Send in a question or comment via text. My friend Nick Maynard is an almost textbook example of how to recovery from panic disorder and agoraphobia. At one point Nick was in a panic on the ground in a Costco on Black Friday. He was then trapped in his bedroom for weeks, unable to even get a glass of water. But Nick changed direction and started putting in the hard work. Today he's back on his feet, excelling at work, and living a normal life again. Thank you Nick, for taking the time to share yo...
Jun 11, 2020•29 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes and a link to download this tutorial as an MP3, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/109 . HOW DO I RELAX, BREATHE, AND FOCUS???? I've been asked to do something like this for a while. With some extra nudging from a friend, I took 15 minutes to record this little beginner's relax, breathe, and focus tutorial. This isn't my usual thing, but hopefully, it will be of use. This episode will take you through the basics of what it looks like and...
May 27, 2020•17 min
Send in a question or comment via text. This Is Chapter/Lesson 3.6 from my book " The Anxious Truth ". I wanted to release a chapter to give everyone a look at what the book is all about. This is likely the most important chapter I wrote, so it seemed the the best choice to release as a preview. For the full written chapter preview, go to theanxioustruth.com/108 We’ve seen the three reactions that are driving that faulty brain link between fear and danger. The reaction before, the reaction durin...
May 19, 2020•31 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Many people are struggling with letting go of anger, guilt and bitterness over time lost to anxiety. Learning to "forgive yourself" can be difficult. While struggling with an anxiety disorder is certainly impactful in a big way, it is possible to learn how to change the habit of blaming yourself and revisiting guilt, anger, or regret over those struggles. It is possible to learn how to leave the past behind us. For full show notes on this episode: https://...
May 13, 2020•40 min
Send in a question or comment via text. (For full show notes on this episode, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/106) Today I was joined by my friend Monique Koven to discuss the concept of feeling safe and secure. Many victims of past trauma or abuse find that anxiety recovery is made more difficult because they are unable to ever feel safe or secure. This is understandable, and it absolutely adds a wrinkle to the recovery process that must be addressed for these people. While your past experien...
May 06, 2020•27 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For many, the fear of driving on the freeway, highway, or motorway is a big problem. Often I am told that this seems and impossible task. A typical person facing this challenge will insist that driving at high speed on a congested highway, involves real danger. They are convinces that disaster is imminent. This is not true, and represents yet another fear driven distortion, courtesy of our old friend anxiety. While highway driving is in fact more risky for...
Apr 29, 2020•30 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Today I was fortunate to have spent 25 minutes on a Zoom call with Dr. Ingvard Wilhemsen, a respected expert in the field of health anxiety and hypochondriasis from the University of Bergen in Norway. We discussed the basis of health anxiety, what drives it, the underlying principles of uncertainty and safety, and some of the effective methods he uses when treating patients with health anxiety. Dr Willhemsen has been kind enough to offer to do a follow-up ...
Apr 23, 2020•30 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Inspired by a post I made on Instagram, here's 25 minutes or so on the difference between feeling OK and actually being OK. The highlights: Your anxiety disorder has you in the bad habit of scanning and evaluating your state all the time Your anxiety disorder has you interpreting how you feel through a distorted lens of fear and misguided threat assessment You then make the mistake of nailing your assessment of how you FEEL, so your assessment of what you ...
Apr 15, 2020•26 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes on this episode: https://theanxioustruth.com/102 One of the two most common fears of anxiety and panic sufferers is the fear of going insane. Losing one's mind. Going crazy. Many worry that they will "lose it", or "snap" when at the height of panic or extreme anxiety. This is a difficult fear to face, but it remains an irrational fear that never comes true. The fear of going insane or losing one's mind is no different than the fear of d...
Apr 01, 2020•34 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes on this episode, go to https://theanxiousgroup.com/101 Anxiety disorders are selfish disorders. Anxiety and fear are self-centered and will push their way to the front of the line at all times. When struggling with an anxiety disorder, the selfish nature of the disorder often makes you look selfish and self-centered. The disorder is selfish. You are not. Anxiety and fear drive self-centered behaviors in three ways: Disruption Based on A...
Mar 25, 2020•28 min
Send in a question or comment via text. My friend Kendra Beavis has an amazing story. This is a story about making major life changes, solving life problems, and become a better version of yourself. So much of this is based on belief. Belief in yourself, and belief in your ability to do hard things and make changes. We can't just choose change. We can't just decide to believe in ourselves and be instantly confident. Often we must take action to make the changes we want in our life even before we...
Mar 18, 2020•35 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes on this episode: https://theanxioustruth.com/99 We naturally develop habits with respect to the way we talk about, think about, and write about our anxiety problems. This is the habit of words, and it matters. Identifying unhealthy and counterproductive habits of words, then working to replace them with more recovery-focused habits is well worth the effort. The most common habit of words is the habit of constantly saying how you feel, w...
Mar 11, 2020•38 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Full show notes for this episode are at https://theanxioustruth.com/98 Telling someone in the grips of a raging anxiety disorder to "check in with themselves" is a TERRIBLE bit of advice. If you are in the grips of a ranging anxiety disorder - finding it near impossible to STOP thinking about how you feel all the time - it's OK to reject this advice. While in the grips of raging disorders like OCD, health anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia, specifica...
Mar 04, 2020•26 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Full show notes for this episode can be found at https://theanxioustruth.com/97 Being in an abusive or controlling relationship is difficult for anyone. Struggling with an anxiety disorder complicates things, making the situation even more difficult to handle. Statistics show that 1 in 3 women, and 1 in 4 men, will be involved in an abusive relationship at one point in their lives. This is a problem in the general population. My experience in the anxiety d...
Feb 26, 2020•30 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes on this episode, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/96 Perfectionism. It's a label I hear frequently self-applied by many going through the process of recovering from an anxiety disorder. Labeling oneself as a perfectionist results in challenges that make recovery more difficult than it has to be. Today I was able to spend time with Dr. Tara Sanderson, a licensed doctoral level psychologist practicing in Oregon. Tara not only specializes...
Feb 19, 2020•28 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full show notes on this episode, visit https://theanxioustruth.com/95 Just six months ago, Martine was experimenting with medication, housebound most of the time, and considering hospitalization to deal with her anxiety problem. Today she is working, participating with her family, living a normal life, and looking forward to what comes next. Today Martine took some time to chat with me about how she changed direction and took control of the situation. ...
Feb 12, 2020•21 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For full notes on this episode, go to https://theanxioustruth.com/94 Too often, the responses that result from anxiety disorders and/or traumatic experiences are classified as mental illness. We talk about anxiety disorders and post-traumatic stress disorder . That word - "disorder" - leads many people to believe that they are broken, damaged, abnormal, or ill. The word "disease" is thrown around, leading to additional despair and distress. It's important ...
Feb 05, 2020•29 min
Send in a question or comment via text. For the full show notes on this episode including a link to the diaphragmatic breathing video I mentioned: https://theanxioustruth.com/93 For many people, feeling dizzy or unsteady is one of the most enduring and difficult to deal with anxiety symptoms. If you are There are two main steps in dealing with dizziness and unsteadiness: 1. Change the way you think about and talk about this sensation. This isn't true physically debilitating dizziness that makes ...
Jan 29, 2020•21 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Monophobia - the fear of being alone - is a common component of the panic, anxiety and agoraphobia complex. When left unchecked, panic disorder leads to agoraphobia. When this happens, monophobia often develops at the same time. If your coping mechanisms rely heavily on a "safe" person, or safe people, then you are more likely to develop monophobia. Monophobics expend a great deal of effort and energy in an attempt to never be alone. This can be VERY disru...
Jan 22, 2020•21 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Worry and worrying are problems that many people struggle with along road to recovering from an anxiety disorder. I'm asked to cover this topic again and again. So ... a few words about worry and worrying. Full notes for this episode can be found at https://theanxioustruth.com/91 Worry is simply thinking. Thinking by itself has absolutely no impact on the real world. Worry, therefore is not protective, predictive or proactive. Worry does not keep you safe ...
Jan 15, 2020•26 min
Send in a question or comment via text. One of the common worries while recovering from an anxiety disorder is the fear that it might "come back" after recovery. This is something I hear from many many people. It's also pretty common in the community surrounding the podcast to see people arrive that have been through these issues before. They thought had it all solved, but find themselves back in the grips of panic, anxiety and associated nastiness. The Acceptable Bubble - What Is It? This is cl...
Jan 08, 2020•23 min
Send in a question or comment via text. "What if I forget how to breathe?" "What if I just stop breathing?" "I can't get enough air in my lungs." "I can't take a deep breath." Breath and breathing focused anxiety is quite common among people that suffer from anxiety disorders like panic disorder and agoraphobia. In this episode I discuss the two most common forms of this anxiety. For full show notes: https://theanxioustruth.com/89 [1:30] "I Am Afraid That I Will Forget How To Breathe" The first ...
Jan 01, 2020•29 min
Send in a question or comment via text. My friend Joyce joined me to talk about her slide into severe panic disorder and agoraphobia, which was followed by an aggressive recovery and rebuilding of her life. Listen to Joyce describe her journey from being frozen in fear on her sofa to being back at work and feeling limitless. Of particular note is the way Joyce used anger and frustration to fuel her recovery efforts. For many, this can be an excellent strategy and I really appreciate Joyce being ...
Dec 26, 2019•25 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Holly and I discuss chapter 9 of Claire Weekes' "Hope And Help For Your Nerves". This chapter discusses the nature of recovery and the road to being yourself again. Some of the highlights: Your symptoms will not immediately go away, and may even worsen during recovery. You cannot simply decide to not be afraid. You must LEARN to not be afraid. We discuss the use of medication in conjunction with recovery. Keeping occupied - not being wholly consumed at all...
Dec 23, 2019•54 min
Send in a question or comment via text. When confronted with uncomfortable and scary feelings of anxiety, panic or emotions based on past trauma, the immediate response is to "talk yourself down". Trying convince yourself that you are OK using words, phrases and thoughts often does not work. When this happens, you are at a fork in the road. You can enlist the aid of your support system to argue with your anxiety or trauma for you, or you can resign yourself to just feel everything without resist...
Dec 14, 2019•40 min
Send in a question or comment via text. If you are a regular listener of the podcast, odds are that you've had anxiety, worry and fear focused on your heart at least once or twice. This is quite common. Heart-centered anxiety generally involves being afraid of a rapid, strong, or irregular (flutters/palpitations) heartbeat. This is either due to an underlying fear that something is wrong with your heart or will go wrong, or due to the link between a rapid/strong heartbeat and a panic attack. In ...
Dec 06, 2019•33 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Today I chatted with Christa Holmans about some of the overlapping issues found in both anxiety disorders and autism and other neurodivesity conditions such as ADHD. Christa had so much excellent insight on how autism influences how one may deal with anxiety issues! I really enjoyed this discussion and I hope you will too! My Links (Website, podcast, social media, etc.) --------------------- https://theanxioustruth.com/links Find Christa Online -----------...
Nov 26, 2019•39 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Today I was fortunate to spend about 30 minutes with Dr. Martin Seif, a psychologist and author specializing in anxiety disorders. Dr. Seif and I talked about intrusive, obsessive and unwanted thoughts. What are they? How do they become so troublesome? How should we approach this problem? For the full notes on this episode and all links, go to https://theanxioustruth.com/83 Find all my links at https://theanxioustruth.com/links Find Dr. Martin Seif at http...
Nov 16, 2019•35 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Reading, listening to podcasts, watching videos, and otherwise educating yourself about your anxiety disorder is a good idea ...until its becomes a safety and avoidance behavior Ultimately, overcoming an anxiety disorder only happens by DOING, not by reading. So after you've read the book for the fifth time, or you've read 10 anxiety books and want to read an 11th, you must realize that its time to actually put what you've learned into action. There is no ...
Oct 28, 2019•9 min
Send in a question or comment via text. Today Monique and I spent some time discussing the memories of past trauma and abuse, and how the old feeling of being unable to escape can often live on. This can represent an obstacle to recovery when it leads to viewing attempts at recovery and improvement as being futile or not worth the effort or energy. Monique shares some amazing insight about the role of compassion and how we can combine this with the tools and techniques we've discussed so often a...
Oct 04, 2019•19 min
