

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.

Send in a question or comment via text.

For full show notes on this episode:  https://theanxioustruth.com/102

One of the two most common fears of anxiety and panic sufferers is the fear of going insane.  Losing one's mind.  Going crazy.  Many worry that they will "lose it", or "snap" when at the height of panic or extreme anxiety.  This is a difficult fear to face, but it remains an irrational fear that never comes true.

The fear of going insane or losing one's mind is no different than the fear of dying, or passing out, or vomiting, or anything else.  The fear that you may lose your mind because of anxiety and panic is just another in the long line of irrational, distorted, magnified fears that come along with anxiety disorders.  Your catastrophe (going insane) is not special and does not warrant any special approach or technique to address.

Episode Topics:

• There Is No "Sanity Control" To Worry About
• Anxiety and Panic Are Not Equal To Severe Trauma
• You Have Not Kept Yourself Sane
• Let Go.  Surrender To The Worst.
• Fear of Underlying Mental Illness
• Is There A "Breaking Point"?
• DP/DR - It's Not Special Or More Important

My Links

https://theanxioustruth.com/links

Facebook Group

https://facebook.com/groups/TAGForum

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, go to https://theanxiousgroup.com/101

Anxiety disorders are selfish disorders.  Anxiety and fear are self-centered and will push their way to the front of the line at all times.  When struggling with an anxiety disorder, the selfish nature of the disorder often makes you look selfish and self-centered.  The disorder is selfish.  You are not. Anxiety and fear drive self-centered behaviors in three ways:

Disruption Based on Avoidance

Anxiety causes you to spend your time scanning for threats. Every situation is evaluated based on how it may make you feel.  Decisions are made based on the drive to avoid the feelings and thoughts that you hate and fear.  When your anxiety drives you to cancel engagements, avoid places and situations, and flee from discomfort, the change in your lifestyle impacts the people around you .... 

Becoming The Center of The Universe

Anxiety and fear will drive you focus on yourself continuously.  In any given situation, anxiety will demand the lion’s share of your attention. While those around you are focused on solving a problem, resolving a conflict, or enjoying a social gathering, you likely found yourself occupied primarily with how you are feeling.  While the world asks, “What shall we do now?”, you will ask, “How will this impact ME?!” ....

Feeding The Beast On Down Low

When anxiety and fear have the door slammed on them, then get creative.  You may have been told by friends and family  – or even your therapist – that talking about how you feel and seeking constant soothing and reassurance is no longer going to be tolerated.  Your anxiety disorder does not like that news.  Often it will compel you to find “sneaky” ways of making itself seen and heard ....

What Can I Do About This?

First, work on being aware of when anxiety is driving self-centered behavior.  Then, get to work.  You can't really fix the self-centered stuff without working on full recovery anyway, so this could be the spark you need to start moving forward!  When you're doing the work that needs to be done to solve the bigger problem, change the narrative with your friends and family ...

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Intro/Outro Music: "Afterglow" by Ben Drake (With Permission)

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.

My friend Kendra Beavis has an amazing story.  This is a story about making major life changes, solving life problems, and become a better version of yourself.  So much of this is based on belief.  Belief in yourself, and belief in your ability to do hard things and make changes.

We can't just choose change.  We can't just decide to believe in ourselves and be instantly confident.  Often we must take action to make the changes we want in our life even before we are confident taking action.  Meaningful progress and change isn't something you may believe you are capable right now, but that's OK.

You don't get to be confident, and you don't get to believe in yourself by waving a magic wand. Belief and confidence are things we learn through action and experience. Belief and confidence are earned by doing the hard or scary things you might not think you can do. When we make the choice to move ahead even though you don't feel ready, amazing things can happen.

Amazing things happened for Kendra.  I'm grateful that she took the time to share it with us today.

You can find Kendra and her two podcasts on her website at kendrabeavis.com.

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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 on this episode: https://theanxioustruth.com/99

We naturally develop habits with respect to the way we talk about, think about, and write about our anxiety problems. This is the habit of words, and it matters. Identifying unhealthy and counterproductive habits of words, then working to replace them with more recovery-focused habits is well worth the effort.

The most common habit of words is the habit of constantly saying how you feel, what you're afraid of, and how much you hate it all.  This is the habit that most people in the grips of an anxiety disorder naturally develop.  This is a bad habit.  Constantly talking about, thinking about, and writing about what you feel is a form of safety and reassurance seeking. This is bad because it reinforces the mistaken cognitive connection between discomfort and fear.  If you are spending an inordinate amount of time telling people what you're feeling and experiencing in a passive way, you are hoping to both comforted and saved from your anxiety and its symptoms.  This sends the wrong signal to your brain.  This tells your brain that anxiety is a problem that requires evasive action and rescue.  You are inadvertently reinforcing the foundation of the disorder.

You may understand why seeking safety or engaging in avoidance is a bad thing, however you may wonder why its wrong to want to be soothed or comforted when afraid.  Aside from the reinforcement of the disorder we discussed, asking other people to make you feel better is giving away the power you have to make yourself feel better over time.  YOU are capable of driving the recovery bus.  When you rely on others to comfort and soothe you all the time, you are handing the keys to them.  You are asking them to drive the bus.  They may want to, but nobody can drive your recovery bus but you.  Nobody else can drive you to recovery land.

If constantly telling everyone (including yourself) how you feel  is a bad habit, then what is a good habit?  How can you change this? ....

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.