In today’s video I’m going to share with
you 5 essential, little-known scientific-facts and insights that you absolutely must know
about, if you want to quickly and effectively treat your panic attacks. I’m also going to give you 2 unique, counterintuitive
techniques, that have BOTH been scientifically proven to help treat anxiety and to treat
panic disorder — so you can use these techniques to make a significant, positive difference
in your life, today. Hi, I’m Michael Norman, and as scientist
and paid-on-results anxiety specialist with clients from over 103 countries around the
world, I’ve witnessed first hand how panic attacks and panic disorder, have impacted
the lives of even the strongest, bravest people.
Whether someone’s a celebrity, a highly-respected
doctor, a CEO, whether they’re a student, a stay at home mum, or anyone else, panic
doesn’t discriminate. Almost 1 in 3 people will experience a panic
attack in their life-time, and I’ve been through it too. Thankfully though, there’s some good news
to this story, because thanks to the last 3 decades of scientific research, panic is
now one of most treatable issues there is, if you get the right scientifically grounded
help, and that’s what this video is all about.
Now, years ago Albert Einstein wisely pointed
out: “If I were given one hour to save the world,
I would spend 59 minutes defining the problem and one minute solving it.” This is especially true when it comes to successfully
treating the panic attacks you’ve had, because, as you’ll soon discover for yourself, once
you have an accurate understanding of what’s been happening to you, how panic really works,
and what’s been keeping it in your life, surprisingly, the solution suddenly becomes
much clearer, as does the path back to a normal, panic-free life.
So with all of this in mind, let’s move
onto the first counterintuitive fact, FACT 1: The Term “Panic Attack” Is Not
Only Completely Misleading, It Can Actually Make It More Difficult To Recover. Words carry a lot of power. They can mislead
us, they can deceive us, they can send us in the wrong direction, down the wrong path,
or they can illuminate deeper truths, show us where to go, and help us to find our way
home. And knowing this is true, I hope it’s obvious
why I consider it so very important, that you know, that a panic attack is absolutely
NOT an “attack”. That phrase is totally misleading, and as
you’ll understand before you finish this video, it can create a mindset that make things
much worse, making it much harder to successfully treat panic. If we really care about solving your problem
once and for all, then, obviously, we really care about the truth, and the overwhelming
scientific evidence is that every panic attack you’ve ever had, was not an attack at all,
but surprisingly, it was just an innocent, very well-intended, over-protective MISTAKE.
To explain this more, I’m going to share
with you a short clip from my “Panic Free TV Foundation” video series, which presents
a simple but important thought-experiment, Which of these two smoke alarms would you
prefer to have protecting you in your home? Would you prefer to have smoke alarm that
sometimes FAILS to go off, and stays silent, even though there’s a deadly fire in your
house? Or, would you prefer to have a smoke alarm
that never misses a real fire, but occasionally goes off when you burn the toast, even though
there is no danger, and everything is actually fine? Now of course, we’d all prefer to have a
perfect smoke alarm system, that never make any mistakes — but the reality is, we live
in complex and often ambiguous world. And so if you had to choose between one of
these two options, what would you chose? An under-sensitive smoke alarm that could
miss a real fire and kill you? Or an over-sensitive smoke alarm that occasionally
has unpleasant, noisy false alarms, but never misses a real fire, and always keeps you safe? It’s a simple answer, isn’t it.
When it comes to our survival, to our LIFE,
it’s better to have an alarm system that errs on the side of safety, even if that means,
we sometimes get false alarms. So what does this have to do with panic? Well, "panic attacks" are nothing more than
false alarms of our over-protective, life-saving fear systems. And while it probably hasn’t felt that way
for you in the past, the truth is that a panic "attack" is just a terrifying, overwhelming,
over-protective MISTAKE. It’s a mistake, that ironically, is motivated
by your brain’s #1 priority in life — to keep you safe. Panic attacks are our brain and body, following
the same “better safe than sorry” philosophy, that every good smoke detector system uses. And it’s far healthier, in fact it’s optimal,
to have a fear system that is biased to be over-sensitive and to occasionally give us
false alarms, than it is to have an under-sensitive system, that could miss real danger, that
could kill us. So a panic attack is JUST an over-protective
mistake. The only real problem, and it’s a big one,
is that it’s a terrifying mistake.
It’s a mistake that can leave us feeling
exposed, vulnerable, and unsafe. Even though no one dies from a panic attack,
and even though panic could never ever make anyone truly go crazy, the false alarm
of a panic attack often creates a very powerful ILLUSION, that these things could happen. And that’s why I really believe, that you
are incredibly, So again, a panic attack is NOT an “attack”. Instead, it’s a false alarm. It’s a mistaken effort to protect you, from
a danger that’s not there.
Unfortunately, the reason why it’s so scary,
the reason why it’s one of the most horrible experiences anyone could ever go through,
is because a false alarm sounds the same as a real alarm. And with a panic false alarm,
because we so often don’t know what’s going on, the confusion and uncertainty can
make everything even more alarming. And that’s why it’s so very important
you know about fact #2. Believe it or not, all the strange and scary
symptoms you’ve had because of panic, especially the ones that seem the most dangerous,
all they really are, are just harmless byproducts, of a false alarm. Fortunately, thanks to a lot of research,
we know how a false alarm alone, can create them, We know they can’t kill you, We know they can’t make you truly go crazy, And we know that, reassuringly, as you learn
about this, it can help you immediately feel safer and more secure. Now, since we have a lot to cover in this
video, I’m not going to go into the details here, even though this is a very important
topic.
Since I cover this in depth in my free “Panic
Free TV Foundation Series”, if you want to learn more, as I recommend you do, then
you’ll find what you’re looking for when you get to episode 2 of my Foundation Series. Again, my it’s completely free, at least
at the moment, so you can watch it by visiting www.PanicFree.TV, or by clicking YouTube information
icon in the top right hand corner of this video. Okay let’s move on to, FACT 3: There is the core, hidden pattern
behind every panic false alarm you’ve ever had , and as you’ll soon see, this pattern reveals
to us, the fastest, most effective, most direct path, back to a normal, panic-free life. If you’ve ever been told that you have panic
disorder, even though I’m not at all a fan of that label at all, this is the core
pattern we want to shift together, so that you can finally be 100% panic-free.
To explain more, here’s another short clip
from my foundation series, A panic attack happens when anxiety creates
body sensations and anxious thoughts, And, because our brain has mistakenly learnt
to fear those body sensations or thoughts, it creates even more anxiety. That increased anxiety then creates even MORE
body sensations and thoughts, and around the cycle people go. I call this The Panic Pattern, because it’s
THE pattern behind every scary false alarm. It’s a HARMLESS vicious cycle, that can
escalate, into a full fight/flight response. So, let me share with you one of the most
common examples of this pattern, because it helps illustrate this, more clearly. Since anxiety makes everyone’s heart beat
a little faster, if something happens in our lives that makes us fearful or anxious enough,
naturally our heart will speed up.
Again, this is a completely natural and healthy
response that we all have. But if someone is scared of that, if they’re
scared of having a faster heart beat, then anytime they get anxious enough, for whatever
reason, it can trigger The Panic Pattern. Anxiety would make their heart beat faster,
and a faster heart beat would make them more anxious, which would further increases their
heart beat, and a harmless, but scary vicious cycle, would ensue. This is the core pattern behind every panic
false alarm. And it can work if people fear a faster heart
beat, or any other anxiety-related body sensation, that they happen to be scared of. Again, a panic false alarm happens when anxiety
creates body sensations and anxious thoughts, and, because our brain has mistakenly learnt
to fear those body sensations and thoughts, that creates even more anxiety. And that increased anxiety then creates even
MORE body sensations and thoughts, and around the cycle we go. Now you might be asking: what’s the deal
with panic that’s triggered by external situations — like driving, or flying, shopping,
leaving the house, or other things? Why does that happen? Well, if it happens, it’s because those
external situations have become associated with anxiety, and so they feed right into
The Panic Pattern.
Anything that triggers enough anxiety to create
a feared body sensation, can trigger the whole vicious cycle, and therefore a panic attack. Now, there are several reasons why understanding
“The Panic Pattern” is so important — the most important by far, is that it reveals
to us the fastest, most effective, most direct path, back to a normal, panic-free life. I’ll talk about this more in just a moment,
but first, it’s essential we cover fact #4 Following commonsense tends to backfire, keeps
people stuck, and reinforces The Panic Pattern If you’ve struggled to find the answers
you need, then please know, it’s definitely NOT your fault.
Even though panic is one of the most treatable
issues there is, unfortunately it’s also one of the most counterintuitive. What seems as if it SHOULD work with panic
DOESN’T. And what DOES work tends to fly in the face
of commonsense. There are several important examples of this,
but for now, in this video, I’m just going to mention one very, very briefly, And that example of how commonsense tends
to backfire with panic, is trying to fight it Trying to stop, suppress, or fight back against
panic is one of the most natural responses in the world. Any sensible, intelligent person would try
to do it, But unfortunately, as a huge amount of research
shows, when it comes to panic what we resist doesn’t just persist, unfortunately, it
often becomes stronger, more resilient, and more enduring. When we try and fight panic, it typically
leads to more intense, more enduring panic-related body-sensations and thoughts, not less. In the short-term this fuels to “The Panic
Pattern”, and in the long-term it increases the chance of further, frequent, ongoing false
alarms.
While I explain this in depth in my foundation
series, I hope you can now appreciate yet another reason why I am definitely not a fan
of the term “panic attack”. When people are mislead into believing that
panic is an “attack”, or a “trick”, or a “monster”, or any other unhelpful,
conflict based metaphor, then it’s only natural that they’d try and fight it, which
unfortunately doesn’t only NOT help, it actively makes the situation worse. Believe it or not, even doing absolutely NOTHING,
is a far more effective strategy than trying to fight panic, and if that statement seem
a little crazy to you, then consider that doing essentially nothing, was a key part
of a pioneering approach to panic, developed my compatriot Claire Weekes, more than 60
years old.
STRATEGY #1 Weekes was an Australian doctor, and she was
the pioneer of acceptance-based approaches for panic and anxiety, which are so common
today. She urged people not to try and fight panic,
but instead, to utterly accept it, to “float” through it, to use her words, and to let time
pass, until it goes away. How could this be helpful? Well, if we go back to the scene I you showed
earlier in this video, with burning toast, when we try to fight a false alarm, it’s
like pushing that toast back into the toaster, and turning that toaster up.
Even though it’s
still just burning toast, it leads to much more smoke, and as a result, a much longer
false alarm. However, when we utterly accept a false alarm,
it’s like turning that toaster off. Even though the smoke may linger for a while, if
you let time pass as Weekes used to say, the smoke WILL clear, and things will more
quickly return to normal. Now, obviously, I’ll well aware that trying
to accept a false alarm is far, far easier said than done — and this is why acceptance-based
approaches take time and practice to work.
Weekes was very honest about this, and she
urged people to be realistic, so they would stick with the process, even through setbacks. In her own words, if you use an acceptance-based
approach, “don’t count the days, don’t count the
months, let time pass” Because, “even with compete acceptance, it takes
about 2 months to desensitise the body” While this has been shown to be true for all
acceptance-based approaches scientifically studied, even though acceptance is a slow
process, it does help, if people stick with it. And for the 1960’s accepting panic and anxiety
was a revolutionary idea, which helped hundreds of thousands of people, who way back, at that
point in history, had little else that worked. Now, since were covering such an important
topic here, that of NOT fighting panic, I want to share a second, even more useful strategy,
one that you can use to actually stop a false alarm, if you have one. This is strategy #2 Now, before I share this strategy with you,
I need to warn you upfront, that when I explain it you, you’ll probably think it’s totally
crazy. That’s totally ok, but also keep in mind
that we know from research, that this counterintuitive strategy is more effective than many of the
most commonly used approaches to treating panic.
It’s is more effective than breathing exercises. It’s more effective than relaxation techniques. And it’s more effective than cognitive approaches
— where someone tries to use logic to dismiss, talk back to, or “correct” anxious thoughts. What’s this “crazy” strategy that can
actually help? It’s using a paradoxical approach where,
if you get a false alarm, instead of trying to fight it, you VOLUNTARILY try to make it
stronger and last longer. Now, how could such a “crazy” approach
ever work? Well there are several reasons beyond the
scope of this video, but to give you just one reason here, I’d like you to consider
this: Have you ever tried to force yourself to fall
asleep, but as a result, you found yourself being more awake? Have you ever tried so hard to forget something,
that you ending up thinking about it even more? Or have you’ve ever tried to force yourself
to be attracted to someone you didn’t have ANY feelings for, and, as a consequence, you
became even more aware that person wasn’t right for you.
If you’ve ever had one of these experiences,
then you might appreciate that, when we try to force an involuntary, automatic, mental
or emotional process, sometimes all that effort backfires, and it inhibits that very process. This is something we can use to our advantage
with panic, and it’s why, when I first meet a new client, if they’re having a false
alarm because they’ve left their comfort zone even to talk to me, I never ask them
to relax. Instead, very often, I ask them to voluntarily
make the false alarm a LOT bigger.
I ask them to voluntarily give me the biggest
false alarm they’ve ever had. And what happens universally, is they can’t. Paradoxically, it relaxes them. Now, obviously, when I work with clients 1-on-1
there is a unique art and skill to making sure this works optimally for each individual,
but the use of paradoxical approaches like this, isn’t something I invented. Famous therapists like Alfred Adler, Victor
Frankl and Milton Erickson, as far back as 90 to 100 years ago, EACH independently discovered
that instead of trying to fight with a problem, sometimes you get far better results by, paradoxically,
trying to encouraging it. When done correctly, even with self-application,
even in a basic form as I’m sharing with you here, this approach has been shown to
be a useful first step for helping people with panic — one that, again, is more effective
than breathing exercises, more effective than relaxation techniques, and more effective
than trying to use logic to debate, talk-back to, or change anxious thoughts.
Again, the approach is, if you get a false
alarm, instead of trying to fight it, you voluntarily try as hard as you can to FORCE
IT, trying with all your willpower, to compel it to become the biggest, longest lasting
false alarm you’ve ever had, as fast as it can. Now, as useful as this approach can be as
a first step, obviously it’s just that, a first step. It’s a tool to help people realise that
panic doesn’t work the way you think it does, and that, paradoxically, you can get
much more control when you don’t follow commonsense.
Now, I want to shift mindsets and very briefly
introduce you to a totally different orientation to treating panic. Because, obviously, as nice as it is to have
ways to accept, cope with, or even stop a false alarm after it happens, obviously, approaches
like that are highly reactive. You have to remember what to do, You have to be able to consciously apply that
strategy in the heat of the moment, which often isn’t easy, And worst of all, even if you have a really
good technique that works, you’ve still had to go through the unpleasant experience
of having your day interrupted by a false alarm Obviously, none of that is optimal at all. So what’s the solution? Well, I’m sure you’ve heard the old saying
that prevention is better than cure, and obviously, what’s far more useful and far more effective,
is if we can help you automatically prevent future false alarms, so they never even happen
in the first place. Because, for me, “Panic Free" is NOT about coping better
with false alarms, because if you have to cope with or accept false alarms, that means
you still get them.
“Panic Free” doesn’t even mean that
you’re able to immediately stop a false alarm, as soon as it begins — because, at
best, that's just a good start. What "Panic Free" really means is that panic
has truly become a total non-issue for you, in your life. It means you're naturally and effortlessly,
as panic-free, care-free and “normal”, as anyone else you know, without you having
to even think about it. And what’s the fastest, most effective way
to help you reach the point where you’re truly panic free? Well that leads us into fact #5 FACT 5: We Can Automatically Prevent Future
False Alarms, By Quickly Ending “The Panic Pattern” Whether you’ve had just a few false alarms
so far, whether you’ve had them for years or even decades, or whether you’ve been
diagnosed as having panic disorder, if we can change your automatic responses
so that instead of feeling anxious you’re AUTOMATICALLY calm, relaxed, and secure in
response to the very triggers that triggered “The Panic Pattern” for you in the past,
then there can’t be a vicious cycle, and you won’t be able to panic.
This is the focus of all my work, and obviously,
if you like this video and you want more of my help, then obviously I have so much more
to share with you. While you’ll notice I have a range of resources
on my website, including ways you can work with me personally, I recommend you start
first with my free foundation series, which goes into everything we’ve talked about
here, plus a lot more, in much more detail. Again, my foundation series is totally free
at the moment, and you can watch the first episode in full right now by clicking the
link in the description, by visiting my website at www.panicfree.tv, or by clicking the information
icon in the top right hand corner of this video. Thousands of people, from all walks of life,
have gone through my foundation series, and since so many of them have openly said that
it’s made a real, positive difference in their lives, I think you’ll discover too,
when you watch it for yourself, that it also makes a real, positive difference for you. I hope this video has obviously been helpful
for you, and if it has then please leave me a comment below, so that I know, you’d like
me to make more videos, like this video here on YouTube.
Also, if you’d like be immediately notified
as soon as I publish new, helpful videos, like this video here, then obviously subscribe
to my YouTube channel and automatically, this will happen. Remember, panic is one of the most treatable
issues there is, if you get the right scientifically grounded help. You are not alone, and not matter what you’ve
been through, there’s so much we can do to help make an immediate positive difference
in your life. Thank you so much for watching. I hope again
that this video was incredibly useful for you. I’m Michael Norman, and this has been
another episode of Panic Free TV.
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I would never ever invalidate that. It’s true. But
if you started that way, and are now just afraid that well, if I
walk into the house, and then I don’t like how I feel, that has
become the primary fear. Well, now you have two problems, you
have to work on the disorder and anxiety part. And then maybe
There’s some healing, some trauma work to do. Yeah, that
could be more than one thing can be true at one time. So, when I
say that you do not need to find the root cause of your panic
attacks or anxiety to get better. I’m talking about a
situation where you have learned to be afraid of your own body
and thoughts. Right. So, in that situation, the root cause kind
of doesn’t matter anymore.
It still might be there. And one
day, you may do that work, maybe you’ll do that work
simultaneously, as you’re doing the anxiety disorder, recovery
work could be people do that. But to stand on your feet
again, and no longer be afraid of your own heartbeat, which is
the thing I use all the time. No, you don’t need to find a
root cause.
Whatever that root cause is, did not make
you are afraid of your own heartbeat. It may have been the
trigger that caused your heart to beat faster, and those first
waves of anxiety as far as panic attacks. But now you’re afraid
of your heart itself. So the root cause is on the back burner
now, sorry, it is. And the beauty of some of this
process is many, many people in our community come to this
process and figuratively, metaphorically, they’re on fire,
they’re burning, they’re burning, I can’t get out of my
own bed, I can’t leave my bedroom, I cannot even walk to
the other side of the house. without panicking. I have to sit
in the dark all day. I’m super sensitized. I can do nothing I
just panic, panic, panic all day long.
I’m anxious, anxious,
anxious, the thoughts, the thoughts, the thoughts. And they
stopped digging for root causes, they started doing this kind of
work, and they put the fire out. And then they discover like,
Okay, I’m back to a state where now maybe I could do some of
that root cause work. I see that every single day. And for those
people, they have very difficult but sometimes very rewarding
journeys and experiences. But digging for a root cause because
everybody just assumes that panic is caused by some sort of
unhealed pain is really a very damaging narrative in the
anxiety disorder community. So no, you don’t need that. And I
will tell you right now, if you’ve been working with
anybody, whether they just be supportive friends, family
members, or a therapist that has been digging for your root cause
for two years, and you still can’t find it, and you still
can’t leave your house, you got to rethink that relationship.
I’ll say it.
Okay, I can say that. So that is the answer to
the root cause question. I’ve talked about this, all of the
things I’m talking about today, I’ve written about that, in my
books there another episode of the podcast are in the morning
newsletter, and they’re in my social media content. They’re
all there. So let’s move on to the next question. Another sort
of hot topic that I catch a lot of heat about, why don’t I talk
about things like nutrition or diet or supplements? I get
asked, I don’t understand Drew. It’s a mind-body thing.
Everybody loves the mind. The body loves the mind and body. Listen, I have no
problem with mind-body. I’m cool with that. I don’t believe that
the fact that there’s a connection between your mind and
your body is news.
Like, we kind of know this already. It’s
not news. It’s not profound. It doesn’t necessarily inform the
recovery process. Just like my answer to the last
question, if you are afraid of your own heartbeat, or you have
thoughts that you can’t, necessarily unhinged, unhitch
from and they are dragging you up and down the street every
day, even though you know they shouldn’t, and you know, they’re
not true, but you get dragged around anyway. If you’re afraid
of your own breath, if you’re terrified to be alone, because
What if something happens, and nobody’s here to save me,
because I might panic. And my anxiety might be dangerous this
time, then there is nothing in your gut biome that’s going to
Make a hill of beans a difference about that.
Now, this
is not to say that I don’t believe in taking good care of
your body, we should all take good care of our bodies. There’s
nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Again, these are not
mutually exclusive things. I don’t talk about diet or
nutrition or supplements, because everybody should take
care of their bodies. But in this paradigm that I have
embraced in my life, that many, many of us in this cognitive
behavioral approach to anxiety disorders have embraced,
that doesn’t enter into it.
Really, you know, look, don’t
let yourself get run down. Don’t be unhealthy. Take good care of
yourself as best you can. But I’m going to tell you right now, that I
have run across hundreds and hundreds of people who have
fully recovered from a steady diet of sugar, processed foods, and
cigarettes. They still got better. They probably have
terrible gut biomes I’m guessing I’m no expert on that. But the
reason why I don’t talk about those things is because even
though you feel anxiety physically, an anxiety disorder
is not a physical problem. Is it possible that I don’t know
something in your leaky gut syndrome or something
that caused your initial panic attack to maybe, but now you’re afraid
of the attack?
Itself. This is why the
community is full of people who spent just gobs and gobs of
money on all kinds of supplements and herbs and
special diets and programs, who still are having a problem, they
may have incredibly well-balanced gut biomes. And I know
I keep going back to that, you know, they’re treating that air
quotes the second brain as best as you, as we know, to treat it,
feeding it the most, you know, whole organic foods and
supplementing properly, but still can’t get better. There’s
a reason for that.
There’s a reason for that. So that’s why I
don’t talk about nutrition or diet or supplements because, to
me, it’s a red herring and recovery. It’s a thing that
everybody should take good care of take, Please take good care
of your physical health, please. Like I wouldn’t, you know,
advise everybody to do that.
But chasing diet, supplements, herbs
in recovery is a red herring, it leads us down paths, and we don’t
need to go and it becomes frustrating. Because I’m
guessing that for every 100 people listening to my words,
Right now, there are at least thirty-five of you who have a closet or a
box, or a big plastic container full of at least 300 US dollars
worth of vitamins, supplements, herbs, special diets, magnesium
powder that you all were just hoping we’re going to be the
answer.
And I’m sorry that they weren’t. But that’s why I’m
talking about this because it’s somewhat irrelevant in recovery.
But please, please be healthy. Please take as good care of your
body as you can. Okay, so question number nine,
and then we’re going to do this one. And then one more, we’ll
wrap it up.
Why don’t I know I’m sorry. Question number nine is
why we need a recovery plan. So, if you read my book, The
Anxious Truth, which is my recovery guide, you’ll talk
about having a plan all the time. Like why do we need to
plan? So I know this is confusing for
a lot of people, especially since we’ll talk about this in a
question next week and episode 217. Like, but I don’t have
panic attacks. I don’t know what my exposures are. So, what would
my plan be? I understand that’s confusing, but why do I say that
we should have a recovery plan? Look, you cannot plan every
second of your recovery.
So some people hear the plan and they think
that they can literally plan every hour of every day
specifically to optimize the recovery. No, you can’t this is
you can’t become a robot. But the reason why I say we need a
plan is that if we do not have a plan to follow, that informs the
actions that we will take, we will too easily fall into only
acting based on how we feel. We’ll only challenge ourselves
on the good days when we’re feeling better. That’s bad that
we don’t learn anything. When we’re feeling better. We will
make our decisions based on our emotions, our symptoms, and our
thoughts, We make a plan so that we can put some objectivity, and
to that, I woke up this morning, and I’m anxious as hell.
But my
plan says that I go and do my exposures in the morning. So I
will go do that. So a plan injects some much-needed two
things, much-needed objectivity into the process? Because odds
are if you’re still kind of lost right now and don’t know what to
do. You’re making all of your decisions based on subjective
judgments. How do I feel? What does this mean? What do I think
about this? What might be wrong? Oh, my God, what could this be?
That’s all subjective. We need objectivity. And a plan gives us
objectivity. When we are in an anxious state, and we are
frantic, and beside ourselves, we are terrible decision-makers.
So a plan gets us out of the business of making decisions on
the fly. Right? So American football teams, and I’ve talked
about this all the time, create playbooks.
They know who they’re
playing on Sunday, they get ready and they know what the
first 15 plays are that they’re going to run that’s just
scripted, done. They have playbooks to tell us in this
situation, we run this play in this situation, we’re on this
plate. Yeah, there’s some creativity there, of course, but
they don’t wait to make it up on the fly in the heat of a game.
And this is the same reason why I talked about having a recovery
plan. It’s so to me, it’s very important because otherwise you
will be governed by your fear, your irrational fear
distortions. magnifications, how you feel your symptoms, that
stuff will just drag you around. And then you wind up in
that situation where it’s like, I’m doing my exposures. Oh,
well, when was the last time you did a driving exposure? Well, I
was I being out on Friday and today’s Wednesday, like, but
that’s not exposure that’s interrupted avoidance.
There’s a
difference and not to get into the details. But having a plan
helps us stay clear of that trap. Right. So that’s why I say
we need a recovery plan for objectivity and to get ourselves
out of the decision-making game minute by minute when we’re
suffering and when we’re not feeling good. Make the decisions
ahead of time and then execute those decisions, no matter how
you feel. A plan does that for us. So, question number 10, which
will be the last one for this week. This is always one of my
favorite ones. You guys have heard me say this before. This
question any tips for dot fill in your symptom? Fill
in your scary thing. Any tips for nausea, any tips for
dizziness any tips or depersonalization? Any Tips for emetophobia any tips
for You know, I can probably go for another 15 minutes a name
all the specific things, Do any tips for that breathing
or feeling? Any tips for that My nose getting tingly. Any tips
for feeling like, you know having a panic attack at night?
Like, no, no, I don’t have any tips for those things.
I never
have tips for those things. The reason why I don’t have tips for
those things is that they’re all the same fear.
Right? So, anybody who has ever gone down the road of trying to
address each individual fear, like today, I’m afraid of my
heart. This is a big one. Any tips for cardio phobia? How
do I overcome a fear in my heart? And at the very same
time, there are three people asking me how they overcome
heart fear.
There are four other people telling me that
depersonalization is the worst possible thing, and how do they
overcome that? And then there are three other people behind them
that are talking about that short of breath, air hunger
feeling, and that’s the worst for them. And they want to know
how to overcome that. But the answer is the same all the time.
In the Claire weeks world, and that’s really what launched this
whole thing for me. Dr. Weeks talked about accepting and
floating, letting time pass. It’s the answer for all of them.
Even though I know that the thing that you want special tips
for right now feels much scarier than the other things. And
because it scares you more, you think it’s worthy of a special
approach to try to specifically address that fear.
But
Especially if you’re new at this game, look around at the people
who are further down the road from you. And almost without
question, they will tell you that when I get over one fear
another one often takes its place. So this is why I did a
podcast episode about following the principles of recovery and
not just instructions. I’ll link that one in the show notes.
Anxious trip.com/ 216 for the show notes of this episode. I talked about that. Then learn
the principles and apply the principles of allowing accepting
floating, willful tolerance surrendering all of navigation.
Right, he did a video with Lauren Rosen not too long ago,
We talked about the thing, the tools that we use in recovery
are not tools of eradication, they’re tools of navigation. So
I know in my own personal journey, as soon as I learned to
navigate air hunger, I was able to use those navigation skills.
When I would have PVCs and skipped heartbeats, I was able
to use those navigation skills when I experienced the
realization or dissociative state.
So I just forklifted the
same navigation skills across multiple fears. And then it all
became so obvious. And anybody who’s down the road and closer
to recovery will tell you like Yeah, I thought they were all
special. And it turns out they weren’t. So that’s why the
answer to any tips for and then you insert your scary thing
there is always the answer is always the same. And I say it
again, and again. And again. I know I start to sound, you know,
dismissive or flippant. And if you’re in my Facebook group,
you’ve seen me post this at least once a month.
Special
Reminder, no symptom is special. None. No symptoms are special. I
know you think that your symptom is but it is not. It is not.
Because, like I said if your particular thing is that you’re
afraid of your heart and you want to throw down like no, this
is the scariest one. I’ll bring somebody in the room here that’s
terrified of their own breath, and they will fight you like
They will throw hands at you because they will insist that
Theirs is worse.
And the people who have air hunger will insist
that theirs is worse and the people that are DPD our people,
They will insist that there’s more than there’ll be a big
Brawl because everybody is 100% convinced no but this one is
this special? How could you not have a tip for this? I can’t tell you the number of
times that I’ve had somebody say I would pay to have a rapid
heartbeat.
Like I’m so afraid of my breathing that I would pay to
be afraid of my heart. I have had people say that. I wish I
was dizzy. I wish I was dizzy. I’m so afraid of my heart. I
wish I was dizzy. That must be a walk in the park. That’s easy.
See what happens. So that’s why the answer to any tips is
it’s all the same tip you’re going to have to work through
navigating through the thing that you are afraid of. To learn
that I don’t have to be afraid of it it’s super disturbing and
uncomfortable and all of those things but not worthy of an
emergency response. And when you learn it for one fear you
forklift those skills to other fears and it becomes portable
across multiple fears. And then when I say all your fears are
one fear becomes painfully apparent, like holy cow, he was
right.
So if I can get through the air hunger I can get through
the dizzy, I can get through the tingly toes. I can get through
this and get like all of the things I don’t Okay, they’re
nothing new. It’s just like Oh, thanks anxiety gets through
another one than me? No problem. I know what to do with this
without needing specific instructions for oh, I need
special breathing instructions. Now I need special pdf
instructions. Now I need special nausea instructions. You don’t
need principles, learn the principles, apply them across
multiple symptoms and fears and you’re good to go. So no, I
don’t have any tips for and that is part one of our frequently
asked questions. We did 10 questions today and we will do 10
More questions next week and Pod gets episode 217.
So, come back
For that, bookmark it. If you’re on YouTube, and you’re listening
to YouTube and on YouTube, favorite the video, like
When you want to ask these questions again, come back here,
Like, listen to these again. And that’s it. So, I’ll be back again
next week, you know, the episode was over, because music that’s afterglow, the
beginning end, beginning, and end of every podcast episode, song
is written by my friend, Ben Drake.
It is sort of inspired by
this podcast and as a special song for both Ben and me. And I
appreciate that he lets me use it, you can find Ben and his
music at Kendrick music.com. So go check him out. And if you are
listening to this podcast on Spotify, Apple podcast, or
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comment.
I dig all that. And I think that’s it. That’s part one
of our frequently asked questions. I hope it’s been
helpful. I will be back next week. I do know what I’m going
to be talking about. We’ll do another 10 questions to wrap
this up. I will see you next time. Thank you for your
attention and I will leave you as I always do with a reminder
that this is the way Unknown: you got the feeling
that you got Yeah, you’re doing fine.
Now in the city, you know looking back dwelling on
the past, you know, you’ll never get another chance. See, go and
live your life.
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They’re just designed to make you feel different. But
feeling different isn’t safer at all, because you’re never in
actual danger from feeling anxious. Right? So you’re gonna
have to confront the reality behind that question. But how am
Did I suppose to surrender or accept? Well, look what those
questions mean. So next question is, what exposures can
I do get ready for dot dot dot, pick an event, a wedding, a
concert, a family vacation, something. And so in the end,
this is a simpler answer. You have to remember what exposures
are therefore, people think, or they get confused. And they
think, Well, I’m learning to drive on the highway. Again, I’m
learning to go shopping, I’m learning to stay home alone.
Again, you’re not learning to do anything. The
only thing that you’re learning to do, which is portable across
situations and challenges, and context is learning how to
get better at experiencing anxiety and fear.
So we only do
exposures, do specific things like drive go for a walk or
stay home alone or eat food that you’re afraid of. So that
it will trigger that anxiety, we were intentionally triggering
anxiety, fear, uncomfort, discomfort, uncertainty, all of
those things were intentionally triggering them so that you can
practice feeling them and moving through them in a new way, a
the more productive way that ultimately teaches you that you
don’t have to save yourself from them. So if the exposure is not
to the event, the task, or the place where the food or
whatever the exposure is to the feelings, then every exposure is
an exposure that works for other things.
Right? So if you’re
getting ready to go to, for instance, you’re going to a
concert all you got tickets to a concert, how can I expose myself
to that? I mean, yes, can you do things that sort of mimic a
concert? Yeah, that doesn’t hurt in any way. But remember, you’re
only you’re not afraid of the concert, you’re afraid of how
you will feel at the concert. So if you want to take a cruise
around the world get better at staying home alone for two
hours. That’s what I tell people all the time. If you want to go
back to work, then get better at walking around your block.
Because you’re really in the end, you’re learning a new way
to relate to anxiety across all contexts. And if you can
adopt this, then you don’t have to worry about specific
exposures for every single thing you might have to do in your
life, life gets a lot simpler that way.
And your recovery
starts to become a little wider and more durable. So it’s really
important, like think about that. I’m only doing these
things because they trigger my anxiety, the anxiety, fear,
that’s the exposure, not the task or the place. So let’s move on to the question.
You know, in 10. I know which one I want to take, we’re on
seven right now. This question is what does this method work if
I have trauma too. So first of all, I always have to say this
is not a method like I’m not teaching them. This isn’t the
drew method. It’s not my method. I didn’t invent any
of this. These are just the principles of a cognitive
behavioral approach to anxiety disorders. So there are
parallels between anxiety disorder, recovery, and trauma
resolution, that’s 100% True, a lot of things will look the
same.
If you’re working with a trauma resolution specialist,
some of the things that you would hear would sound a lot
like the things that I talked about, but they’re not
the same. And the issue here is, let’s assume that you do have a
traumatic background and you’ve experienced some traumatic
events in your life. And maybe that that trauma did spawn your
anxiety disorder that can happen. But then what I always
say is that one problem, the trauma has now become two
problems. You have trauma and an anxiety disorder. Right? So you
have to realize that it doesn’t mean that the anxiety disorder
doesn’t count because it’s only the trauma if you had one
problem now you have to That’s okay though, don’t freak out.
You can successfully deal with both of those issues. A lot of
people do, right? A lot of people do that work on both
fronts. But traumatic experiences do not mean that the
anxiety disorder doesn’t count, so some people are under
the assumption that like, well, this all sounds good, but
I have trauma.
So what you’re saying doesn’t apply to me.
Okay, you may have trauma, and I’m very sorry for the things
that you’ve lived through. That’s possible. But in the end,
if you will have learned to be afraid of your heartbeat, or
your breath or you have learned to be afraid of, you
know, depersonalization or jelly legs, and you refuse to go out
of the house, or you are convinced that you have some
sort of health problem, and you will only eat foods as a
result. Maybe some trauma spawned that, but
But knowing about that trauma doesn’t help you become less
afraid of your heartbeat.
Now you’re afraid of multiple
things. So maybe you are having, you know, you’re afraid of the
experience. But now you’re also afraid of yourself. So you
have to do both things. But of them, if two
problems, you can solve them both. So traumatic experience
can be a roadblock 100% to executing the recovery plan that
we’re always talking about here. It’s 100% true if you have
lived experiences that teach you that you are always unsafe, the
world is dangerous, you are weak, you’re not capable, you’re
stupid, and you’re not worthy of being better. trauma can do that
to you. And if you have those beliefs about yourself, because
of your past experiences, that can 100% present a roadblock to
doing the work that I was talking about, have to
acknowledge that and I always will always well never going to
invalidate that.
So in that situation, you’re going to have
to work on that too, right? You’ll have to work on that.
It’s kind of hard. And this is different for everybody, right?
There’s no set answer to this on the other side. So in that
situation, you may find you have to do a little bit of work on
yourself before you can effectively do this recovery
work that I’m talking about.
Some other people find
that their anxiety disorder is so bad, that they’re so wracked
with panic and irrational fear that they can’t do the
trauma work until they put out this fire. So some people have
to do this first and then go back to the past and do that
work. Some people can do it at the same time. It’s individual,
it depends. So there’s no set answer to this. But I can
tell you that you can recover from both trauma and
anxiety.
And the things that I’m writing about which are
geared toward anxiety recovery can be effective while
you do that. It’s just a very individual situation. But please
don’t feel that since you have lived the traumatic background,
you can’t get better. That’s not true. That’s not fair. And I
understand why you might think that but it’s not true. You
can get better. It’s not easy. But there’s hope for you
too, I promise. So last few questions. This is a really
common one I’m accepting, why am I still anxious? So I might
argue that if you are asking why you’re still anxious, then
you’re not accepting. We can’t qualify for our acceptance.
I’m accepting. I’m accepting this, but I also want it gone.
Well, you can’t have both of those things. Think about that
for a second. I know it sounds a little bit glib and a little
silly.
But think about it. There’s truth in there. I’m
accepting this, but I also don’t want to accept it, and I’m not
accepting it. I know you want your anxiety to go away,
but accepting and doing all the things we talked about. It’s not
a recipe for banishing it, right? If that’s why you’re
doing this like you are hoping that if you do the Claire weeks
acceptance or the Dru surrender, or the Josh Fletcher willful
tolerance, if I do this, then it will stop. You’re trying to skip
the part where you have to experience the anxiety and use
it as a classroom.
It’s super important. So if you’re trying
to skip that, and you’re just hoping that okay, I except, wait
a minute, how come it hasn’t gone away? You’re missing the
whole process. And you’re going to wind up disappointed,
frustrated, and do and ask this question I don’t
understand. I’m accepting why isn’t gone away. So
expectations are important. Understanding the concepts of
recovery. Why are you accepting that is that the whole thing? Or is
it just part of it? That’s important, aiming at the right
target is important. So in this situation, I did episode 192 of
the podcast, which is linked in the show notes here, go listen
to that, that will probably help you. And this is related to
question number nine, which is, I’m doing my exposures.
But it’s
not working. This is what you think you’re doing. I’m doing
all the things I’m doing exposures but not working. Why?
And there are a couple of common explanations for this. Number
one would be we’ll ask you a couple of questions. And this is
right at the show notes. Are you trying to do exposures without
being too afraid? Are you trying to do your exposures without
triggering high anxiety or panic? Are you only doing
exposures now and then when you’re forced to or when you’re
having a good day? Are you doing exposures while also using all
of your soothing and coping tools to calm you down if it
gets uncomfortable? These are all red flags as to why exposure
might not be working.
So remember what I said a couple of
questions before the point of exposure are not doing the
task. The point of the exposure is experiencing the fear the
anxiety, the discomfort you want that you need that if you’re
trying to find ways to do your exposure tasks without feeling
that or minimizing it or soothing or calming it or making
it’s easier Don’t do the exposure, there’s no point in it. Because
you’re not, you’re not learning to drive again, you’re learning
how to get better at experiencing anxiety. So this is one of the
main reasons why people will say my exposures aren’t working
well, okay, but you’re not doing exposure, in some
cases, for a common mistake. The other thing would be that you
know, that you’re supposed to experience that experience,
panic, but you are still hanging on to those who escape
behaviors and those rituals.
So some people get close to like
real exposure, I would say real exposure, but most effective
exposure, but they still hang on to like, well, there’s a line
that I just can’t cross with anxiety and panic. And when I
get close to that line, I will break out all of my copings
skills. And I will break out my, safety skills and my make it
go away skills. And that’s the response prevention part. So
we’ve talked about exposure and response prevention, ERP, which
is very commonly used in the OCD community, you hear ERP in that
community all the time, but even for all of the
anxiety disorders. Exposure is always ERP. So doing the things,
you’re doing the things, you’re intentionally triggering this
comfort, and you’re doing that without using your old
responses, your safety responses, and soothing responses, you’re
preventing those responses.
So one of the reasons why
another key reason why exposure might not be working air quotes
for you is first of all, what does working mean? It doesn’t
mean to make it go away. Remember, it means teaching you how to get
better at being anxious. But why do you think it’s not working?
Well, one of the reasons is doing the exposure without doing
the response prevention. I’m out there driving on the highway,
but I’ve got my mints and my cold water and I got my radio
on, I’m calling and I’m talking to my friend or I bring my
husband or my girlfriend with me that that’s one good reason why
it might not be working. Right. So if you go to
anxious truth.com and just search for the word exposure,
you’ll see quite a few podcast episodes where we talked about
this in more detail. And then question 10 Final question for
the day. This is a big one. How do I deal with a setback? So
this is a such question I hear every single day and I the
word setback, I almost want to be stricken from the vocabulary.
Many times when people are in the recovery process, they
feel like they’re doing great because they’re not experiencing
anxiety or panic.
Like they’re feeling good. That’s, that’s
awesome. We want everybody to feel good. I want you to feel
good to write, I want you to have good days. We all want to
have good days. Everybody deserves a good day. So when you
start to string good days together, and you’re feeling
pretty good. And it’s been a while since you had a panic
attack, or it’s been a while since you had those scary
thoughts or it’s been a while since you’ve had an
anxious day and then you have an anxious day or the thoughts come
back or you have a big panic attack one night. A lot of
people will say up, it’s a setback. That’s not a setback.
That’s not a setback, right? If the core principle of
recovery, is to learn that anxiety and panic are not
emergencies, then how is feeling that a setback, it’s no longer
an emergency, you are trying to learn that it’s not an
emergency, we do not declare it a special event.
We don’t
retreat from it. So setback is usually a red flag word and it
indicates that you’re still insisting that the only
successful recovery is one year where you will never feel
anxious or panicky ever again. And if you’re trying to recover
to that degree, where you never you can guarantee that you never
panic or ever have another scary thought in your life.
You’re going to be disappointed and frustrated. So
setback is not feeling things. If you haven’t felt anxious for
two weeks, and then today you feel anxious. Well, your job
today is to move through those feelings and practice being
better at being anxious. That’s not a setback. That’s just life
happening. And that’s an opportunity to get even better.
Like we want it we get to the end of the road to recovery
when we don’t care if we’re anxious or not. And I know that
if you’re in the thick of it right now you are thinking that
is an insane statement.
But that is truly where you are headed
with this. That is when the war is over. So if every time you
experience anxiety, you yell setback and want to know what to do
I do with a setback? You’re kind of missing the point and you’re
not being fair to yourself. Okay, so the only true thing
that I might call setback is setback is also really what
happens when we say up all bets are off and I’m going to return
to my old rituals.
I’m gonna go back to my figuring it out
trying to fight it trying to resist it hiding from it. Going
back to my compulsive. My compulsions, like that, might be
setbacks. Yes, if you start to revert to those old habits, I’ll
call that a setback with you. But how you feel and what you
think is not the setback. But even if you do start to revert
to those old habits as soon as you waive the setback flag and
one piece of advice just remember, oh wait, I have to start doing what I was
doing before. No problem that happens to everybody move
forward again. So if anxiety returns after some time, right
at the show notes here your job is not to wring your hands
and try to figure out why and how to stop it and declare
a disaster.
Your job is to surf through it, move through it
like you presumably did as part of the progress that you said
you had made. So I did do an episode on this early on in 2015
of the podcast, episode 14 talks about the nonlinear nature
of recovery and goes over setbacks. But I know setback is
a thing that we talk about all the time in this community.
Hopefully, this helps. And that is it. Those are our second 10
frequently asked questions about anxiety and anxiety recovery. We
are done with episode 217. If you have not heard to 16 go
ahead and listen, because those are the first 10 questions you
know, we’re done because he told me that music. Anyway, I will
pay you out as usual. Afterglow by Ben Drake, you can
find Ben and his music ed Ben Drake music.com Go check them
out and tell him I said hi, I will ask you a favor. If you’re
listening to the podcast on iTunes on Apple podcasts or
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Please
leave a five-star rating and maybe take a second to write a
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you’re listening on YouTube. Sorry, there’s no video this
week. But if you’re listening on YouTube, Like the video,
subscribe to the channel, and leave a comment. You know the deal. I
appreciate you guys coming by all the time spending time with
me giving me your attention. Hopefully, I’m able to help you.
I’m doing the best I can. I’m hoping it’s working out for you.
I’ll be back next week. We’re gonna do it again. I don’t know
what I’m gonna be talking about. But I will be here. And as
always remember, this is the way Unknown: this is where your
story begins. You got the feeling that you go yeah, you’re
doing fine. Now in the city, you live fast. No looking back on
the past. Never get another chance.
