September 25, 2024 • 28 mins
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Can you transform your relationship with anxiety by letting go and dropping your resistance?
Well, the most effective acceptance-based treatments for chronic and disordered anxiety are based on this exact principle. The concepts are simple and the theory is sound, yet most anxious people struggle with fully letting to and engaging in mindful acceptance of anxiety, fear, panic, uncertainty, and other difficult internal experiences.
Of course they struggle! Choosing to fully allow these scary feelings is a big ask. It's not easy. It requires a leap of faith in the underlying principles and a healthy dose of courage to allow anxiety and fear to "do their worst" without trying to save oneself or be rescued. But difficult as this might be, its a worthwhile ability to cultivate as it forms the foundation of effective and lasting anxiety recovery while also becoming a valuable life skill that lasts forever.
This week we're doing a guided mindful acceptance exercise designed to help you sit with anxiety instead of battling it, a practice that teaches you to observe your feelings without trying to control or diminish them. This approach isn't suitable for those overwhelmed by traumatic memories or flashbacks (without professional help), but it provides valuable lessons for anyone looking to understand and ultimately overcome lifestyle restrictions imposed by chronic or disordered anxiety.
This is about 15 minutes of theory, rationale, and basic instruction followed by 10-15 minutes of guided/coached mindful acceptance. There's more speaking, instruction and coaching here than you might find when doing guided mindfulness exercises, but this particular exercise is designed to provide a sound introduction to the practice as a way to get started or work through initial resistance.
For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/301
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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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Today, on episode 301 of the Anxious Truth, we're
going to do a short guidedexercise in acceptance, letting
go, surrendering, droppingresistance, being mindful,
floating, willfully tolerating,Call it whatever works for you.
That's what today's episode isall about.
It's a short guided exercise inacceptance, or mindfulness or
letting go, designed for peoplewho are struggling with chronic
(00:22):
and disordered anxiety.
If you're watching on YouTubetoday, apologies, there is no
video, there's only still images.
But there's a reason for that.
You don't have to watch me talktoday to get the most out of
this exercise, so I didn't wantto distract you with video.
So this is the Anxious Truth,the podcast that covers all
things anxiety, anxietydisorders and anxiety recovery.
I am Drew Linsalata.
I am the creator and host ofthis fine podcast or I hope it's
(00:45):
a fine podcast.
Anyway, I am a therapistpracticing in the state of New
York under supervision,specializing in the treatment of
anxiety and anxiety disorders.
I am a three-time author onthis topic Anxiety, Anxiety
Disorders and Anxiety Recovery.
I am a former sufferer, formany years of my life, of things
like panic disorder,agoraphobia, OCD, and of things
like panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD and depression.
Doing much better now, Thankyou.
For many years I am an advocate, a psychoeducator, a social
(01:08):
media dude and, yeah, happy tobe here for episode 301 of this
podcast, which has been goingstrong since I don't know when
2014 sometime, I think.
So it's been quite a while.
If you are new to the AnxiousTruth, you just accidentally
stumbled upon us today.
I hope you find what you hearor watch useful in some way and,
of course, if you're areturning listener, welcome back
(01:29):
.
I'm glad that you're here, asalways.
Just a quick reminder that theAnxious Truth is more than just
this podcast episode, thislittle guided acceptance
exercise, or this YouTube video.
There are a ton more resources,many of which are free or very
low cost.
On my website, which istheanxioustruthcom, you can
follow all my social media links.
There's links to all of mylow-cost workshops and courses.
(01:50):
There are the links to thethree books that I've written.
There's just a ton of stuffover there.
So when you get a chance, headon over there to
theanxioustruthcom and check itout.
Of course, if you're here onYouTube today watching or
listening as a video and youlike it, maybe take a moment to
hit the thumbs up or subscribeto the video, and if you have
any questions about what youhear, use the comment section
below to ask me Now, before weget into our little guided
(02:11):
acceptance exercise this morning, I want to give you a few
little guidelines.
The first one is very important.
If you sit quietly and allowyour thoughts and find that you
are overwhelmed literallyoverwhelmed by painful memories
of very difficult past events orsituations, or triggered into a
current crisis state where yourability to cope with how you
(02:32):
feel is outstripped and you areburied, this exercise is
probably not for you.
This is not a trauma-focusedexercise at all.
We do not decide to just sitquietly in trauma flashbacks
without a lot of prep and a lotof professional guidance.
We don't float through pastabuses or harmful events that
trigger re-experiencing events.
(02:53):
Now, here we are targeting thefear of thoughts, emotions and
sensations that themselves areperceived as the threat.
We're not addressing PTSD orthe long-term impacts of crisis
events that create actualmemories that are in some way
incapacitating in the moment Inthose situations if that's the
situation you're in first, I'mvery sorry that you are.
That's very difficult, but inthose situations we want to work
(03:16):
with qualified in-person helpusing empirically validated
methods that can help yourebuild the narratives around
those past events and turn theminto really bad but handleable
memories and the internet,including this podcast episode
and this episode.
This exercise is not that so ifyou are dealing with PTSD, or
you cannot sit quietly with yourthoughts because you have
(03:38):
re-experiencing of pastexperiences or you have
flashbacks, so to speak, or itjust becomes absolutely
overwhelming and incapacitatingto you, this exercise is not for
you.
Please keep that in mind.
Second little guideline you willnote that at no point in the
rationale and instructions Iprovide today am I going to talk
about calming, grounding,relaxing or even achieving any
(04:00):
particular state at all.
Now, I might use the word relaxto remind you to take the
tension out of your body whenyou notice it during the
exercise, but this is not aboutlearning how to make anxiety or
discomfort vanish through sometechnique.
This is not a calming techniqueat all when anxiety and fear
sort of kick in your dooragainst your will and barge into
your home, sort of figurativelyspeaking.
(04:21):
Here, with this exercise, weare learning to let it sit on
your sofa with you, get boredwith itself and move on, without
waging war against it ordeclaring your life to be a
disaster, because that hashappened.
Paradoxically, when we get goodat this, we often do find that
we become less anxious overalland we will experience anxiety
(04:42):
surges or panic less often, butthat is not the primary target
here.
I cannot stress that enough.
If you're looking for a calmingor relaxation exercise to
regulate your nervous system ondemand when you are too anxious,
this is not it.
This is not what this is for.
And third, we are going topractice watching our internal
experiences change when we leavethem alone.
(05:04):
Change is the key word.
We're not going to practicewatching our internal
experiences change when we leavethem alone.
Change is the key word.
We're not going to demand thatthey decrease.
Now they might, and that wouldbe awesome, but they might also
intensify at times, which isalso okay.
We really want to see thingschange when we leave them alone.
That's natural, and we'retrying to allow that process to
play out without resisting it ortrying to control it in some
(05:26):
way.
Now there may be moments in thisexercise where you engage in
this practice and you havethoughts or sensations that are
getting stronger or louder andyou will be strongly compelled
to stop, re-engage yourresistance and fight against
that.
If you do stop and fight,that's okay.
This is a long-standing habitfor most anxious people.
(05:47):
It's perfectly okay torecognize where things went off
the rails, maybe reset and tryagain.
Remember, we call this apractice for a reason.
We're not trying to createspecific outcomes every time.
We're trying to learn that allthe outcomes are actually okay,
even the ones we don't want.
But in those moments, askyourself when you want to cut
(06:08):
bait, run, fight, resist control, ask yourself if you can let
yourself move through those peakexperiences.
That's really hard, 100%, let'sacknowledge it, but that is a
valuable ability that we'rereally learning to cultivate.
That's what this exercise isall about.
So let's get to it.
I want to give you a coreprinciple before we really start
(06:32):
the exercise, and that coreprinciple is that, in the
absence of a real danger orexternal stress or input of some
kind, all internal experiences,emotions, thoughts, feelings
etc.
Are transient, All of them.
No internal state is constantor forever.
In our context, even peoplethat struggle with
(06:55):
thought-driven OCD or GAD cannotice that scary thoughts,
excessive worry or ruminationare simply not constant.
They will rise, fall and changeon their own, even when it's
just because we're accidentallydistracted.
And while you might insist,anxious people might exist
sometimes that they are in anabsolute panic during every
waking moment.
I would urge you to stop for aminute and consider a time in
(07:16):
the past where you accidentallygot distracted and found that
your anxiety or distress didfade into the background at
least a little bit or did changein some way for a few minutes
or maybe even a few hours.
I have seen anxious people whowere, you know, insisted that
they could not possibly attend afamily function, like a wedding
, wound up, sort of gettingcaught up in the event, forgot
(07:37):
about their anxiety and had agreat eight hours.
That happens.
So we have to rely on the coreprinciple that all of our
internal experiences aretransient if we let them be so
letting go.
We have to learn and practicehow to let go so that we can
allow this core principle towork for us.
(07:59):
If we're going to fight, resist,judge, interpret, analyze and
predict based on how we'refeeling those internal
experiences, then we are simplynot allowing the experience to
be transient in nature.
We're choosing to keep thatexperience alive by fueling it
with the resistance.
Now, this is not accusatory.
It seems like common sense tofight negative internal
(08:20):
experiences.
But when we choose to fight, wekeep those experiences alive.
And that's when you'll say Ifeel like I'm just constantly
anxious.
It doesn't go away, nothingworks.
But even then, nobody canremain fully focused on scary or
disturbing things, because lifeis going to happen around you
and it's going to distract youfor a few minutes here and there
.
So when we practice fullyletting go, like we're gonna do
(08:50):
today, for about eight minutesor so, we are giving ourselves a
chance to see our internalexperiences.
Even the really scary anddisturbing ones that you think
are off limits change naturally,because that's what they do.
So what does letting go mean?
And when I post about lettinggo on social media, people are
like, yes, but how?
What are you supposed to do?
What does that even mean?
What does that look like?
How do you do it?
Well, first let's talk aboutwhat it means.
It means allowing.
It means not resisting becauseit's here anyway, so resisting
(09:13):
is pointless.
It doesn't mean letting go ofyour thoughts or sensations so
they just float away and neverreturn.
This is not like a cure and, bythe way, we are going to do
some mindfulness and meditationlooking things here, and I'm
tired of hearing thatmindfulness and meditation are
cures for things.
They are not.
These are tools.
But in this situation, lettinggo means letting go of the
(09:34):
resistance to the thoughts andexperiences In this situation.
It means learning how to notfight, analyze, judge, interpret
or say, say, predict, based onwhat you're feeling, your
internal experiences.
This is about learning to justbe, which I know sounds super
woo, but it is true.
It's about learning to just beand allow what is as it is,
(09:56):
moment by moment Now.
Does this have applications inlife in general, beyond anxiety
recovery?
Sure does, but for now, we'regoing to talk about how to do
this, what this looks like forpeople who are struggling with
anxiety disorder recovery andare really struggling because
they start to feel things andthen they bail.
So the next question would behow do we do this?
Well, if we look at the populardefinition of mindfulness,
(10:18):
which comes from Jon Kabat-Zinnhe's one of my favorites we can
look at mindfulness as simplythis it's the act of paying
attention to the present moment,with the intention of paying
attention, but without judgment.
Again, fully experiencing whatis as it is right now.
That's it.
That's what mindfulness is.
(10:39):
What is happening?
Not, why not?
What does it mean?
Not, how do I stop it?
Not what's going to happen in10 minutes.
What's happening right now?
Can I open myself up to what ishappening in my life right now.
That is mindfulness, that's howwe use it and guess what?
That's pretty scary If you'rean anxious person dealing with
(10:59):
things like panic disorder orOCD or health anxiety.
Even gag can get pretty scarywhen it gets loud.
This is difficult.
We fight against scary anddisturbing internal experiences
because we think that we mustresist sensations, thoughts or
emotions because otherwise theywill be too much, they will
overwhelm us, they will break usor they might cause actual harm
to us or they are harbingers ofdoom.
(11:21):
So even if they were, we thinkwe could stop the signal of doom
and therefore stop the doom.
That's not true.
So we must always acknowledgethat for someone struggling with
an anxiety disorder, fullyallowing these thoughts,
emotions or sensations andobserving them as they change
seems simple.
But it's going to feel wrong,risky, dangerous or even
downright reckless to do that.
(11:42):
We have to acknowledge that andthat's what makes this so
difficult to do.
But here we're relying on thecore principle that tells us
that an oversensitized,hypervigilant mind stuck in
protection mode without anactual threat present never
creates actual harmful or riskysituations for its owner
Uncomfortable situations,difficult to handle situations.
Disturbing and scary situations, Uncomfortable situations,
(12:03):
difficult to handle situations,disturbing and scary situations.
But your anxious mind simplycannot destroy itself or you by
just creating thoughts, emotions, images or sensations.
It just doesn't work that way.
And this is scary work whenfirst let go to watch things
change on their own, withoutforcing them.
But facing that fear is part ofthe hand we've been dealt, it
is our reality in the anxietydisorder world.
(12:25):
So let's acknowledge thechallenge here, but not set up
permanent residence in.
This is hard air.
Quotes this is hard town.
We can acknowledge that this isdifficult.
Be patient with yourself.
It's okay.
If you can't really do it formore than a couple of minutes or
a couple of seconds, that'sokay.
But we don't have to set uppermanent residence and plant
our flag forever.
And this is hard, we know it'shard.
(12:46):
We have to learn to do itanyway, patiently and with
kindness and self-compassion.
So before we actually getstarted, just a little bit of a
caveat here.
This exercise is going toinclude much more talking and
coaching and instruction that Imight do, say, with a therapy
client in session.
I'm assuming that this is newto you or that you've been
trying it, but you're strugglingto do this.
(13:07):
So I really want to add theextra coaching and guidance to
help you understand what itlooks and feels like, so you can
get a better sense of whataccepting, surrendering and
letting go is like.
So let's bring it down just alittle bit, because I'm not the
quietest guy in the world and Itend to talk very quickly.
I'm going to try and bring itdown a little bit and let's get
cooking with the exercise.
It's going to take about eightminutes or so roughly.
(13:29):
I haven't totally timed it, butlet's get into it.
So, if you are ready, I wantyou to take a few minutes to be
sure that you're sittingcomfortably or that you're
laying down so that you aresupported and can remain in that
position for the seven or eightminutes or so of this exercise
without being disturbed.
Hopefully you're in a quietplace.
Take a moment to start to scanyour body from head to toe to
(13:51):
see if you can find any tension.
We're looking for tension.
When you do, I want you to doyour best to release the tension
in your body.
This by itself might bechallenging, because bracing
your body against what you feara form of resistance might feel
a little risky or a lot risky.
Do your best to sort of ragdollyour body.
That means let it go limp andrelease all the tension.
(14:13):
That's going to be hard, butit's okay.
If you have to re-releasethroughout the exercise.
When you notice that thetension is returning, that's
perfectly fine.
There is nothing in thisexercise that you can do wrong.
Again, we call it practice fora good reason.
Be nice to yourself as we workthrough this together.
Now I want you to take a fewseconds to settle into the
(14:34):
position that you're in.
Try to become as still as youcan and again, this might be
challenging because fidgeting isone of those defenses anxious
people employ againstexperiences that we fear and we
want to block.
If you find it challenging torelax your body and sit still,
then this is your practice,right Doing a few exercises a
few seconds at a time andworking to extend that little by
(14:57):
little as you repeat theexercise.
It's okay.
If you find that you almostcan't relax your body and sit
still at first, that's okay.
Stick with me for the fullexercise so you can learn what
you're shooting for.
But if you have to get up andreset over and over at this
point, there's nothing wrongwith starting.
There is literally nothingwrong with that.
Please refrain from declaringfailure immediately.
(15:20):
Now, if you're settled in andyou've managed to release most
of the tension in your body andyou're sitting mostly still,
this is where you will probablyfind yourself start to get
challenged, because you mightsee that your anxiety sensations
and your symptoms feel stronger.
You might feel that yourthoughts and emotions are
starting to feel bigger orlouder inside of you.
That's okay, that's notdangerous.
(15:40):
We expect this to happen.
We're here to practice havingthat exact experience.
Now ask yourself if you canallow what you feel and think in
this moment.
Can you acknowledge what you'reexperiencing you don't have to
try to ignore it and can youallow yourself to fully
experience it as it is, withoutresistance?
(16:01):
This is the part where we startto get sucked into trying to
explain what we're experiencingor analyzing it or finding
meaning in it or makingpredictions based on it.
Right now, in this practice,let's see if we can refrain from
doing that.
We expect this to happen andwe're here to try to learn to
simply have this experience sowe can learn something from it.
(16:23):
To learn to simply have thisexperience so we can learn
something from it.
If you notice sensations in yourbody.
Let's try labeling themobjectively.
For example, I feel my heartracing, I'm sweating.
I feel tension across my chest.
I notice I'm shaking a little.
I notice I'm shaking a lot.
I can also notice that my headfeels heavy.
You get the idea.
(16:43):
Just label them objectively,You'll notice.
I didn't say it feels like andI did not try to predict what
any of that means or what mighthappen.
You might even gentlyacknowledge that you felt these
things every time you gettriggered or anxious and notice
we're just describing, we're notadding stories to the sensation
.
I'm just going to leave a fewseconds of silence here so you
(17:06):
can practice objectivelylabeling what you feel in your
body right now.
(17:27):
Okay, so let's move on tothoughts.
If you're having scary thoughtsand you want to save yourself
from the disaster they seem toimply, can you label the
thoughts and watch them happenas they happen, like you do with
sensations?
Maybe you can imagine thosescary thoughts being on a
conveyor belt, slowly going pastyou.
Can you see them on the belt infront of you, moving, say, from
(17:47):
your left to your right andthen maybe falling off the end
of the belt?
They might come back, but canyou watch them go past you on
the conveyor belt and then falloff the end.
Can you name those thoughtswithout adding stories or
explaining them?
For example, I notice I'm havingthoughts about insanity now.
For example, I notice I'mhaving thoughts about insanity.
Now.
I can also notice thoughtsabout being somebody I don't
(18:09):
want to be or doing things thatI truly do not want to do, and
this disturbs me.
Now my mind is making thoughtsabout being sick or needing
urgent medical attention orbeing contaminated.
See how that works.
We're just naming the thoughts,we're just acknowledging them
because we cannot ignore them.
So just acknowledge them, namethem, put them on the belt and
let them go by.
You might even label yourthoughts as recurring stories if
(18:31):
they're familiar with you.
One thing I like to teach peopleis something like oh, there's
that psychosis story again.
You label it for what it isit's a thought.
There it goes, it's comingaround again, like it does all
the time, and it's going past me.
I'm going to leave a little bitof silence here so you can
practice with that.
Okay, now let's try noticingmaybe other things that are also
(19:12):
happening now.
Can you hear things around youor in the next room?
Are there sounds?
Are there any scents or smellsyou can detect?
Maybe take note of thetemperature in the room.
This isn't a grounding thing.
This isn't a calming thing.
Just see if you can notice whatelse is going on.
Here's one.
See if you can visualize allthe people in the houses or
buildings in the town around youor the city around you.
(19:32):
They are also havingexperiences now, of all
different varieties, somepositive, some neutral, some
negative, just like you are.
Can you notice for a minutethat the things happening inside
you are not the only thingshappening in the universe, even
though they want to be treatedthat way?
So take a few seconds now tosee if you can expand your reach
(19:54):
to consider that there areother things happening in the
universe, including other peoplehaving experiences right now.
Take a little time to try it.
I'll leave you a little silence, so let's move on to being kind
(20:27):
to yourself.
If you find your mind makingthoughts about how you are
failing because of what you'refeeling right now, or being
challenged by that, or if youhear your inner critical voice
yelling at you that you're nevergoing to get better, can you
also allow those thoughts,Because those are also thoughts?
Can you label them as negativeor critical thoughts and also
let them move by you withoutarguing with them or making
(20:49):
stories on top of them.
How about trying this one?
Oh, there's that story aboutbeing weak.
Again, it's moving by me, onthe conveyor belt of my mind.
Again, Take a moment toacknowledge something that when
your mind makes thoughts andyour body makes sensations, even
the ones you don't like, youare literally part of an
unbroken line that stretchesfrom the very first recognizable
(21:09):
modern human being to you,sitting or laying where you are
right now.
Every human that has ever livedand will ever live have or will
have thoughts and experiencesand sensations, some of which
are unwanted, scary, disturbingor intrusive.
You are not broken.
You're just like all of ussince the beginning of time.
(21:30):
At the moment, you are justbeing tricked.
You're just like all of ussince the beginning of time.
At the moment, you are justbeing tricked into treating
those normal human experiencesas problems to solve.
So can you experiment in thesefew moments, in this exercise,
with just having that experiencerather than problem solving
around it?
Let's take about 10 or 15seconds so you could practice
(21:51):
that, just having the experience, and I'll leave you some
silence.
And now.
I'll just remind you to tryreleasing the tension in your
(22:14):
body, if you can notice anyagain, and if you can go back to
trying to be still and noticeany movement or acknowledge it.
None of it is wrong.
Notice it, acknowledge it andgently adjust if you need to.
This is what we do throughoutexercises like this.
Maybe you can now notice howthe sensations in your body and
the thoughts in your mind arechanging over the last few
minutes that we've beenpracticing together.
(22:35):
Maybe they're stronger orweaker, or they have moved from
one spot in your body to another.
Maybe sensations disappearedand others popped up.
Maybe you're having differentthoughts now or experiencing
different emotions than you werefour or five minutes ago.
Or maybe they're the same ones,but they've gotten quieter or
farther away, or even gottenlouder and then softer and then
(22:56):
louder again.
Can you notice how yourexperience has changed?
Naturally, when you leave italone and stopped hanging on so
tightly to try to control it.
Try to notice how things havechanged over the past seven or
eight minutes.
Take a few seconds to try that,while I leave you a little
silence.
Okay, now I want you to takeanother minute or so to just try
(23:31):
to stay in your currentexperience, with the intention
of staying with it and withoutjudgment or interpretation.
Drop your resistance, See ifyou can fully allow this
experience without fightingagainst it, and I will leave you
60 seconds here for you topractice on your own.
30 more seconds, Okay.
(24:44):
Good job on the practice.
If you had to reset a bunch oftimes, that's okay.
We're getting close to the endof the practice.
We want to wrap it up, so whatI want you to do is slowly bring
yourself back into the spacethat you're in.
Maybe wiggle your fingers ortoes gently, Take a few breaths,
Move around in your chair, Openyour eyes if you had them
closed, Just kind of get back intouch with what's around you
and where you are.
(25:04):
Take your time.
If you're not ready to stop,you're enjoying this and you
want to keep going.
Feel free to keep going.
You know, hit the stop buttonand then restart the video or
the podcast.
When you're ready, that's okay.
But when you've completed theexercise and you're comfortable
again, pat yourself on the back.
Even if you struggle to getthrough it and had to keep
resetting, you just didsomething really hard.
Acknowledge that you didsomething good for you and that
(25:26):
is a very big deal.
That's important and I want youto consider the following
questions.
You don't have to answer themimmediately.
Maybe write them down andanswer them for yourself over
the next five or ten minutes.
What did I observe during thisexperience?
Don't interpret what youobserve.
Just ask yourself what youobserved.
Stick to the facts.
The second question would bewhat did this experience teach
(25:48):
me about anxiety, discomfort,fear or distress?
The third question might bewhat did this experience teach
me about how I can interact withthose things?
What did it teach me about myability to handle those negative
experiences without wrestlingwith them?
And the last question would bewhat surprised me about this
experience?
What came up or what did Iexperience as I did the exercise
(26:12):
?
That I wasn't expecting.
And remember, we're not lookingfor specific outcomes here.
There's no box to check or goalto achieve when you do these
things.
We're just looking for what theexperience was like objectively
, sort of without jumping into.
I felt like I was going to that.
We're not going to interpretlike that and we want to see
what was it like objectively andwhat you can learn from it that
(26:32):
you can take with you into therest of today or your next
practice session.
Maybe you're going to do thisagain tomorrow.
Now there's a million otherplaces where you can find these
type of exercises online withoutall of the front and back that
I put on a podcast episodethat's now stretching to 26
minutes.
Maybe I'll record one thatdoesn't have all the
instructions and has moresilence for you.
I'll try to see if I can dothat in the next couple of weeks
(26:53):
.
But yeah, if you did this andyou made it to the end, even if
you tried and had to reset overand over, congratulations.
You did a really good thingtoday for yourself and I really
appreciate that.
You tried something that maybeyou thought was impossible or
thought you shouldn't do or havebeen struggling to do.
So good on you.
And we'll wrap it up here.
That would be episode 301 ofthe Anxious Truth.
(27:14):
In the books there's no music.
I don't want to ruin thesilence with music today.
I'm just going to remind youagain that you did a really hard
thing today and you should patyourself on the back, and also
that if, in fact, you can takeone tiny step today away from
the fear and toward the lifethat you more realistically
value and want to live, nomatter how tiny that step is
(27:36):
like maybe practicing eightminutes of you know, mindful
acceptance on a podcast episode,that counts.
They all count.
They add up.
Sometimes it takes time,sometimes you have to be patient
, but you can get there if youlet experiences like this build
up and become additive over time.
If, in fact, you are listeningto this podcast episode on Apple
(27:56):
or Spotify and you dig thepodcast, maybe leave a five-star
rating and if you really reallylike it, maybe take a second
and write a review, because ithelps other people find the
podcast and the more people gethelp.
Of course.
If you're watching on YouTubefor the first time, maybe
subscribe to the channel, hitthe notification bell so that
you know when I upload newvideos and if you have questions
or comments, leave them in theYouTube comments.
(28:16):
I know I'm very far behind onthem, but I'm finishing my
master's degree in two weeks andI'll have more time to come
back into the comment section onYouTube.
If you're listening as a podcastepisode, look at the
description in your podcast app.
There's a link where you cansend me a question by a text.
I'm never going to text youback.
I don't see your number.
It's just a way for you to talkto me from your podcast app, so
(28:37):
check that out if you have anyquestions.
Thank you so much for hangingout today.
I hope you found this useful.
If you do, let me know.
We'll do more of them.
I will try to make you a betterrecorded exercise without all
the jabbering at you, but itmight take me a while to.
Today, on episode 301 of the Anxious Truth, we're
going to do a short guidedexercise in acceptance, letting
go, surrendering, droppingresistance, being mindful,
floating, willfully tolerating,Call it whatever works for you.
That's what today's episode isall about.
It's a short guided exercise inacceptance, or mindfulness or
letting go, designed for peoplewho are struggling with chronic
(00:22):
and disordered anxiety.
If you're watching on YouTubetoday, apologies, there is no
video, there's only still images.
But there's a reason for that.
You don't have to watch me talktoday to get the most out of
this exercise, so I didn't wantto distract you with video.
So this is the Anxious Truth,the podcast that covers all
things anxiety, anxietydisorders and anxiety recovery.
I am Drew Linsalata.
I am the creator and host ofthis fine podcast or I hope it's
(00:45):
a fine podcast.
Anyway, I am a therapistpracticing in the state of New
York under supervision,specializing in the treatment of
anxiety and anxiety disorders.
I am a three-time author onthis topic Anxiety, Anxiety
Disorders and Anxiety Recovery.
I am a former sufferer, formany years of my life, of things
like panic disorder,agoraphobia, OCD, and of things
like panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD and depression.
Doing much better now, Thankyou.
For many years I am an advocate, a psychoeducator, a social
(01:08):
media dude and, yeah, happy tobe here for episode 301 of this
podcast, which has been goingstrong since I don't know when
2014 sometime, I think.
So it's been quite a while.
If you are new to the AnxiousTruth, you just accidentally
stumbled upon us today.
I hope you find what you hearor watch useful in some way and,
of course, if you're areturning listener, welcome back
(01:29):
.
I'm glad that you're here, asalways.
Just a quick reminder that theAnxious Truth is more than just
this podcast episode, thislittle guided acceptance
exercise, or this YouTube video.
There are a ton more resources,many of which are free or very
low cost.
On my website, which istheanxioustruthcom, you can
follow all my social media links.
There's links to all of mylow-cost workshops and courses.
(01:50):
There are the links to thethree books that I've written.
There's just a ton of stuffover there.
So when you get a chance, headon over there to
theanxioustruthcom and check itout.
Of course, if you're here onYouTube today watching or
listening as a video and youlike it, maybe take a moment to
hit the thumbs up or subscribeto the video, and if you have
any questions about what youhear, use the comment section
below to ask me Now, before weget into our little guided
(02:11):
acceptance exercise this morning, I want to give you a few
little guidelines.
The first one is very important.
If you sit quietly and allowyour thoughts and find that you
are overwhelmed literallyoverwhelmed by painful memories
of very difficult past events orsituations, or triggered into a
current crisis state where yourability to cope with how you
(02:32):
feel is outstripped and you areburied, this exercise is
probably not for you.
This is not a trauma-focusedexercise at all.
We do not decide to just sitquietly in trauma flashbacks
without a lot of prep and a lotof professional guidance.
We don't float through pastabuses or harmful events that
trigger re-experiencing events.
(02:53):
Now, here we are targeting thefear of thoughts, emotions and
sensations that themselves areperceived as the threat.
We're not addressing PTSD orthe long-term impacts of crisis
events that create actualmemories that are in some way
incapacitating in the moment Inthose situations if that's the
situation you're in first, I'mvery sorry that you are.
That's very difficult, but inthose situations we want to work
(03:16):
with qualified in-person helpusing empirically validated
methods that can help yourebuild the narratives around
those past events and turn theminto really bad but handleable
memories and the internet,including this podcast episode
and this episode.
This exercise is not that so ifyou are dealing with PTSD, or
you cannot sit quietly with yourthoughts because you have
(03:38):
re-experiencing of pastexperiences or you have
flashbacks, so to speak, or itjust becomes absolutely
overwhelming and incapacitatingto you, this exercise is not for
you.
Please keep that in mind.
Second little guideline you willnote that at no point in the
rationale and instructions Iprovide today am I going to talk
about calming, grounding,relaxing or even achieving any
(04:00):
particular state at all.
Now, I might use the word relaxto remind you to take the
tension out of your body whenyou notice it during the
exercise, but this is not aboutlearning how to make anxiety or
discomfort vanish through sometechnique.
This is not a calming techniqueat all when anxiety and fear
sort of kick in your dooragainst your will and barge into
your home, sort of figurativelyspeaking.
(04:21):
Here, with this exercise, weare learning to let it sit on
your sofa with you, get boredwith itself and move on, without
waging war against it ordeclaring your life to be a
disaster, because that hashappened.
Paradoxically, when we get goodat this, we often do find that
we become less anxious overalland we will experience anxiety
(04:42):
surges or panic less often, butthat is not the primary target
here.
I cannot stress that enough.
If you're looking for a calmingor relaxation exercise to
regulate your nervous system ondemand when you are too anxious,
this is not it.
This is not what this is for.
And third, we are going topractice watching our internal
experiences change when we leavethem alone.
(05:04):
Change is the key word.
We're not going to practicewatching our internal
experiences change when we leavethem alone.
Change is the key word.
We're not going to demand thatthey decrease.
Now they might, and that wouldbe awesome, but they might also
intensify at times, which isalso okay.
We really want to see thingschange when we leave them alone.
That's natural, and we'retrying to allow that process to
play out without resisting it ortrying to control it in some
(05:26):
way.
Now there may be moments in thisexercise where you engage in
this practice and you havethoughts or sensations that are
getting stronger or louder andyou will be strongly compelled
to stop, re-engage yourresistance and fight against
that.
If you do stop and fight,that's okay.
This is a long-standing habitfor most anxious people.
(05:47):
It's perfectly okay torecognize where things went off
the rails, maybe reset and tryagain.
Remember, we call this apractice for a reason.
We're not trying to createspecific outcomes every time.
We're trying to learn that allthe outcomes are actually okay,
even the ones we don't want.
But in those moments, askyourself when you want to cut
(06:08):
bait, run, fight, resist control, ask yourself if you can let
yourself move through those peakexperiences.
That's really hard, 100%, let'sacknowledge it, but that is a
valuable ability that we'rereally learning to cultivate.
That's what this exercise isall about.
So let's get to it.
I want to give you a coreprinciple before we really start
(06:32):
the exercise, and that coreprinciple is that, in the
absence of a real danger orexternal stress or input of some
kind, all internal experiences,emotions, thoughts, feelings
etc.
Are transient, All of them.
No internal state is constantor forever.
In our context, even peoplethat struggle with
(06:55):
thought-driven OCD or GAD cannotice that scary thoughts,
excessive worry or ruminationare simply not constant.
They will rise, fall and changeon their own, even when it's
just because we're accidentallydistracted.
And while you might insist,anxious people might exist
sometimes that they are in anabsolute panic during every
waking moment.
I would urge you to stop for aminute and consider a time in
(07:16):
the past where you accidentallygot distracted and found that
your anxiety or distress didfade into the background at
least a little bit or did changein some way for a few minutes
or maybe even a few hours.
I have seen anxious people whowere, you know, insisted that
they could not possibly attend afamily function, like a wedding
, wound up, sort of gettingcaught up in the event, forgot
(07:37):
about their anxiety and had agreat eight hours.
That happens.
So we have to rely on the coreprinciple that all of our
internal experiences aretransient if we let them be so
letting go.
We have to learn and practicehow to let go so that we can
allow this core principle towork for us.
(07:59):
If we're going to fight, resist,judge, interpret, analyze and
predict based on how we'refeeling those internal
experiences, then we are simplynot allowing the experience to
be transient in nature.
We're choosing to keep thatexperience alive by fueling it
with the resistance.
Now, this is not accusatory.
It seems like common sense tofight negative internal
(08:20):
experiences.
But when we choose to fight, wekeep those experiences alive.
And that's when you'll say Ifeel like I'm just constantly
anxious.
It doesn't go away, nothingworks.
But even then, nobody canremain fully focused on scary or
disturbing things, because lifeis going to happen around you
and it's going to distract youfor a few minutes here and there
.
So when we practice fullyletting go, like we're gonna do
(08:50):
today, for about eight minutesor so, we are giving ourselves a
chance to see our internalexperiences.
Even the really scary anddisturbing ones that you think
are off limits change naturally,because that's what they do.
So what does letting go mean?
And when I post about lettinggo on social media, people are
like, yes, but how?
What are you supposed to do?
What does that even mean?
What does that look like?
How do you do it?
Well, first let's talk aboutwhat it means.
It means allowing.
It means not resisting becauseit's here anyway, so resisting
(09:13):
is pointless.
It doesn't mean letting go ofyour thoughts or sensations so
they just float away and neverreturn.
This is not like a cure and, bythe way, we are going to do
some mindfulness and meditationlooking things here, and I'm
tired of hearing thatmindfulness and meditation are
cures for things.
They are not.
These are tools.
But in this situation, lettinggo means letting go of the
(09:34):
resistance to the thoughts andexperiences In this situation.
It means learning how to notfight, analyze, judge, interpret
or say, say, predict, based onwhat you're feeling, your
internal experiences.
This is about learning to justbe, which I know sounds super
woo, but it is true.
It's about learning to just beand allow what is as it is,
(09:56):
moment by moment Now.
Does this have applications inlife in general, beyond anxiety
recovery?
Sure does, but for now, we'regoing to talk about how to do
this, what this looks like forpeople who are struggling with
anxiety disorder recovery andare really struggling because
they start to feel things andthen they bail.
So the next question would behow do we do this?
Well, if we look at the populardefinition of mindfulness,
(10:18):
which comes from Jon Kabat-Zinnhe's one of my favorites we can
look at mindfulness as simplythis it's the act of paying
attention to the present moment,with the intention of paying
attention, but without judgment.
Again, fully experiencing whatis as it is right now.
That's it.
That's what mindfulness is.
(10:39):
What is happening?
Not, why not?
What does it mean?
Not, how do I stop it?
Not what's going to happen in10 minutes.
What's happening right now?
Can I open myself up to what ishappening in my life right now.
That is mindfulness, that's howwe use it and guess what?
That's pretty scary If you'rean anxious person dealing with
(10:59):
things like panic disorder orOCD or health anxiety.
Even gag can get pretty scarywhen it gets loud.
This is difficult.
We fight against scary anddisturbing internal experiences
because we think that we mustresist sensations, thoughts or
emotions because otherwise theywill be too much, they will
overwhelm us, they will break usor they might cause actual harm
to us or they are harbingers ofdoom.
(11:21):
So even if they were, we thinkwe could stop the signal of doom
and therefore stop the doom.
That's not true.
So we must always acknowledgethat for someone struggling with
an anxiety disorder, fullyallowing these thoughts,
emotions or sensations andobserving them as they change
seems simple.
But it's going to feel wrong,risky, dangerous or even
downright reckless to do that.
(11:42):
We have to acknowledge that andthat's what makes this so
difficult to do.
But here we're relying on thecore principle that tells us
that an oversensitized,hypervigilant mind stuck in
protection mode without anactual threat present never
creates actual harmful or riskysituations for its owner
Uncomfortable situations,difficult to handle situations.
Disturbing and scary situations, Uncomfortable situations,
(12:03):
difficult to handle situations,disturbing and scary situations.
But your anxious mind simplycannot destroy itself or you by
just creating thoughts, emotions, images or sensations.
It just doesn't work that way.
And this is scary work whenfirst let go to watch things
change on their own, withoutforcing them.
But facing that fear is part ofthe hand we've been dealt, it
is our reality in the anxietydisorder world.
(12:25):
So let's acknowledge thechallenge here, but not set up
permanent residence in.
This is hard air.
Quotes this is hard town.
We can acknowledge that this isdifficult.
Be patient with yourself.
It's okay.
If you can't really do it formore than a couple of minutes or
a couple of seconds, that'sokay.
But we don't have to set uppermanent residence and plant
our flag forever.
And this is hard, we know it'shard.
(12:46):
We have to learn to do itanyway, patiently and with
kindness and self-compassion.
So before we actually getstarted, just a little bit of a
caveat here.
This exercise is going toinclude much more talking and
coaching and instruction that Imight do, say, with a therapy
client in session.
I'm assuming that this is newto you or that you've been
trying it, but you're strugglingto do this.
(13:07):
So I really want to add theextra coaching and guidance to
help you understand what itlooks and feels like, so you can
get a better sense of whataccepting, surrendering and
letting go is like.
So let's bring it down just alittle bit, because I'm not the
quietest guy in the world and Itend to talk very quickly.
I'm going to try and bring itdown a little bit and let's get
cooking with the exercise.
It's going to take about eightminutes or so roughly.
(13:29):
I haven't totally timed it, butlet's get into it.
So, if you are ready, I wantyou to take a few minutes to be
sure that you're sittingcomfortably or that you're
laying down so that you aresupported and can remain in that
position for the seven or eightminutes or so of this exercise
without being disturbed.
Hopefully you're in a quietplace.
Take a moment to start to scanyour body from head to toe to
(13:51):
see if you can find any tension.
We're looking for tension.
When you do, I want you to doyour best to release the tension
in your body.
This by itself might bechallenging, because bracing
your body against what you feara form of resistance might feel
a little risky or a lot risky.
Do your best to sort of ragdollyour body.
That means let it go limp andrelease all the tension.
(14:13):
That's going to be hard, butit's okay.
If you have to re-releasethroughout the exercise.
When you notice that thetension is returning, that's
perfectly fine.
There is nothing in thisexercise that you can do wrong.
Again, we call it practice fora good reason.
Be nice to yourself as we workthrough this together.
Now I want you to take a fewseconds to settle into the
(14:34):
position that you're in.
Try to become as still as youcan and again, this might be
challenging because fidgeting isone of those defenses anxious
people employ againstexperiences that we fear and we
want to block.
If you find it challenging torelax your body and sit still,
then this is your practice,right Doing a few exercises a
few seconds at a time andworking to extend that little by
(14:57):
little as you repeat theexercise.
It's okay.
If you find that you almostcan't relax your body and sit
still at first, that's okay.
Stick with me for the fullexercise so you can learn what
you're shooting for.
But if you have to get up andreset over and over at this
point, there's nothing wrongwith starting.
There is literally nothingwrong with that.
Please refrain from declaringfailure immediately.
(15:20):
Now, if you're settled in andyou've managed to release most
of the tension in your body andyou're sitting mostly still,
this is where you will probablyfind yourself start to get
challenged, because you mightsee that your anxiety sensations
and your symptoms feel stronger.
You might feel that yourthoughts and emotions are
starting to feel bigger orlouder inside of you.
That's okay, that's notdangerous.
(15:40):
We expect this to happen.
We're here to practice havingthat exact experience.
Now ask yourself if you canallow what you feel and think in
this moment.
Can you acknowledge what you'reexperiencing you don't have to
try to ignore it and can youallow yourself to fully
experience it as it is, withoutresistance?
(16:01):
This is the part where we startto get sucked into trying to
explain what we're experiencingor analyzing it or finding
meaning in it or makingpredictions based on it.
Right now, in this practice,let's see if we can refrain from
doing that.
We expect this to happen andwe're here to try to learn to
simply have this experience sowe can learn something from it.
(16:23):
To learn to simply have thisexperience so we can learn
something from it.
If you notice sensations in yourbody.
Let's try labeling themobjectively.
For example, I feel my heartracing, I'm sweating.
I feel tension across my chest.
I notice I'm shaking a little.
I notice I'm shaking a lot.
I can also notice that my headfeels heavy.
You get the idea.
(16:43):
Just label them objectively,You'll notice.
I didn't say it feels like andI did not try to predict what
any of that means or what mighthappen.
You might even gentlyacknowledge that you felt these
things every time you gettriggered or anxious and notice
we're just describing, we're notadding stories to the sensation
.
I'm just going to leave a fewseconds of silence here so you
(17:06):
can practice objectivelylabeling what you feel in your
body right now.
(17:27):
Okay, so let's move on tothoughts.
If you're having scary thoughtsand you want to save yourself
from the disaster they seem toimply, can you label the
thoughts and watch them happenas they happen, like you do with
sensations?
Maybe you can imagine thosescary thoughts being on a
conveyor belt, slowly going pastyou.
Can you see them on the belt infront of you, moving, say, from
(17:47):
your left to your right andthen maybe falling off the end
of the belt?
They might come back, but canyou watch them go past you on
the conveyor belt and then falloff the end.
Can you name those thoughtswithout adding stories or
explaining them?
For example, I notice I'm havingthoughts about insanity now.
For example, I notice I'mhaving thoughts about insanity.
Now.
I can also notice thoughtsabout being somebody I don't
(18:09):
want to be or doing things thatI truly do not want to do, and
this disturbs me.
Now my mind is making thoughtsabout being sick or needing
urgent medical attention orbeing contaminated.
See how that works.
We're just naming the thoughts,we're just acknowledging them
because we cannot ignore them.
So just acknowledge them, namethem, put them on the belt and
let them go by.
You might even label yourthoughts as recurring stories if
(18:31):
they're familiar with you.
One thing I like to teach peopleis something like oh, there's
that psychosis story again.
You label it for what it isit's a thought.
There it goes, it's comingaround again, like it does all
the time, and it's going past me.
I'm going to leave a little bitof silence here so you can
practice with that.
Okay, now let's try noticingmaybe other things that are also
(19:12):
happening now.
Can you hear things around youor in the next room?
Are there sounds?
Are there any scents or smellsyou can detect?
Maybe take note of thetemperature in the room.
This isn't a grounding thing.
This isn't a calming thing.
Just see if you can notice whatelse is going on.
Here's one.
See if you can visualize allthe people in the houses or
buildings in the town around youor the city around you.
(19:32):
They are also havingexperiences now, of all
different varieties, somepositive, some neutral, some
negative, just like you are.
Can you notice for a minutethat the things happening inside
you are not the only thingshappening in the universe, even
though they want to be treatedthat way?
So take a few seconds now tosee if you can expand your reach
(19:54):
to consider that there areother things happening in the
universe, including other peoplehaving experiences right now.
Take a little time to try it.
I'll leave you a little silence, so let's move on to being kind
(20:27):
to yourself.
If you find your mind makingthoughts about how you are
failing because of what you'refeeling right now, or being
challenged by that, or if youhear your inner critical voice
yelling at you that you're nevergoing to get better, can you
also allow those thoughts,Because those are also thoughts?
Can you label them as negativeor critical thoughts and also
let them move by you withoutarguing with them or making
(20:49):
stories on top of them.
How about trying this one?
Oh, there's that story aboutbeing weak.
Again, it's moving by me, onthe conveyor belt of my mind.
Again, Take a moment toacknowledge something that when
your mind makes thoughts andyour body makes sensations, even
the ones you don't like, youare literally part of an
unbroken line that stretchesfrom the very first recognizable
(21:09):
modern human being to you,sitting or laying where you are
right now.
Every human that has ever livedand will ever live have or will
have thoughts and experiencesand sensations, some of which
are unwanted, scary, disturbingor intrusive.
You are not broken.
You're just like all of ussince the beginning of time.
(21:30):
At the moment, you are justbeing tricked.
You're just like all of ussince the beginning of time.
At the moment, you are justbeing tricked into treating
those normal human experiencesas problems to solve.
So can you experiment in thesefew moments, in this exercise,
with just having that experiencerather than problem solving
around it?
Let's take about 10 or 15seconds so you could practice
(21:51):
that, just having the experience, and I'll leave you some
silence.
And now.
I'll just remind you to tryreleasing the tension in your
(22:14):
body, if you can notice anyagain, and if you can go back to
trying to be still and noticeany movement or acknowledge it.
None of it is wrong.
Notice it, acknowledge it andgently adjust if you need to.
This is what we do throughoutexercises like this.
Maybe you can now notice howthe sensations in your body and
the thoughts in your mind arechanging over the last few
minutes that we've beenpracticing together.
(22:35):
Maybe they're stronger orweaker, or they have moved from
one spot in your body to another.
Maybe sensations disappearedand others popped up.
Maybe you're having differentthoughts now or experiencing
different emotions than you werefour or five minutes ago.
Or maybe they're the same ones,but they've gotten quieter or
farther away, or even gottenlouder and then softer and then
(22:56):
louder again.
Can you notice how yourexperience has changed?
Naturally, when you leave italone and stopped hanging on so
tightly to try to control it.
Try to notice how things havechanged over the past seven or
eight minutes.
Take a few seconds to try that,while I leave you a little
silence.
Okay, now I want you to takeanother minute or so to just try
(23:31):
to stay in your currentexperience, with the intention
of staying with it and withoutjudgment or interpretation.
Drop your resistance, See ifyou can fully allow this
experience without fightingagainst it, and I will leave you
60 seconds here for you topractice on your own.
30 more seconds, Okay.
(24:44):
Good job on the practice.
If you had to reset a bunch oftimes, that's okay.
We're getting close to the endof the practice.
We want to wrap it up, so whatI want you to do is slowly bring
yourself back into the spacethat you're in.
Maybe wiggle your fingers ortoes gently, Take a few breaths,
Move around in your chair, Openyour eyes if you had them
closed, Just kind of get back intouch with what's around you
and where you are.
(25:04):
Take your time.
If you're not ready to stop,you're enjoying this and you
want to keep going.
Feel free to keep going.
You know, hit the stop buttonand then restart the video or
the podcast.
When you're ready, that's okay.
But when you've completed theexercise and you're comfortable
again, pat yourself on the back.
Even if you struggle to getthrough it and had to keep
resetting, you just didsomething really hard.
Acknowledge that you didsomething good for you and that
(25:26):
is a very big deal.
That's important and I want youto consider the following
questions.
You don't have to answer themimmediately.
Maybe write them down andanswer them for yourself over
the next five or ten minutes.
What did I observe during thisexperience?
Don't interpret what youobserve.
Just ask yourself what youobserved.
Stick to the facts.
The second question would bewhat did this experience teach
(25:48):
me about anxiety, discomfort,fear or distress?
The third question might bewhat did this experience teach
me about how I can interact withthose things?
What did it teach me about myability to handle those negative
experiences without wrestlingwith them?
And the last question would bewhat surprised me about this
experience?
What came up or what did Iexperience as I did the exercise
(26:12):
?
That I wasn't expecting.
And remember, we're not lookingfor specific outcomes here.
There's no box to check or goalto achieve when you do these
things.
We're just looking for what theexperience was like objectively
, sort of without jumping into.
I felt like I was going to that.
We're not going to interpretlike that and we want to see
what was it like objectively andwhat you can learn from it that
(26:32):
you can take with you into therest of today or your next
practice session.
Maybe you're going to do thisagain tomorrow.
Now there's a million otherplaces where you can find these
type of exercises online withoutall of the front and back that
I put on a podcast episodethat's now stretching to 26
minutes.
Maybe I'll record one thatdoesn't have all the
instructions and has moresilence for you.
I'll try to see if I can dothat in the next couple of weeks
(26:53):
.
But yeah, if you did this andyou made it to the end, even if
you tried and had to reset overand over, congratulations.
You did a really good thingtoday for yourself and I really
appreciate that.
You tried something that maybeyou thought was impossible or
thought you shouldn't do or havebeen struggling to do.
So good on you.
And we'll wrap it up here.
That would be episode 301 ofthe Anxious Truth.
(27:14):
In the books there's no music.
I don't want to ruin thesilence with music today.
I'm just going to remind youagain that you did a really hard
thing today and you should patyourself on the back, and also
that if, in fact, you can takeone tiny step today away from
the fear and toward the lifethat you more realistically
value and want to live, nomatter how tiny that step is
(27:36):
like maybe practicing eightminutes of you know, mindful
acceptance on a podcast episode,that counts.
They all count.
They add up.
Sometimes it takes time,sometimes you have to be patient
, but you can get there if youlet experiences like this build
up and become additive over time.
If, in fact, you are listeningto this podcast episode on Apple
(27:56):
or Spotify and you dig thepodcast, maybe leave a five-star
rating and if you really reallylike it, maybe take a second
and write a review, because ithelps other people find the
podcast and the more people gethelp.
Of course.
If you're watching on YouTubefor the first time, maybe
subscribe to the channel, hitthe notification bell so that
you know when I upload newvideos and if you have questions
or comments, leave them in theYouTube comments.
(28:16):
I know I'm very far behind onthem, but I'm finishing my
master's degree in two weeks andI'll have more time to come
back into the comment section onYouTube.
If you're listening as a podcastepisode, look at the
description in your podcast app.
There's a link where you cansend me a question by a text.
I'm never going to text youback.
I don't see your number.
It's just a way for you to talkto me from your podcast app, so
(28:37):
check that out if you have anyquestions.
Thank you so much for hangingout today.
I hope you found this useful.
If you do, let me know.
We'll do more of them.
I will try to make you a betterrecorded exercise without all
the jabbering at you, but itmight take me a while to.
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