That Anxiety Guy - Straight Talk And Help With Anxiety, Panic And Agoraphobia

Send in a question or comment via text.Struggling with constant anxiety, recurring panic attacks, or a full blown anxiety disorder? Avoiding anxiety and panic triggers might seem like the safest path, but let's look at why this understandable and common response can be more foe than friend. In this episode we'll look at some of the mechanics of panic attacks and panic disorder, shedding light on why evading anxiety can inadvertently feed the beast, intensifying and fueling the cycle of fear. Prudent prudent avoidance in the face of true danger is a helpful survival tool, but avoidance can become problematic when we use it to sidestep anxiety and fear themselves, rather than actual danger.So if avoidance is more harmful than helpful, what next?  Unfortunately, what's next is the dismantling of avoidance and a turn TOWARD what you fear most. This may sound ridiculous or unthinkable to you right now, which is perfectly OK. Everyone comes to grips with this approach - or doesn't - in their own

Send in a question or comment via text.LIVING WITH ANXIETY ...I HAVE TO RECOVER SO I CAN LIVE MY LIFE AGAIN!But really, do you?  Or is it better to do your best to re-engage in life so that you can recover? This week we're examining the concept of life AS recovery rather than life as something you get to do only after you've reached some magic state of "recovered".  Yes, at times recovery from an anxiety disorder involves manufactured exposures and doing things that don't look all that much like a regular life, but recovery can be so much more.  We can also intermix life - as best we can - into the recovery process in such a way that we use life activities and experiences to help us practice handling anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and discomfort. Moving through an anxious moment while doing something that feels like life is generally more valuable and will likely lead to a deeper and more durable recovery, so consider living (to the best of your ability today) to recover, even when you&a

Send in a question or comment via text.HOW TO CALM DOWN FROM A PANIC ATTACK? This is one of the million dollar question in our community, so let's take a look at how to calm down from a panic attack. I know you likely want tips and tricks for how to stop a panic attack and calm down, but could the act of embracing, rather than fighting off a panic attack, be the hidden doorway to "calm"?  Let's look at true acceptance, and unpack the idea that true calmness emerges not from a frantic search for escape but through allowing and riding out the panic storm.This isn't about finding a quick fix. It's about redefining your relationship with anxiety and recognizing the strength in vulnerability. Remember, every moment of openness to the experience is a step toward lasting improvement and recovery.Episode Links:My Recovery Guidebookhttps://theanxioustruth.com/recoveryguidePanic Attacks Explained:https://learn.theanxioustruth.com/panic-attacks-explainedAgoraphobia Explained: https://learn.

Send in a question or comment via text.WHAT DOES A PANIC ATTACK FEEL LIKE?Let's unpack the harrowing reality of a panic attack, peeling back the layers to expose the heart-thumping, breath-stealing beast it can be. My journey as a therapist in training, fused with raw personal encounters, brings a unique perspective to the forefront. We dissect those suffocating episodes, where your own body feels like an unwieldy adversary, and thoughts of impending doom loom over you like a dark cloud. In this episode we can work together to comprehend the true gravity of those moments and the relentless quest for an escape hatch.Links from this episode:The Anxious Truth, my panic/agoraphobia recovery guideMy Panic Attacks Explained WorkshopMy Agoraphobia Explained WorkshopEpisode 239 of The Anxious Truth - Anxiety SymptomsEpisode 168 of The Anxious Truth - The Panic Attack HangoverEpisode 152 of The Anxious Truth - AgoraphobiaDisordered - "Does Anyone Else? (The Symptoms of Anxiety)"My WebsiteMy Workshops an

Send in a question or comment via text.Ever wondered how to recognize a panic attack? Want to understand the physical and mental symptoms that hint towards an oncoming episode? Not sure if what you're experiencing are panic attacks or something else? This episode of The Anxious Truth is for you. Tune in as we delve into panic and panic attacks, demystifying the sensations, the thoughts, the fear,  and the need to escape that often accompany these episodes.This is the first in my "Foundations of Panic" series so come back in the next 4-5 episodes for a deep dive into the mechanics of panic and panic attacks, how to best approach them, why they happen, why they're not dangerous, and what turns panic attacks into chronic conditions like panic disorder or agoraphobia.Find the symptoms video I mentioned in this episode:https://youtu.be/a5xQ2Q5rZp0?si=R1bS1SNshXFPloqLMy Panic Attacks Explained Workshop:https://theanxioustruth.com/panicMy Books on Anxiety and Recovery:https://theanxioustruth.com/

Send in a question or comment via text.Struggling to find the right anxiety therapist?Are you curious about how a therapist becomes a therapist?Let's take a look  through the maze of credentials - from Licensed Mental Health Counselor (LMHC) to Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC), Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT), and Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW). Let's shed some light on the demanding journey of training and education, from undergraduate studies to intensive graduate training and clinical experience.Understanding how a therapist becomes a therapist, and what that means to you, can go a long way toward untangling confusion that comes with finding qualified mental health assistance.Wondering about the difference between a master's level therapist and a doctoral level psychologist? I've got you covered!  I'll also cover the role of psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners in the mental health field and explain how to determine which therapist is right w

Send in a question or comment via text.Do you need to find a therapist that knows and follows the "Claire Weekes method"?This week we unpack the impact of Dr. Claire Weekes, shedding light on her influential role in the therapy world, specifically in the realm of anxiety disorders. Dr. Weekes' groundbreaking principles of acceptance have proven to be timeless, remaining relevant in therapy practices today. We go beyond the surface, debunking myths about her work and examining the current relevance of her methods in therapy. It's a bonus if your therapist is familiar, but its definitely not a deal breaker if they aren't.Dr. Weekes' methods, although foundational, are not the be-all and end-all. We discuss how therapies like ACT or mindfulness-based CBT or metacognitive therapy have broadened and deepened the roots she established. Even if your therapist isn't familiar with Dr. Weekes, there's no cause for alarm - I promise it's not absolutely necessary. For full sho

Send in a question or comment via text.Anxiety recovery can be a highly individual journey. This is especially true if you have ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, or otherwise identify as neurodivergent. While there are certainly general principles we rely on, every person will find recovery to present specific and unique challenges that have to be addressed as part of the process. For neurodivergent members of our community, this is also true.This week Dr. Terri Bacow took some time to chat with me about the intersection of anxiety, recovery, and neurodivergence. Terri is experienced, well trained and qualified in these areas, and does a great job of presenting an accessible, kind, compassionate view of how recovery strategies can be adapted and tailored for neurodivergent folks working on overcoming chronic/disordered anxiety.Find Dr. Terri Bacow:https://instagram.com/drterribacowhttps://drterribacow.comFor full show notes on this episode:⁠⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/277---My books, social, and other links:

Send in a question or comment via text.Anxiety and the recovery process do not exist in a vacuum. You are an entire person, and all the parts of you come into this process. Holistic is not a word you hear me use often, but it is a word we need to acknowledge because when dealing with chronic/disordered anxiety and the recovery process, your background, experiences, beliefs, and views of yourself and the world will enter the picture in various ways.* They will influence how you conceptualize your anxiety.* They will influence how you embrace and approach the recovery process.* They will influence the parts of recovery you "get" and the parts you may need to adjust here and there.* They will cause you to confront emotions, situations, and challenges that aren't always about anxiety, but may be indicative of other parts of you and other parts of your life.Forgetting this - forgetting that anxiety and recovery do not exist in a vacuum - can lead you into a trap where you're judging yourself ne

Send in a question or comment via text.The anxiety cycle starts as a seemingly never ending loop where you get triggered, you fight through it, you calm down, then you worry and fret over the next time you might get triggered. It can become an exhausting merry-go-ground if you're new to this process and convinced that high anxiety and panic are horrible disasters that must be avoided or "managed" at all costs.But over time, you will likely begin to notice that your logical brain will question that assertion, and you will start to see that you are not just being triggered into an anxious state, but that you are being TRICKED by that anxious state. When you begin to see the trickery involved in internally focused disordered anxiety, things can begin to change.When you can nail a "tricked" point to the circle, that can become the point at which you start to peel off the circle on a tangent toward recovery. Noticing and understanding that anxiety is tricking you into behaving as if you ar

Send in a question or comment via text.No new podcast episode this week, but we will be back next week with a new episode on September 27, 2023. Going forward, new episodes of The Anxious Truth will be produced every other week. I'm making this change based on time constraints and the fact that we are producing episodes of "Disordered" every week, and that's a really good podcast!Listen to Disordered here:https://disordered.fmOn the weeks with no new episode of The Anxious Truth, you can catch my "Recovery Monday" livestreams on YouTube (either live or via replay any time):https://youtube.com/@TheAnxiousTruthSee you next week, and thank you for all your support! Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. This is never required, but always appreciated!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 an

Send in a question or comment via text.Self-care in anxiety recovery. We hear about it all the time, but is self-care always essential oils and hot baths and candles and soothing? It certainly can by, but self-care is also giving yourself what you really need, which isn't always what you want. Sometimes self-care means challenging yourself a bit to help break the avoidance cycle. Sometimes self-care means you choose to be uncomfortable now to feel better about yourself later.Let's take a closer look at self-care in a way that might not all that obvious.For full show notes on this episode:⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/274---My books, social, and other links: ⁠⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/links ⁠⁠⁠Support The Anxious Truth: ⁠⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/support ⁠⁠⁠Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. This is never required, but always appreciated!Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. List

Send in a question or comment via text.This week we answered some common - and not so common - questions about anxiety and recovery. Thanks to everyone on Instagram that submitted a question. I appreciate it!First I reviewed some basic principles you can fall back on when asking many of the questions that were asked. That's about the first 15 minutes of the episode, which will be useful if you're new to this or need a refresher to remind you of what you're dealing with.Then we moved on to some specific questions. AFTER THE CRISIS HAS PASSED, DO YOU STILL NEED THERAPY? DO YOU STILL HAVE TO WORK ON YOURSELF? WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN OCD AND GAD OR PANIC DISORDER AND HEALTH ANXIETY? HOW CAN YOU BE SURE THIS IS JUST ANXIETY? WHEN AM I ALLOWED TO REST? HOW DOES MINDFULNESS FIT INTO RECOVERY? ARE POSITIVE AFFIRMATIONS OK? HOW DO I ACCEPT ...? WHAT ARE THE MOST EFFECTIVE WAYS OF SELF-REGULATING WHEN ANXIOUS? WHAT ABOUT THIS KIND OF ANXIETY?For full show notes on this episode:⁠⁠http

Send in a question or comment via text.This week my guest is anxiety and OCD specialist Joanna Hardis who stopped by the podcast to talk about the art of doing ... nothing.Wait ... what? Nothing? Yes. Nothing. Humans are conditioned to automatically spring into action to solve problems, and often we declare that our emotional and mental states are automatically problems that must be solved. When we experience discomfort, distress, anxiety, or any "negative" feeling we can get trapped into automatically trying to do something .... anything ... to solve that problem and make it disappear.The thing is, this is often paradoxically harmful in that it can keep us trapped in the very state we're trying to escape. Learning that it is possible to do nothing about negative internal experiences - learning to ride through them without hitting the panic button - can go a long way toward getting us closer to where we want to be both in anxiety recovery and in life. And as it turns out, if we look at what

Send in a question or comment via text.If this is all new to you, asking for more information is normal, expected, and healthy! Everyone needs more information and explanation to start.But if you are not new to this and you've heard me and others talk about your scariest symptom or stickiest recovery issue over and over, ask yourself what you are hoping to get when you ask us to talk more about it. After multiple books, videos, social media posts, livestreams and podcast episodes on a given topic, it can be helpful to stop and consider what more you think you need to hear, and why you need to hear it.Consider that asking for encouragement or cheerleading is likely more productive than getting stuck in the "tell me more" cycle, which can lead to judging yourself negatively because you can't seem to move forward.For full show notes on this episode:⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/271---My books, social, and other links: ⁠⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/links ⁠⁠⁠Support The Anxious Truth: ⁠⁠⁠https

Send in a question or comment via text.Help! I can't get motivated to do my exposures and work on my recovery!This is a thing I hear often in this community, so this week let's address motivation and the myth surrounding it. Often we think that getting motivated means that we create a certain feeling, then we act on that feeling. This is incorrect. In fact, it's almost entirely backwards! Demanding to conjure of a feeling called "motivation" before you can act is selling yourself short and can accidentally lead harsh self-judgment that doesn't have to be there.In this episode we talk about the myth of "feeling motivated", how feeling does not have to precede action, values and goals in relation to motivation and how to tap into self-compassion and smaller steps to build momentum and feelings of motivation through action.For full show notes on this episode:⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/270---My books, social, and other links: ⁠⁠⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/links ⁠⁠⁠Supp

Send in a question or comment via text.EMDR. It's become an insanely popular therapy over the last few years. Originally developed as a trauma recovery tool, EMDR is often touted as being appropriate or effective in many more clinical circumstances. But ... is it? Is EMDR an anxiety disorder recovery treatment? This week I'm joined by Florida therapist Anne Thomas to talk about EMDR, what it is, what it isn't, and how it might be applied in the context of panic disorder, agoraphobia, and other anxiety disorders.The takeaway here is that EMDR is not going to magically fix your anxiety problem simply by moving your eyes back and forth. There's still real-world work to do as usual. But there may be instances where EMDR can be useful in addressing some of the negative beliefs about yourself and about past events that can be real obstacles in recovery. Expectations and a clear sense of what EMDR can and can't do, are always going to be important as they would be with any type of therapy.

Send in a question or comment via text.Just a quick update on reaching the field/clinical work phase of my masters degree and why there's no actual podcast episode this week. We'll be back with another episode of The Anxious Truth next week as usual, but in the meanwhile why not check out Disordered, the podcast I do with Josh Fletcher. Find that podcast athttps://disordered.fmOf course, you can also check out any of the 268 previous episodes of The Anxious Truth that I've recorded over the last 8 years or so. They're all free on your favorite podcast platform and on my YouTube channel.I'll see you next week! :-)Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. This is never required, but always appreciated!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 i

Send in a question or comment via text.It's not really what I did in my recovery that matters. Its WHY I did it.This week we're talking about why its far more useful to focus on the principles I followed in recovery than to try to mimic my recovery step by step and action by action. Don't use my recovery as a literal blueprint for yours because you are not me and I am not you. We are all different and those differences matter in terms of specific steps, actions, and instructions to follow in recovery.Instead, connect to the principles I'm discussing and do your best to apply those principles within your specific situation. If you find a helper that just keeps going back to what they did and uses they own personal experience as the basis for much of what they say, be mindful of that and beware of the traps that lie in that approach. You can accidentally wind up feeling more confused, frustrated, and upset with yourself than you need to be.For full show notes on this episode:⁠https://theanxi

Send in a question or comment via text.Let's talk about the dreaded social media doom scroll and the negative impact it can have in your recovery. Learning to be a bit more mindful and intentional with your social media use can go a long way toward helping you get what you need while avoiding some of the more common traps and pitfalls that default scrolling without purpose can have.For full show notes on this episode:https://theanxioustruth.com/267---My books, social, and other links: ⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/links ⁠Support The Anxious Truth: ⁠https://theanxioustruth.com/support ⁠Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. This is never required, but always appreciated!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 alwa