Healing in Anxiety Disorders (Episode 118)

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Hello, Josh and Drew. My name is Caroline from Denmark. So I have a question for you about my anxiety and my journey and everything. I've been I was sick like two months ago or something, and then I started to get better, of course, but with that came a lot of anxiety and like health scares, OCD, the whole night. And then I started to get better, of course, which you do eventually, which is amazing. And in that process, I also started to see my ex again. Um, it's been a really healing process, really lovely, and I'm so happy to have him back in my life. But I guess my question is: is it too easy or is he like distracting me too much from the healing process? Um, I have done a lot of self-development in that area and really became extremely close to myself. But I still have a hard time sometimes. But is it bad that he's distracting me for from learning more about the anxiety? I guess. Uh is it bad? Should I do more myself? I think that's my question. Thank you for everything you do. I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

Welcome to Disorder. This is episode 118 called What is Healing in Anxiety Recovery? My name is Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist and author based in the UK. I'm a previous sufferer of many anxiety disorders, and commit my life, professional life anyway, to um raising awareness, providing education, and providing insights into anxiety recovery in a world full of strange, messy, horrible misinformation. And I'm joined by my co-host.

SPEAKER_05 1:56

Yes, I'm Drew Linsolata. I am a therapist practicing in the area of anxiety and anxiety disorders in New York, on the other side of the ocean, and also a former sufferer of the very things we talk about on this podcast for many years of my life on and off. I've written books on this, I got an expensive microphone, I post on social media about anxiety and mental health, and I uh yeah, I have this podcast, I have another podcast, and I just this is what I do. I'm uh I'm into the whole anxiety thing.

SPEAKER_03 2:20

So yeah, that's what we're all about. Uh thank you to Caroline from Denmark for sending in a really good question, and it's inspired the topic for today's episode. Healing. What is healing in anxiety recovery? You know, it's a very vague word, healing, isn't it? You can define what healing is to you. No professional will tell you if you're fully healed. You get to decide what healing is. But as you know, in this world where of anxiety disorders, where we're chasing perfection, 100% certainty, things like that. What does healing do? So uh thanks, Caroline, and we'll answer your question. Um, how are you doing, Drew? Are you healed? Am I healed?

SPEAKER_05 3:03

Uh I'm definitely not healed. I've had people on on social media tell me that's an unhealed guy. Like if I go on my little rants or whatnot, or I unhinged. Yeah, well, I can get with unhinged for sure, but I I've been told that I'm not healed. I have much healing to do, especially if I'm kind of you know angling hard at our theoretical orientation. Some people don't like it, which you you don't have to like it, it's okay. And they will interpret that as somehow I have some sort of anger or pain that's unhealed, and it's coming out when I tell people that it's okay to be scared. They they will see that as unhealed. I don't mind. It's okay, everybody's entitled to their own opinion. But you could see how they're emotionally gaslit. Yeah, yeah. I've been told that quite a few times that some people who disagree, you could disagree theoretically, but I think the point of the episode is is they're healing in an anxiety disorder, but you could see the environment we're in where I don't disagree, I don't agree with this guy's approach to my anxiety disorder, which is fine. And I don't I disagree with it so much that I'm going to state that his rather cruel sounding thing, like be afraid on purpose in exposure, means that his he's unhealed, he still has a lot of healing work to do. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 4:08

I never get that really. Yeah, I've had that. I've never I never got that. It's weird. I I if I have a client in and they and they and I often I've had this over the years, you know, I'd like to heal. That's okay, but I need to know the definition of what healing is. Yeah. So for some people, healing means I never feel anxious again. Well, no, that's not healing here. You know, you take a holistic approach. What is healing? Some people it could be an attachment thing, you know, like actually, I want to heal my attachment wounds because I keep shutting people off and I keep pushing people away, and okay, fair enough. And then we can look at that. Some people might want to heal in terms of you know, forgiving themselves, spending time with children, and accepting themselves holistically, and knowing that you can't constantly be perfect all the time. Uh, some people healing is having you know treatment for PTSD. You know, it depends what healing is. Remember, it's subjective to you as the person, and a biggest red flag from any practitioner, online coach, guru, all the people that are giving Drew abuse is no one gets to define what healing is for you. So what I would first say to you, Caroline, the excellent, excellent question is what we're hearing is you've got you've you start, you've got you know, you've started a relationship again, it's really happy, you're finding it nurturing and in your sense healing. You know, one of the doctrines that we bang on about is do what non-anxious you would do. Would non-anxious you stop what you're doing, enjoying the relationship, enjoying the fruits of that, and living your life, which is what we're really passionate about, to stop sit in a room and heal. Well, that's not what non-anxious you would do. So I would look at what you're defining as healing here. Are you trying to emulate a sense of healing that we're often that's often projected onto us by the wellness sphere? You know, I'm healing. Look at me, I'm on top of a mountain, you know, I'm doing all this, I'm healed. What's you get to decide, and uh, and that's what uh would be food for thought.

SPEAKER_05 6:21

Yeah, I I 100% agree with what you just said there. You know, Carolyn at one point said, Is this person distracting me from you know, from healing, from learning more about the anxiety? And that for me, and the way we approach these things, that's always a little bit of a red flag. Like, wait, wait, what do you mean? You have why do you have to learn more about the anxiety? So I think everybody can decide whether or not they need to heal. Uh full disclosure, I never use the word healing because I don't believe that an anxiety disorder is a that's that's what an unhealed person is. That's why I'll just clearly exactly what an unhealed person would say, right? So shout out to all the hate, all the people who think I'm unhealed. That's fine. So uh, but I never use the word healing because so many people in our situation are so frustrated by trying to do things like heal and you know, fix and and and you know, manipulate and control that they start to feel really broken or like beyond hope in a lot of ways. So I'm like, well, I I kind of feel like the recovery process in an anxiety disorder is based way more on learning than it is healing. That being said, if you want to call it healing and that resonates or or strikes a chord with you more, I'm fine with that. I would 100% go along with you then. But what does it mean to heal? And I think the automatic assumption here in Caroline's you know statement or question is a little bit like, well, I need to learn more. I need to learn more about my anxiety, I need to learn more about myself. I need to, I need to be quite, you know, introspective and just look inward all the time. And I don't know if that's true or not. I mean, if you're able to maintain a intimate relationship that brings you joy, wouldn't that indicate that you've achieved some level of healing? Otherwise, what's the point of healing? Like that's what you're after, isn't it? As an example in your life.

SPEAKER_03 8:03

Yeah. And also, like if you if you're enjoying it an afternoon out with your partner, yeah, and you're engaged and you're in the moment and you're enjoying it and you're laughing, who's to say you're not healed? You know, and this is where we go into compulsion territory, right? Because one of the very common compulsion from people in our community is resource gathering, dictated and driven by the core what if of what if I've missed something? Yeah. What if I've missed something? No, if you've got if you've listened to every, and I'm I'm not just saying this to blow around trumpet, but if you've got 118 episodes into this podcast, you know, yes, we look at the nuance and the little bits and stuff like that, but we're all pretty much talking about the same thing, just from different experiences and phenomenological perspectives. But you there's nothing magical, you know, that that you've necessarily missed. If healing goes beyond the anxiety disorder, and it's something to do with you, your personality, what you what maybe there's things you're holding on to outside of anxiety, maybe there's anger, there's grief, there's things like that. I'm all for that. And you know, you can could convey that. And like I said, similar to Drew, if a client wants to come in and heal, I subscribe to that. Okay. Yeah, we just need to know what that means first, you know. And again, don't let someone else tell you what healing means, unless you're messaging Drew to tell him he's unhealed. That is completely okay.

SPEAKER_05 9:29

I'm so glad I brought that up. That's never gonna die now, clearly, which is fine. Uh I I think the the healing for me, the danger of the word healing sometimes in this process is it's not the conceptualization of trying to heal, which is uh an increase in my well-being. I will call it healing. And as a professional, that's what I'm in the business of is an increase in your well-being. However, you define that, it's great. But the methods that that tend to get glued to the word healing become a little bit of the danger zone for me. Because Noel, healing means I have to do these things. Like I'm literally thinking that there are knobs and levers, and I use this analogy all the time now. Like there's a healing machine, and I have to operate that healing machine manually by reading the right books and listening to the right podcasts and journaling the right way and doing it the correct amount of time and enough time. And when I do that, I intentionally, I create healing. Which sometimes, yes, but sometimes not. So I am a big believer in the best way to improve your well-being is to engage in the things that are important to you and try to do them in a way that best expresses that importance. So it's not like we we we have to do a healing thing first, which has which is completely separate from life, so that we can come in and then do our life. I don't I don't know if that's really sometimes yes, but a lot of times life, the process of life is recovery or healing and anxiety disorders. We don't recover to keep to live, we live to recover. I think that's really important.

SPEAKER_03 10:59

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'm gonna add to that. I think one of the biggest fallacies of healing in the context of anxiety disorders is that you think it healing is a doing thing. Yeah, that's right. So so like I'm doing healing, I'm doing breath work, I'm doing this, I'm doing retreats, I'm doing journaling, I'm doing meditation, I'm doing gong baths, I'm doing spa breaks. I'm doing I'm imitating and emulating something that I have seen usually cast back at me through a screen or through paid ads or whatever, or some influencers saying that you're and that's fair enough. I love a spa break, you know. I can I I say I need this to rest and chill out. Yes, I might I could call it healing, but at the same time, I don't think I'm broken. I don't think anyone's broken. I think the connotations with healing is that you yeah, it it's the connotation is I need to heal because I'm broken or wounded. Yeah, you know, and you've got to be careful of that, because again, and back in early episodes, semantics are powerful. If you keep repeating I need to heal, I need to heal, I need to heal, what are you actually saying to your brain? I'm broken, I'm broken, I'm broken, I'm broken. Yeah, but it's you're not. Have you suggested that actually you're a fully functioning, great human being that is capable of feeling all the feelings? There's just some we don't really like because they scare the crap out of us. And yes, we're in a bit of a cycle. So yeah, well what is what does healing mean? I've used it in my life though. I've had it with grief, I've healed from grief, and now I would use it in that context. You know, I can go somewhere and and and be at a place with grief that doesn't consume or utterly depress me. And and yeah, I would probably use that, but you know, but if I walk to the corner shop now and had a panic attack, I'm not gonna be, oh, I'm broken, I need healing. I'd be like, oh yeah, I'm probably really stressed, and my threat response has just started firing off. I don't want to enter the sensitized state again, so I'm not gonna make sure the old compulsions don't dictate what I do next. I know it sounds less Hollywood. Healing is Hollywood, that boring, top-down, boring response isn't great, and that's why it doesn't get into five million like Instagram reel.

SPEAKER_05 13:42

You said something in the very beginning of that that I think is so important. You feel like you have to do healing. Healing is what you do. There are healing activities, but really when we find people who you know go through the sort of the recovery process, the healing process, call it whatever you want, they increase, they increase their well-being. They're no longer gripped by disordered forms of anxiety. They have learned to do less. So the issue here with people who are listening to this podcast is they become incredibly inwardly focused and are spending all of their time trying to manipulate, control, and understand their internal states. But people who get out of that do far less of that. So the traditional healing advice, which is keep feeding inputs in, like touch the grass, look at the sky, look at the mountains. Oh, great, I'm a big fan, I'm going to look at this guy in two days. I'll do it. Maybe I'll heal, who knows? But if we have to keep feeding the right inputs into the healing system so that you heal. But really, that's what people in the grips of an anxiety disorder will often do. Compulsively listen to podcasts, compulsively read books, just watch the same videos again and again and again. Scroll, scroll, scroll through 16 mental health accounts every hour to see what if they've missed anything. Healing in our context, if that's what you want to call it, is generally about learning how to do less.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

We're looking at you, Caroline.

SPEAKER_05 15:00

Sorry, Caroline, we're not picking on you. Your question is it's excellent. Yeah, yeah. But you know, it's kind of it's a great question. I think a lot of people have that. And then, you know, with this crowd, we often hear healing attached to can I is this healing my nerve? I get asked that in my practice. Well, how how how is this healing my nervous system? Well, why not assuming that your nervous system is broken? Healing in that situation is just feeding it a new set of directions by giving it new experiences. So we have to be really careful about are you heal what are you healing? Well, I'm healing pain wounds from my past, emotional wounds, or bad memories. Okay, cool. I have to heal my nervous system or my gut health? No, definitely not.

SPEAKER_03 15:42

Do you know what's really interesting as well? This healing narrative is permeated everywhere. Yeah. And so a lot of people, everyone on this listening to this podcast has done this. You know, you've confessed to AI, ChatGPT, you know, looking for reassurance. God, I was when Chat GPT developed into this model, I was like, oh no. And um what Chat GPT does, it feeds off everything, the internet, whatever, what it thinks is right and what it thinks you want to hear. That's right. And so it starts to use its default. And I had a look the other day, and I was like, its default is to draw upon things like polyvagal, nervous system regulation, healing nervous systems. And I'm like, that's bad. You know, that's really bad because a lot of people see that as a voice of authority, you know. This this app scans everything, so it must be correct. No, it's only because of how popular these narratives are, and yet I just I just find it a bit kind of concerning. And I th I with I mean you and I are just turning into the get off my lawn guy, and I'm gonna grow old and bitter.

SPEAKER_05 16:48

Yeah, but that well, you're making a good point because I almost feel like almost every episode we have to reference that because I am pretty convinced that a very large portion of our audience is asking some AI model about their mental health on a regular basis. Um that train is left to station, it's happening, which is fine.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

Looking at you, OCD crowd.

SPEAKER_05 17:07

Right, exactly. Which is it's fine. It's okay, it could be a tool. And in the healing context, it can lead you wrong. I'll tell you a very quick story. And I am actually writing a series of GPT prompts that I will make available shortly that breaks the reassurance machine in a GPT model. Like it will not provide you reassurance. So, like, there's a couple of prompts you can use to make it sound more like a good therapist than regurgitating wellness advice, which is not helpful. But anyway, we had I had a situation where a client sort of can and she's given me permission to talk about this. You'll never know who she is, but thank her anyway for letting me share this. She had carefully cultivated a channel in her Chat GPT for her symptoms. Took her six months. And what she she had the best of intentions. She kept telling it, yeah, I have anxiety, I have anxiety problems. And she would ask it, what does a pain between your shoulder blades mean? And hey, I know that you're anxious about that. Let me tell you 16 things that that pain in your shoulder blades could be to try to you know convince you and make sure See, no matter what I did, I cannot turn these off. I don't know what the Apple, if you're listening to disordered, please tell me how to stop these. So anyway. Um she thought that she was doing a good job because she kept saying, I have anxiety, and now I'm anxious because I have a pain with two my shoulder blades, but it didn't know. It it just told her what that could be. And and you're you're it's probably not cardiac, it's fine. So we we'd spent like 60 seconds and we broke that. We we ravaged her health anxiety and her symptoms channel by giving GPT instructions to not answer the questions. Keep track of how many times I ask, remind me how many times I've asked, tell me that part of my anxiety problem is that you're continuously reassurance seeking, and if I answer this question again for you, I'm not helping you, I'm hurting you. Do you still want me to answer?

SPEAKER_03 18:51

That's a really interesting problem. And by the way, I never advocate asking this, but if you are someone who does it, yeah. That's that's something to do though. Uh let's listen to the did it anyway. We l I'm bored of our voices.

SPEAKER_05 19:02

Yeah, let's do it. Okay, we got a really good one. Here we go.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Hi, Drew, hi Josh. Uh my name is Travis, and I live in Canada. Feel free to use my name. But uh, just wanted to share a did it anyways. I'm uh or doing it anyways, because I'm currently in the situation. Uh the three other people I live with decided to uh take off. I am home alone because I have strep throat. Uh not only am I afraid of being home alone, I also have a fear of medication.

SPEAKER_05 19:31

But I'm not done yet!

SPEAKER_02 19:32

And uh I have to go take my antibiotics soon. So uh yeah, I just wanted to uh let you know that I'm gonna be using my act skills and uh I'm gonna be diffusing from my thoughts, and I'm not going to avoid my experience. I'm just gonna let the thoughts and feelings be there and ride the wave. Anyways, thanks guys. I really appreciate what you do.

SPEAKER_03 19:58

That was great. Uh well done, Travis. That's great. And uh sure Russ Harris would love that one as well.

SPEAKER_05 20:05

Yeah, he's diffusing from his thoughts. So that double whammy, too. I have to take a medication and be alone. So very grave week of faith. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:14

Might as well do it all. Yeah, already scared. Why not?

SPEAKER_05 20:18

Go big or go home, right? So thank you.

SPEAKER_03 20:20

Yeah, well done, Travis.

SPEAKER_05 20:21

Hey, send us an update, by the way, because you're in the middle of doing it anyway. So if you're listening, just go over to disorder.fm and send us a message and let us know how it turned out. Because we care. We really do. Even though I'm an unhealed monster, I do care.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

It's not affected you at all.

SPEAKER_05 20:37

Sorry. Like technology is against me today. It has been since I woke up. So sorry guys. Anyway, what were we talking about? We were talking about healing.

SPEAKER_03 20:47

Yeah. When it I was gonna ask you, when is it okay to apply healing in a therapeutic environment?

SPEAKER_05 21:00

You mean healing like in the traditional or the concept of healing? When do we bring healing when I bring healing in? I honestly think that see, this gets very symbolic, but it it's like the literal and I've told the story before. The little bit of time that I did have uh help from a therapist who was wonderful, she was used to be an emergency room nurse, you know, a critical care nurse. And she taught me the first thing we do is stop the bleeding. Then we then we have to see why you're bleeding, but we gotta stop that bleeding first. And I think when somebody is bleeding and the source of the bleeding, they're bleeding because they're carrying some emotional wounds. There are bad memories, there are things that happen to them in their past, there are relationships that maybe they're in that are less than kind or they're abusive. And like there is actual pain, there is emotional bleeding, there's mental bleeding there. I think that's a healing thing. You know? Even when we are dealing with somebody who maybe has a traumatic past and there is some PTSD involved there, the best way that we have through PTSD is through PTSD. So the healing there is also not feeding more inputs. In. It's allowing the person a safe space to retell those stories and re-experience those memories without being washed away from them and a supportive place where they know they're safe and they can rebuild narratives. And to me, that's the healing. Healing, even in therapy, has very little to do with you know Epsom baths and spa days. It has everything to do with being kind to yourself as you access these emotions like pain or regret or anger or guilt or sadness. That's that's and it has a big place in the process. What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Yeah, I like that. I like I I like that a lot. I also think, as well, stop to consider and anyone listening, stop to consider that perhaps you're already healed. You're just navigating and creating a new map for yourself. You have to make your own map. And you have to, you know, if you're not used to doing what non-anxious you would do, or living a life where anxiety isn't at the center stage, it's okay to feel a bit confused, a bit lost, a bit uneasy, having all these emotions. That doesn't necessarily mean you're unhealed. It means you're learning something. You know, it's like the equivalent of starting a new job sometimes. You're not gonna go into the day one of your new job and you're gonna feel anxious, self-conscious, self-doubt, a bit irritated, have all these different emotions. You know, I'm not gonna come over to you as your line manager and go, Well, I can't wait for you to be healed so you can get on with your job, I'm gonna be like, You're doing alright, you know, because I'm a good line manager, you know, you're doing alright, you know. You don't know the ropes yet, but you're learning, and that's the thing. And if you're someone who's been anxious in an OCD cycle, panic disorder, agrophobia, monophobia, health anxiety, whatever, for so long, and you are learning what it's like to live a life free from compulsions, you're not gonna have the map in front of you, you're not gonna know what to do. And that with itself comes with difficult, strange emotions that we will fully tolerate. That's part of it all. Does that mean you're not healed? No, it just means you're learning something new.

SPEAKER_05 24:09

That's great. How often do you get asked by somebody who is clearly well down the road to recovery or or whatever you want to call it in our context, that keeps asking, Well, I but I had this, you know, I'm I'm I've been so anxious or I'm having this real problem, I'm so emotional lately, maybe I still have work to do. Or or not all anxiety is disordered anxiety, I tell my clients all the time. Not all anxiety is disordered anxiety. So, yeah, I mean, I I would say from from a like anxiety standpoint, sure, if you want to say healed, I'm fully healed. Nonetheless, I still have emotions, I still experience things. Like, that doesn't I I what if I'm having a particularly sad day because maybe I'm thinking about sad things, I don't I don't default back to like, oh, I must have more healing to do because I'm feeling badly right now. That's not true.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

I was saying to I was saying to Drew before, like you know, a lot of you know, people have absorbed a lot of this information about healing and what it means. Um, and it's it's it's a word that comes up a lot in even in therapy training, and therapists use it and stuff, and that's okay, you know, but it's up to you again. I reiterate it's up to you to decide what healing is. Um, but I always this image is just Wolverine, just like just Wolverine's just taking about 10 lasers to the and a and a bulldozer, yeah, and and he has to he has to have time to regenerate, you know. But here's the thing Wolverine just allows himself to regenerate, doesn't really have to do anything, yeah. You know, sometimes he ain't gonna be 100%. And I think people with anxiety disorders are Wolverine, particularly the really jacked-up Hugh Jackman version. Uh just and that's it, you take a wolver, you're just taking a few hits sometimes, and that's what life does. Life will get in the way, and you'll take a few hits. It doesn't mean you're not gonna heal by living. You know, you can heal by living.

SPEAKER_05 26:08

Sometimes I think the word healing feeds into that, like over-emphasis on inward focus. Like that inward focus, that high degree of neuroticism, that's a vulnerability for people in our community for sure. The fact that we default to in is not a good thing. So, in the healing community, you know, general wellness community, inward is a good thing. Like always reflecting and checking in and checking with your gut and like honoring your feelings. That's what's promoted. But for people in our in our audience, they tend to get into problems because they're so inwardly focused. So not everything has to be like analyzed. Oh, I'm I'm really exhausted these days. Okay, well, you might be working really hard, or exposures and facing fear and willfully tolerating will wear you out. So sometimes you have to rest, or maybe you just had a fight with a partner, or maybe you lost a loved one and you're feeling those things. That doesn't automatically mean I better focus my attention flashlight inward in my microscope, analyze this and see what I have to heal, what needs healing or fixing right now. Maybe nothing, maybe you just need to rest and have this experience. So, healing to me, I think, is dangerous also because it it implies go inward, check it out, and then do something to address what you're feeling. Sometimes healing is just feel what you feel and learn the.

SPEAKER_03 27:21

I'm really sorry, Drew. Um, I know we were due to go to the water park next weekend with on the new slide with the big rubber rings and the dinghies and slide route. We're gonna spend that whole day. I've been excited for so long for the water park trip. Yeah, but I'm not feeling a hundred percent like I should be right now about it. So instead, I'm not gonna go to the water park with you. I'm gonna go home and read Mel Robbins' book or Jay Shetty's book, or just learn about myself a bit more so I can heal more, so maybe you can go to the water park later. Hell no, go to the water park. Yeah, that's healing.

SPEAKER_05 27:59

That's the slide that ends in the pool of custard. Is that that one?

SPEAKER_03 28:03

Oh, oh god, there's a there's a callback, right? Just broken limbs.

SPEAKER_05 28:08

If you've been less long enough that you understand the pool of custard reference, thank you. We appreciate you. So God. No, you're right, but that's a mistake that a lot of people might make, you know. Like, no, no, no, I there's more, I have more healing to do. I think, but where might that apply? I think maybe it applies in like, hey, you know, I've had some really rough relationships, maybe I haven't picked some good partners, I have lessons to learn. I maybe don't want to be in an intimate relationship right now. Okay, because maybe I have some, I have to work through some of these experiences, integrate them, build the narratives that I find meaning in, learn from this, and then maybe I'm a little bit ready to be in an intimate relationship again. Okay, that might be a great, you know, and I'm gonna postpone, you know, building a new relationship that way. I'm gonna postpone this because uh I just got a lot to to think about. Cool, love it. That's a great, I think, application of healing as we might know it.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

Also, oh, this is really important. I I promise I won't go on a rant.

SPEAKER_05 29:03

Go for it.

SPEAKER_03 29:04

But when when you apply the healing narrative to anxiety disorders, you are giving a never-ending journey to someone because there is no endpoint. There are people out there, influencers and whatnot, and therapy people, particularly online, you know, who will address people and call them healers. You're a healer, you know. It doesn't say you're well, I'm actually, you know, almost at the end, I'm almost healed. There's never any oh I've healed. Right. It's it always suggests an ongoing process. And if it's always ongoing, you've always got to put work in. But what we're saying is that actually to recover, less is more sometimes. Less inwards work is more. So if I'm saying, oh hey fellow healers, how are you doing? I'm actually on some powerful, subtle level saying you and I are in a never-ending process. Whereas actually, what would be really nice is to say, Hi Drew, how are you? Wanna go to the water park?

SPEAKER_05 30:15

Great.

SPEAKER_03 30:15

Yeah, I'm feeling quite anxious, even better. You know, so but it it depends it when you call someone a healer, and I'm not calling anyone out, I know there's people out there that do it. Yeah, but when they like go, hi healers, it's like that really sits uncomfortably with me because I'm like, you're assuming that they're not healed, and you are keeping them in a never-ending pool of inwards compulsions and fixing and self-optimization with the illusion that one could become healed. And I say to anyone who I meet, whether it's a client from the first day or the 20th session, whatever, hi, your name. You're doing all right as you are. Oh, I feel like I should put my soapbox away.

SPEAKER_05 31:00

No, no, that was really good because no, I think that's really good because the healing narrative or using the word healing, I think, and the same thing with the word recovery. We often use the word recovery and we're trying to maybe move away from that. It's it becomes an end in of itself. Like healing can exist only to serve itself if we're not really careful. Like, I'm I'm healing myself, is like it's the 2025 version of I'm doing the work. Like, okay, hang on a second here. So I'm healing is that's my validation. Look, I'm actively healing. I'm I'm a healer, I'm self-healing, I'm I'm I'm in personal development, I'm in self-development. And but does that what is end is that serving, or is it the end now? Like that, no, no, no, that's what I do. Like I do Lego if I'm bored. I don't, but maybe I should. I don't know. Like, I think we have to be really careful, especially for people who are just desperate to feel better. We can accidentally imply to them that you should be. It's correct to always be involved in an active healing and recovery process. Always. That is the correct thing to do it. It puts you on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:04

And if you're compulsive, it's the worst part to do.

SPEAKER_05 32:07

That's exactly right. So I, you know, I will often tell people like, don't recover today. Don't get your task today is don't get better. Go do something else today. Because you got to break that sometimes. So be careful of healing has a lot of it's like in the Claire Weeks world that we come from, the word floating has that accidental positive connotation. You know, that we don't really use float. And I suspect that Dr. Weeks would have revised that if she had the internet and all the feedback, because she didn't mean it, but she it's an accidental positive connotation. Floating means you're doing a good thing. Healing sometimes means look at me, I'm I'm healing. That means I'm doing it right. I'm actively involved in healing.

SPEAKER_03 32:42

Uh yeah, you're so right about that. Yeah, I well, in my opinion. Yeah. Um you're so no, you're correct.

SPEAKER_05 32:49

I'm 100% right.

SPEAKER_03 32:51

And also the the other horrible word, the self-development. That's right. That becomes have you ever considered that not developing the self? Yeah. Is probably the best way to develop the self? Have you have you ever considered that not going inwards and fixing and prodding and doing all that and researching when you could be out having ice cream with your kids or down the pub with your friends and having a nice time, yeah. Or learning a new skill at a new job, or literally doing anything but going inwards and reading anything that isn't in the self-development world, is ironically self-development from obsessive, compulsive conditions.

SPEAKER_05 33:34

You're right. You're right. Backing away from the active process of fixing myself is actually what we're looking for in our context.

SPEAKER_03 33:41

That's exactly which is that is self-development. Now, don't get me wrong, you know, like there's exceptions and things like I was looking at my attachment style or learning a bit about my neurodivergence. That's cool. That is for me is self-developing. I like that, you know. Like I'm oh, I love I understand how my brain works a bit more, and it goes back to what you said before. It's about learning, you know, that is self-development as such, but I'm not learning the next hack and fix and technique. Yep. I'm learning about me, you know.

SPEAKER_05 34:11

Because my brain's mine. Yeah, you're right. And like, but you can only, or like maybe, hey, you know, I don't like I keep I feel like I keep making the same mistake. Okay, fine. I think it's a good thing to sit down and maybe think about that or reflect a little bit, maybe get a little outside input on that. That's something about me that I don't like and I want to change. Cool. That's like a great personal development or self-development exercise for sure. But I think one of the things that we care about a lot, and now going to invoke the gray in my beard. So I know you guys don't see video in these, but you've probably seen me enough to know how gray my beard is. Since humans develop languages, Santa? Is Santa's the co-host of Disorder? That's ridiculous. Why do people listen to us every week? I don't understand. But since humans developed language and started living in groups, the older people in the group have been trying with the best of intentions and caring and nurturing to accelerate the wisdom of the younger members of the group. And anybody who has kids knows this. Like, listen, I'm not trying to give you a hard time, offspring. I'm just trying to feed you what I my experiences so you don't make the same mistakes that I do. And guess what? Every effing generation makes the mistakes anyway. We don't learn that way. We learn through experiences. So I think part of healing and self-development culture is I I will just keep getting this like mic-dropping, mind-blowing advice from people with expensive microphones and cameras or publishers, and that will move me forward. But it never does. You have to have your own experiences. So I would love to tell you all the things I did wrong so that you don't do them. You're gonna do them wrong anyway. That's the way we work. It's okay. Yeah. It's okay. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 35:45

Stop trying to perfect yourself and stop being driven by Craig the Critic.

SPEAKER_05 35:49

Yeah, he's nasty. That was a really interesting thing. The critic. Sorry. Oh, there he is. Yeah, let me do it again, ready. It's Craig the Critic. You know what I've learned, by the way? It only took me a year and a half. Restream, where we record, is terrible when we talk at the same time. So I'm so guilty of the therapist, mm-hmm. Like I'm actively listening when you talk. But every time I go, mm-hmm, it's me over you, and then I have an editing problem. So it took me a year and a half to figure out.

SPEAKER_03 36:14

Uh well, in that case, let's hear someone else's voice. Who have we got?

SPEAKER_05 36:18

We do have a did it anyway, so let's listen into that.

SPEAKER_01 36:23

Hi, Josh and Drew. Um I have a did it anyway. So I was feeling extremely anxious. I've been dealing with an anxiety disorder now for about three to four years, and I've dealt with uh them before, so I guess I'm resensitized right now. But um I was feeling extreme, extreme anxiety today, to the point where I just felt like I was on the verge of going insane, and I was just itching with negative energy and um feeling horrible, and I what so what I would do in the past is yoga. I used to love to do yoga, and there was a hot yoga class I was planning on going to, but decided today, since I was feeling so bad that I wouldn't go, but at the last minute I was like, you know what? I'm this is what I would do if I wasn't feeling anxious. I enjoy this, and I did it anyway. Even though the anxiety was there, I brought it with me, and it made me realize during the class, like what I would have been doing instead would it be ruminating, googling. It wouldn't have been enjoyable. And the yoga class, I took something from it, even if it wasn't as enjoyable as it would have been if the anxiety wasn't there, and I didn't do it to get rid of it either. It was still there and it's still there now, but I walked away with an experience, and you know, I expanded my scope of my life essentially. So thank you guys. I'm trying still to learn how to willfully tolerate the anxiety. I think I'm a little bit of a perfectionist with that, and um, that's been hard, but I think this was a step in the right direction and just saying yes to things that I normally wouldn't do. So thank you guys both. And you can use my name. Thanks.

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Damn. There we go. What a what fitting did it anyway for uh today's uh episode as well. Yep. Do hot yoga to get rid of your anxiety. Hell no. Do hot yoga to practice being with your anxiety, and I would uh argue that's self-development, and one might say healing, but not me.

SPEAKER_05 38:36

When she says, Leia says, I enriched my life, I got something out of the yoga class, like that's development right there. That's it. She like lived her life as uh instead of actively being engaged, the yeah, the second best part of that, actually, probably the best part of that was I would have spent my time ruminating, and that's not very fun. Like, thank you. Everybody hone into that. Thank you, Leia, for saying that. Like, I would have tried to spend time intentionally trying to heal myself of this feeling, but it's that I went to hot yoga class and I got something out of the class instead. Good job, me. And I learned something. Have you ever done hot yoga? I have no, and and I'm listening I'm a yoga fan. I I have a yoga practice. I don't think I'm going in a 120-degree room to do that.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

I I would give it a go, but like I sweat so much with exercise. I'd look like a seal. I would literally be slipping around because of my there'd be like a pool with two inches of my perspiration, and I'd be so embarrassed. And like, I just, oh god, I just couldn't do it.

SPEAKER_05 39:38

Do you guys have slipping slides over there? Or do you protect your children more than we do in the US? You know the slip and slide talk?

SPEAKER_03 39:43

Oh, we've got slip and slide.

SPEAKER_05 39:44

Yeah, that's literally hot yogurt class with Josh is just a giant slip and slide. Everybody's all over the place.

SPEAKER_03 39:48

It's like yeah, yeah, that's what that's what it'd be like.

SPEAKER_05 39:53

Some dude with like an overalls and a 55-gallon drum of cat litter just for traction to soak up the perspiration. Yeah, I get it.

SPEAKER_03 40:00

I was at the gym today and I was doing the walking up incline on the treadmill. I put it at the max incline. Yeah. After 10, 15 minutes, I'm just pouring with sweat. And to the point where one of the gym attendants comes over and just hands me a paper towel. Not out of compassion, out of you're ruining the machine.

SPEAKER_05 40:19

You're literally breaking a $15,000 piece of equipment, so we're gonna have to ask you to leave. They forklift it up, put a kiddie pool under it to catch the nastiness. I get it. I know people love hot yoga. If you're a hot yoga fan, cool, support, fully support you. I don't think I would do it.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

I would look really cool doing it though. Like, and I walk past them like that will never be me.

SPEAKER_05 40:41

You know, I have people who are like anxious people who will do the hot yoga thing, they're scared to do it, and then they do it to like, no, no, no, I can I can do this. So they're super uncomfortable because you know it's so hot and they're sweating, and then those thoughts of like, yeah, I'm gonna overheat. Uh, this is my body can't regulate its temperature or something, and then your heart starts to race because you're hot, and that's part of the cooling system. And they do it to practice tolerating the physical sensation. So I know people who use hot yoga as a learning experience. That is good. That is good.

SPEAKER_03 41:09

Have we got a quick moment to answer a question? Sure. Let's have a look. I have no idea what Josh is gonna ask, but sure. I enjoyed this question, and I think we we can squeeze in this episode. Yeah, let's do it. Uh, this is from Kim. Okay. Today I did something that was terrify Oh no, I think it's did it anyway. Oh, great, let's do it. Anyway, so this is from Kim. Today I did something that was terrifying, but I did it anyway. I took my child to gymnastics by myself and lasted the whole hour. I have not been able to do this since last November. I've been dealing with panic symptoms for the last eight months and have struggled going places by myself with my child. I've mostly feared fainting, as I'm often lightheaded, and feared having a panic attack in public or whilst driving. I've had a lot of anxiety leading up to today with thoughts that I'd faint or panic while there and wanted to avoid going altogether. My son was also nervous because this was a new class for him, and I was talking to him about being brave. I told him that I am scared too, but I'm going to be brave and see what happens. He was so proud of himself afterwards, and I was very proud of him and myself. Afterwards, we rewarded ourselves with ice cream for our bravery. I am so grateful for you both, and so thankful I stumbled upon the podcast books and courses. You have been very helpful in my journey. Thank you. Oh, I love the wholesome ones like that. That's good parenting that, Kim. I love it.

SPEAKER_05 42:35

And you know, it ended with ice cream instead of sweating your ass off in a yoga class, so I'm a fan of that. That's so lovely.

SPEAKER_03 42:42

Well done, Kim, good job. Because you're teaching your kid it's okay to be anxious. Yeah. Because, oh, well, well, Mum taught me it's okay to be anxious and do things anyway. Oh, that's lovely. Well done, Kim.

SPEAKER_05 42:57

Yeah, thank you for sharing, appreciate it. All right. Are we good? 43 minutes in.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Yeah, all good. Thank you for tuning in. You can uh send in Did It Anyways and questions and emails and um telling telling Drew he's uh unhealed at uh disordered.fm. And uh big thanks to my co-host Drew, because uh it's a pleasure to do this every week.

SPEAKER_05 43:20

It sure is. So we'll come back again next week. We'll talk about something else. Don't know why. Um get on our mailing list, by the way. Like if you go to disordered.fm, just get on our mailing list so you know when we release the disordered guide to health anxiety. Did I let that slip? Like oh yeah, disordered guide to health anxiety and another big project that I we I will not reveal yet, but it's gonna be fun. It doesn't have anything to do with custard, bologna sandwiches, or hot yoga. I could say that much. I'll make you bologna sandwiches. All right, we'll see you next week. Thanks for listening.