Why Is Mindfulness So Hard In Anxiety Recovery? (Episode 65)

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi everyone, Josh. Um, I've got a question on sort of meditation and mindfulness, and I think something you've you've mentioned in the past. It's something I've sort of explored myself and I've subscribed to headspace, other meditation apps are remainable. But the reason for the question is a lot of my anxiety issues stem from me body scanning, how am I feeling? Do I feel nauseous today? Do I feel tired? A lot of the sort of early meditation guys I've I've listened to entail a lot of inward scanning, body scanning, that kind of thing. I'm just wondering if that's something I should avoid, because that's maybe something I'm doing subconsciously anyway, or whether it's something I should do when I'm not feeling anxious. I'm just wondering what your thoughts on are on meditation and whether it's sort of universally helpful for everyone, I suppose.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Excellent question. Welcome to Disordered. This is episode 65 entitled Why is Mindfulness So Hard? Uh I am Drew Linsolata, a therapist in training in New York, specializing in anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm an author, a podcaster, clearly, because I'm here, an educator, social media dude, former sufferer of anxiety, anxiety disorders, and depression for many years of my life. And uh yeah, happy to be here again.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

And I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh on social media. I'm a psychotherapist based in the UK who specializes in anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm a previous sufferer, uh co-host of this podcast and author of the book. And how does that make you feel? Welcome, dude. Hi, right. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:30

All right. Should we talk about mindfulness? I don't feel very mindful this morning.

SPEAKER_03 1:33

Yeah, I I like mindfulness, but with for anxiety disorders, it could be it can be quite tricky.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

Yeah, yeah. This is a great question. Um, thank you, by the way, questions sender inner. I like how you say that. So it's a term, man. That's a question sender inner. That's yeah, that's a sure. That's a person. That's a noun now. Um, I think that's a proper noun. What are my pronouns? Questions sender inner is my pronoun. So uh it's a good question, and I think it's one that is pervasive in our community, especially this person mentioned no knock on headspace, headspace is fine. I like all of the apps, Calm, Headspace, Insight Timer, they're all very useful. Um, but it's interesting because we use the term anxiety disorder informed quite often on this podcast, and I think this begins to apply in this situation. Like, how do I how do I use what I'm hearing on this meditation app? What do you think?

SPEAKER_03 2:24

I've um been afraid to meditate in the past. I remember I went to some, I think the Pasnum meditation or something. I went to a class and they were talking about things like, oh, you know, if if you breathe right and get it right, you get you know, you go to a really deep place. And I remember doing this, and then I had a panic attack in the middle of it because I was afraid that you know of these symptoms. Um something called panicogenic relaxation, which is what Sally Winston and Marty Sees talk about. It's a phenomenon where we feel so relaxed that it's so alien to us that it you know it triggers the threat response and we start to panic. Uh, I used to do this and like the question Sender in it, uh, every time I used to sit down and meditate, which is the conventional advice advice for anxiety, I'm replicating what the guy in the question said. It's like I'm actually still body scanning and checking, and but I'm just doing it at a hyper focused level. Um, the principles of med of mindfulness are to observe without judgment. But if you're in the midst of an anxiety disorder, you ain't gonna observe anything without judgment.

SPEAKER_02 3:38

No, you are in the judgment business. That is your full-time job judging how you feel. So that's true. And interestingly, like I use the Insight Timer app when I want to use an app, and I'm a fan of meditation, we'll talk about that for sure. But it's so interesting if you look for like anxiety on that app. And again, no knock, I like Insight Timer, but um, if you search for anxiety, you're gonna see a lot of tracks, meditation and tracks, relaxation tracks, body scan for relaxation. A lot will say body scan. Now I get why there's a reason for that, but again, anxiety disorder informed matters.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah, it's almost like he asks, like, do we avoid now? I would say yes. This is something you can temporarily avoid if you're in the habit of the inwards compulsion, yeah, because your brain's had enough of being body-centric at the moment and needs to become loose and flexible again, uh, and get used to being mindful outside of the body. So you can still use mindfulness, but it doesn't have to be on the body, it's just that's a lot of the conventional um meditations are, and people get it gets misconstrued as or mindfulness, I have to focus on my breath. But if you're someone with somatic OCD, struggles with air hunger, um, obsessed with your muscle twitches or pains in your body, etc. And then you're asked to lie down and hyperfocus, it might have the opposite of the intended effect. Um, and you might leave feeling more anxious, and then Craig the critic comes in and is like, you're not doing it properly, and this isn't helping, and I'm and I must be unwell. No, it's because over time, because we've been so focused inwards, the threat response thinks that the threat is within it within within us. Now I like doing this now. I love doing a body scan. I don't know about you, Drew, but I will do a body scan now. I will do breath-focused meditation, but back in the midst of it, nah, I wouldn't. And I wouldn't recommend it until you your attention and your conf confidence is uh got a bit better.

SPEAKER_02 5:44

Yeah, I agree. I I think now I didn't have I was able to use breath focus back in the day, even when I was in the midst of it. Because I, even though I did struggle with sort of that air hunger thing, it wasn't it wasn't compulsive, it wasn't, you know, obsessive. So I was able to learn how to use my breath as an attention training tool. So the reason why I think things like body scanning and breath focus is out there is that your body is always with you, as is your breath. That's true. So they be just become convenient ways to start to find something to pay attention to. But in our community, telling someone to pay attention to their body could definitely backfire for sure. The principle there of breath focused, you know, meditation or meditation practice is it's just something to bring your attention to. So when your mind is creating a zillion thoughts a second, because that's what minds do, all minds do that. Well, oh yeah, I can recognize my thoughts, but I'm gonna bring my focus back to my breath. That's the only reason why, in my worldview, it's the only reason why I ever use breath, not to attain a calm state, there's no magic in it, it's not meant to elevate you or open yourself up to some other realm. It's just to want something to focus on.

SPEAKER_03 6:54

Yeah, I yeah. And if you're a lot of people, a lot of people, their worries are external from the body. Yeah, there's infinite worries we can have, but uh for people with anxiety disorders, a lot of those worries are body focused or sensation focused. Uh, and so when you do a meditation that you've just, I don't know, YouTube or using a Headspace app or whatever, don't feel bad if if this isn't for you. Uh in this case, I would use things like guided visualization or walking meditation is a good one. Yeah. Uh, which is the same principle. I was gonna ask you, actually, Drew, like for the layman, like what's the purpose of mindfulness?

SPEAKER_02 7:41

The purpose of mindfulness in our context, I think, that we're always addressing here, is just learning how to choose what to pay attention to without judgment. You don't have to do it right or wrong. I get to pick where my attention goes. Not all of it, like attention is not a finite resource, that's really important. It's not like, well, I can't possibly pay attention to that tree out outside my window because I'm anxious. Well, I can split my attention, I can do that. That's allowed. So mindfulness. I love talking about the 51% and I think mindfulness training is a great way to learn that or experiment with that. In many ways, trying to practice with mindfulness is a little bit of exposure. It's a it's an experiment. Like, oh, I'm feeling super anxious, and my brain is telling me to pay attention to my thoughts and my emotions and my bodily sensations. But what if I also try to notice the birds that are hanging out in the fence out there? What happens? Am I safe to do that? How important is it to do it without judgment? Oh, incredibly important because I think, and I know you hear this too. One of the things that I hear people say all the time is they everybody says that meditation is good for anxiety, but I can't because I can't turn my brain off. That's a judgment that says, oh, the purpose of meditation or mindfulness practice is to somehow stop my thoughts. And that is not true. Or, but I can't pay attention to the tree. I keep coming back to my scary thought about stabbing the dog. Yeah, that's okay. That's not wrong. It's you you can't call it wrong, or you're you're doomed from the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 9:07

Yeah, I like seeing it as a practicing observing the mechanisms of my brain. Oh, oh, I like that. So it's just like I'm observing that my threat response wants to bring attention to these thoughts. Now I'm observing that it's going out somewhere else. Now I'm observing that I'm trying to force my thoughts. Now I'm observing um that I got distracted and started daydreaming, and now I'm observing that I'm annoyed that I've stopped daydreaming because I was enjoying that, because I wasn't fixating on my anxiety, and now I'm fixating on my anxiety again. That's it. But with that, you practice the without judgment as well. Like, oh, you know, my my brain is nuts.

SPEAKER_02 9:46

Yes, and in a way, you can draw the conclusion like, oh, wait a minute, I have no shot at turning this off, but that's okay. But I can learn to acknowledge that I can be having this particular thought or this mental process is going on, and other things are also happening. Maybe it's my breath if I can do breath focus. That's fine. Or maybe it's something else. I've recorded guided meditations on the Insight Timer app. You can find them. Don't buy it, by the way. It's all free. Where I know I'm talking to anxious people, so I have one breath focused with instructions, and then I have other ones that are not breath focused: a visual focus, an auditory focus, tactile focus, because I know who I'm talking to.

SPEAKER_03 10:23

We should do our own, should we like meditation with Josh? And then just the random eagle sound pathway through.

SPEAKER_02 10:31

But as goofy as it sounds, that would work all work in air quotes. That would be okay. I mean, we'd be goofing it up, of course, and not being serious, but that would also work. Meditation and mindfulness is not always about like sitar music and like candles burning. The wind chimes going through anything, you don't have to have the drone in the background, you don't need a digirido in the process. Like any binaural beats. Yeah, you know, right. You don't need binaural beats, you don't need special frequencies. Like, and you could pay attention to anything in the universe and try that for 60 seconds. Yeah, congratulations. That that that's practice. That's that's it.

SPEAKER_03 11:12

It's the intention of what you're doing it for. How how important is it? Probably the most important point we'll make in this episode is that what is the intention behind doing this? Now, I'm a sucker, so in the past, I get anxious about it. I must do mindfulness because everyone, even on the television, the media, mindfulness is really good for anxiety. So I'm like, well, yeah, okay, well, if if it's good for anxiety, I'm gonna do it. But the intention was to do it as a reaction to spiking anxiety, as opposed to right, I'm not that anxious now, but I'm gonna do some mindfulness because I can practice with my attention, I can practice observing without judgment, uh, and I can practice being in first gear and doing things something slow. And yeah, that might initially make me more anxious, but the intention is to get good at this skill, and then the better you get at it, yeah. Most of the time when I do mindfulness now, I I do feel more relaxed. Do it in the midst of spiking anxiety. Oh, you're you are in for a not a nice time.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Yeah, that's true, especially if that's the only time you try it. So people who follow along with me for any length of time will hear me say all the time, practice, practice, practice. You do it. This is why musicians rehearse. Like we practice before we go on we, as if I'm on stage. Listen to me.

SPEAKER_03 12:30

Like you got a lot of guitars behind me, but I have no right to call myself a musician.

SPEAKER_02 12:36

Come on, man, it's really not good. But in the end, it it there's a reason why people rehearse, and you know, sports teams practice, and the military runs drills. You do these things when you can as a part of your regular routine when you're not in a air quotes crisis, because if you think that you're supposed to be able to meditate your way out of a big anxiety spike, you will be so disappointed and frustrated by that. You're the intent is correct, and I was as big a sucker as you are, dude. Like, I spent a lot of time sitting in a quiet room, like trying, focusing on my breath, trying to meditate away my anxiety and panic.

SPEAKER_03 13:11

And did you, like me, have the have the ethereal music in the background and the and the chanting and the hmm?

SPEAKER_02 13:19

I I had just made me feel even worse because I'm like what made me feel worse about that was it's true, it was in fact, you know, when I talked about meditation and mindfulness practice as an experiment or even an exposure, it totally was because instead of like fidgeting and running around, and you know, like we talked about that, I was not a freeze guy, I was I'm more of a fight or flight guy, so I was always up and pacing and fidgeting. Sitting still meant I was faced full on with all of my symptoms and thoughts. So it was an exposure, but I thought my job was to like, oh, if I meditate hard enough, I'll make them go away. Oh my goodness, it was so frustrating.

SPEAKER_03 13:54

The incongruous feeling as well, when you're in a room and there's like some relaxing, guided meditation, and and you should feel yourself getting looser, listen to the waves crashing, and you're just there having this internal apocalypse, and you're like, oh my god, this the fact that this calming music is on is actually making me feel worse because it feels so incongruous. I how I feel juxtaposes with what I'm supposed to be feeling right now. Uh now, though, like when you practice with mindfulness stuff like that, and I have done, I just kind of observe that too and just laugh. Be like, I'm super stressed, this is really funny, you know. Um you know, I can hear the wind chimes, and I'm supposed to be relaxed. I ain't uh particularly sleep meditations as well. It's like, and you should feel yourself getting heavier and deeper. I'm like, I'm I'm five seconds from getting up and watching TV downstairs.

SPEAKER_02 14:54

I remember, and that was for me, it was back in the very early days of YouTube that I was doing a lot of the heavy lifting in my recovery, and I remember trying to use a guided relaxation meditation. I was trying everything, man. And the woman kept listen, credit to her because she was trying to address anxiety and panic. So I will give her credit for that, but she just kept saying, you are safe, you are safe. And I was like, F you lady, like I feel the opposite of safe right now. So it's like using mantras that I always tell that don't do that because your brain is having none of that. My brain was like, shut up. Like, clearly I'm not safe right now. Did you leave that in a YouTube comment? I should have. That would be the spirit of the YouTube comments to go at her hard, but no, I didn't. I was too anxious to leave a comment. But uh well, you said a thing earlier that I think is super important. Most of the conventional and the questions gender inner talks about this. Like I have the apps and stuff. They are targeting people whose worries are external. Like life is stressful, it's really hard. My boss is a moron, like I had a fight with my wife. Yes. And so I can use my internal state as a as an escape from that like stress, and I can let go of my external stress. We're the opposite.

SPEAKER_03 16:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

So, like, in a way, like if you can do body scan so that you can let me let me be careful how I say this. If you're working with qualified help, the body scan can actually be a useful thing, but that's coaching through an exposure or an experiment. Like the reason you're scanning is, oh, I notice that my heart is beating quickly. I notice I have a tight feeling at the base of my throat. So you start to notice your symptoms in your body non-judgmentally and detach from them. But if you just fire up the Headspace app or Calm and some calm voice is telling you to focus in on how you feel in your body, if you freak out, you're not, it's not you. There's nothing wrong with you. It's not a you problem.

SPEAKER_03 16:42

Yeah, I'm gonna take a pop shot of some other wellness influences. Uh yeah, there's someone out there. I'm not gonna name him. Oh, come on. Uh, but uh the the basis of I I I read I read his book that he sent me. He was very enthusiastic about it, um, which is kind, you know. Thanks for sending me your book. Uh, but the whole basis of it was body-centric composite. It was like feel where the trauma is in your body and breathe into it. I'm like, dude, you have no idea about anxiety disorders. Like this is all we've been doing, and now actually you're facilitating more scanning because now people think like, oh, there's something trapped in my body that I have to exercise and stuff like that. I'm like, dude, this just fuels compulsions. And he was like, Can I have an endorsement? I was like, Unfortunately, no, but like, um, yeah, and then he didn't talk to me after that. Uh that's rough. Yeah, no, it's fine. I'm the better person.

SPEAKER_02 17:42

No, I didn't mean it was he hasn't talked to you. It's rough that this person was giving that kind of advice. And listen, is it bad advice universally? No, we could probably say it's not, but in this context, that could be very bad advice.

SPEAKER_03 17:55

Oh, this man wasn't even trained or anything or anything. Oh, cool. Use uses a um his job title, which sounds very authoritarian. Yeah, and then people just assume that he knows everything about anxiety, even though what he's doing is nothing to do with anxiety. I think part of this too is the check-in.

SPEAKER_02 18:11

Check in with yourself. You know, no, I'm so sick of checking in with myself. Yeah, that's but that's also, I think, in a way, feeds into that mindfulness or meditation. Take a minute, be mindful, check in and ask yourself what you need. What I need in this moment is to not feel like I'm suffocating. Like, so that's the answer that an anxious person might give to that question. Like, checking in to see how you feel is not good advice. Listen, now I can do that. Like, if I'm, you know, all keyed up at three o'clock in the afternoon, I can take a minute and say, wait a minute, what's going on here? You know, I can kind of check in and say, uh, I'm rushing around like a crazy person. I'm trying to get everything done today. I can't possibly do it. I got to adjust. Cool. But at the time, the check-in was not a good way to practice focus or attention or mindfulness at all.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

There's some ways you can do it though. Uh in in here in the practice over the years, you know, um, particularly with people with the inwards compulsion, body-centric compulsions and checking, body scanning. Um ask them to just close their eyes, sit on the sofa, and I'm like, right, we're gonna play a game. Who can I do it as well? How many sounds can you hear? You know, and sometimes I'll be like, I can hear five, and they're like, I can hear eleven or so you've beaten me. You know, I can hear a distant lorry, I can hear a seagull, I can hear traffic, I can hear my clothes against the the furniture, um I can hear many things, and then you that's that intrigue, and and it's such a lovely thing to do because you don't people who are in the midst of anxiety don't do that every day, and suddenly your attention has gone everywhere. It's gone, it's gone to like half a mile radius, you know, to the point you know, actually I could hear the food truck down the road, and I can suddenly the other sentence getting now. I can then I ask, Well, what can you smell? Yeah, I can scale a food truck. Well, they're like, Josh, I'm in your practice, so it smells of onions. Oh onions, that is so random. It doesn't smell of onions, it's that I keep this very very tight. Uh um, it's smells of a sad man.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Smells of broken dreams and regrets.

SPEAKER_03 20:26

Yeah, um, but the point is I'm saying is that wow, like how often do you actually do that as an anxious person? Not really. No, trickle that habit into your day, and that brain becomes flexible, you're tapping into that neuroplasticity. There are loads of ways to be mindful.

SPEAKER_02 20:43

Yeah, and I think that speaks to the intention. And sometimes some of those tools can be useful in a good setting where you have somebody guiding you. So you're doing it in the therapy room in your practice, like because there you can explain to somebody, like, no, you're gonna bring your anxious state with you right now. This is not meant to squash it. And in a way, the the pri actually, that was the last episode I did with my other podcast, The Anxious Truth, was 54321 revisited. Like everybody knows five things you can see, four things you can hear. Anxious people will use that sort of tool, which is in a way a mindfulness tool. It is like pay attention to stuff as a as a shield. This will calm me down.

SPEAKER_03 21:20

No, this is a way of intentions, though, isn't it? Like with the wrong intentions.

SPEAKER_02 21:25

Yeah, this is a way to experiment with like what if I do try to listen for some birds while my brain is screaming that I'm about to have a psychotic break. That's an exposure and an experiment that teaches us something. So, and that's my also mindfulness training. So it's mindfulness is can be really hard when you're scared and trying to not be scared, but it can be useful in the right circumstances.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

It's super tricky, you know. Like we never like ask people to or demand, you know, that you avoid things, but also be realistic. Like, you know, if I got somebody in here, fresh, panic disorder, OCD, stuff like that. You know, I I will say things like, you know what? Just while we're in the midst of the hamster wheel, let's cut down the caffeine for a bit and stop doing this meditation. We don't need to do these meditations. Let's just plateau first. Yeah. And then start building again. And that's what I did. You know, I cut out all my stimulants to begin with. Yep. While I could just get my brain back in order to absorb what I needed to know. And then I started to reintroduce what non-anxious me would do. And even now, like I like I like meditation. It's nice. I don't do it as much as I should, but uh I like doing bed. So it's like I I do my own meditation. But do you want to hear what I do in bed when I lie in bed and shut my eyes?

SPEAKER_02 22:40

I don't know if I want to watch you in bed, to be honest with you. Well, tell me, Josh, what do you do in bed?

SPEAKER_03 22:49

So when I can't turn my mind off, um, I just do a thing where I count my breaths, and then if my brain goes to the thought I've been fixating on or obsessing, right? I'm not allowed to keep counting up the breaths, and it's something that really works for me. So I'll be on five breaths rages, and then I'll be like, Oh, actually, I didn't think about it for 10 seconds. Six breaths, seven breaths, because and it's a fall of mine because I'm I'm kind of bringing my attention back and also pulling it away from that obsession, and you know, and I get to like 30 breaths, and then I start again. One and then so and the boredom and tediousness of it just sends me to sleep. Um, and if that doesn't work, I just listen to the anxious truth. That's just that's two pot shots of your podcast in two episodes.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

It'll put you to sleep, but then it will wake you up an hour later in intense panic, like just the trauma of listening will come from it.

SPEAKER_03 23:44

Don't you have some like like rock music in there as well?

SPEAKER_02 23:47

I've been using the last two episodes, I've been so I'm so busy that I don't even have time to put the music in. So there's no music, but yeah, I like it. I like blues music. What have we got me to say? But you know, breath counting. Yeah, breath counting is a is a traditional like medit mindfulness and meditation thing that you find people do. And it's hard to count breaths because most people can't get up past six or seven and then and some other thought about whatever dinner pops in or some random thought that it's good for sleep anxiety as well.

SPEAKER_03 24:14

I altered it a bit because I was counting my breaths, and then many years ago, I get I counted my breaths, and then when I got to like 112, I'm like, I've got to 112 breaths, I'm not asleep, and I started worrying. So then I just recycle it at 30, so it just doesn't matter. You start again, or you know, and you just it doesn't matter because yeah, once it starts counting, like I'm at breath 9,312. Yeah, that's cool. As it's like four days, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just counting breath. Yeah, I just thought, no, if I just keep it a low number, sometimes even 10, it doesn't, it just doesn't matter what you're on, and that's my trick um tip if uh anyone it for those with sleep anxiety as well, using meditation mindfulness whilst simulating what sleep is.

SPEAKER_02 24:59

Then can you hear the non-judgmental part of what Josh is doing? Like, whatever, I'll just cut it off at 30. Like it doesn't the number doesn't matter, as opposed to no, I I my I must get to 30 breaths or I failed. I'm not doing no, it's whatever happens, happens, you know.

SPEAKER_03 25:14

Yeah, and and what's nice is as you're doing it, it's my favorite part of this is that say you've been obsessing, fixating, or something, um then you start to notice other thoughts coming in, and that makes me really happy. When you have other thoughts coming in, it's like, oh yeah, I've kind of that that fish has been has unhooked itself, and now it's just I'm just going around the other parts of my brain. Yeah, and a good mindfulness thing does that. I think people misconstrue mindfulness sometimes and they're like, Oh, these thoughts are coming in. Um I it's a good thing that all these different thoughts keep coming, particularly for someone with OCD or fixation based anxiety. If all these other thoughts come in, random stuff, yeah. Drew's cab company, that's those things. It's good. You're allowing the mechanisms of your brain to do what it needs to do.

SPEAKER_02 26:05

And it's a way to also experiment a little bit, you know, dip your toe in the water with the idea that all thoughts are allowed. There are no off-limits thoughts. So if you just allow your brain to make thoughts, notice them, move on to the next one, go back to your breath or the picture on the wall or the smell in the room, whatever it is. It's fine, it's just practice. The other thing I would definitely point out about mindfulness is it is not designed to create a particular state. And we've said this again and again in various ways in this episode. It's not meant to calm you down, it's not meant to create a particular state, it's a practice. Mindful is a verb. I am paying attention non-judgmentally to exercise my attention muscle. That's what this is.

SPEAKER_03 26:42

This applies to the uh the regulators crowd as well. I think. Have you oh, oh, I got it right here. Regulators. So these are the people that are like, no, I need if I I do mindfulness to instantly regulate myself. No, you don't don't get me wrong, and this is this is a weird thing. The better you kind of get at mindfulness, the more you practice it, the more actually, yeah, your body will regulate itself, but not instantaneously. It's like you're sowing the seeds for for it to grow later on, you know. Um, but like I find that like with mindfulness, it's like my brain associates that, and then I will for eventually after practice start to calm down. Yep. Uh, if I've got a really long day, and then I'll go and sit on and do a five-minute meditation on the sofa. I do genuinely feel less stressed, but uh I'm not gonna do it, you know. But back then doing it, no, not a chance. It would have just made things worse.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah, I like to use the term happy secondary effect. So, like for me, I was trying to use meditation and mindfulness at the primary effect I was looking for was calm down, change my state. Really, the target had to be I had to learn to just get better at thinking and feeling everything.

SPEAKER_03 27:57

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 27:57

The happy secondary effect effect was like, oh yeah, I guess what I kind of am regulating faster. So I've been known to say, like, when I get really anxious, I could do something or nothing. Nothing is faster than something, believe it or not. It doesn't make sense. But if I learned to do nothing, which I learned to do through practicing mindfulness meditation, my body did regulate itself, which it's going to do anyway. It just would do it faster. So you're right, just that that isn't my goal.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

Yeah, it would just do it. Yeah, trust you you're kind of giving your body the tools to do it better in the future, yeah, as opposed against that instant reactionary, and I'll say it again, the intentions behind why you're doing it.

SPEAKER_02 28:34

Yeah, if you want to learn how to calm down, the best way to learn to calm down is learn that you don't have to calm down, which makes zero sense, and you could use mindfulness as part of that practice.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

So one of my exposure ladder, something on my exposure ladder was to do mindfulness to scare me. Yeah, very good. I remember that years ago, it was like on my exposure ladder, I was like, I it scares me because I'm afraid of my thoughts, afraid I might go crazy, whatever. Yeah, and so I did mindfulness with the intention of it, of practicing, yeah, and actually, and again, back to willful tolerance, cornerstone of what we talk about. I was gonna willfully tolerate everything that was thrown at me. So if you if you're in the middle of an anxiety disorder cycle, you can use meditation as as an exposure. Like I'm actually gonna do an exposure now and sit and be mindful. And yeah, if you you know, you can rank it up with the with the calming wind chime music ones, or you can just be like, I'm gonna just try and see what happens. Um, but yeah, I remember doing that, and I remember thinking, I get it now, I get why my brain is reacting like this, you know. Just makes sense. Yeah, and then I did it in a I went to a mindfulness class and did it as an exposure because I had other things about what people thought of me, etc. etc. And while everyone's there reaching Nirvana and all this stuff, yeah, I'm there like tense and sweating. Great, that's fine. I'm there for my own reasons. I'm using mindfulness as a tool to kind of it's the same as these people, but we just evoke something different.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Yeah, I think it was the the metaphor I like to use is the racing engine. Uh you need to have a manual transmission for this, which no one has anymore. But if you if you slam on the clutch pedal, right, then the flywheel separates and the engine is still racing. It's still at the red line, but you're not when you when you're on the clutch, it will slowly begin to bring go down. The RPMs will start to drop if you let it. So mindfulness is like hit the clutch, like let the engine race and get better at experiencing the race without judging it or fixing it or interacting with it, and then the RPMs will come down. So, like if I have a client who is presenting as you know, particularly anxious, or we intentionally do maybe you know, an imaginal in session and that triggers the person, I we will do like, hey, let's I'm gonna set my watch, I'll do it with you, let's sit quietly with this for two minutes. But it's always so that you can practice sitting with it and not oh, we got to calm you down, so let's sit quietly for two minutes.

SPEAKER_03 31:09

No, what if we just let it be for two minutes? What happened? I think it comes back to the episode we did a while ago where they go techniqueifying. Right.

unknown 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:16

Am I tech am I techniqueifying mindfulness? One easy way. I mean, this here's a shameless plug. I don't do these too often, but I when I wrote the book seven percent slower, you can't Whoa, you plug in a book. That's disgusting. Disgusting on that podcast. Have you ever heard of Book Plug on this podcast? I wrote 7% slower in two in 2022. It is legit, it's a book about using slowing down as a way to navigate through an anxious experience, but it is kind of a it's a mindfulness manual on the QT on the down low. Because I used slowing down as my way to get into mindfulness. I didn't know that's what I was doing, but I knew I was rushing around like a lunatic all the time. And I'm like, well, what happens if I just try and go a little slower? And holy shit, it was holy beep, it was a uh it was an introduction to being mindful because I I had to start paying attention to what was happening in the present moment. Just starting a way to start.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

I have it on my shelf actually. 70% slower. Uh, did I write the forward for that?

SPEAKER_02 32:15

You wrote the forward for me. You don't even remember you're so active in the literary world, you know.

SPEAKER_03 32:18

Josh wrote that. No, it's a good, it's a great book, and particularly for those who are like Drew who fight and flighters, not freezers. Yeah, I had to learn to go slower. That's a good introduction to mindfulness. Yeah, no, that's I highly recommend that book as well. Uh so we hope that helped people there, you know. Just look at your relationship with it. Um, why are you doing it? What's the intentions? Uh, Drew and I both love mindfulness, but it has to we've also made the mistake with mindfulness about why we're doing it. And yeah, we we hope um this really helped.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Yeah, for sure. We have some uh we have a question and we have some did it anyways. What should we do first?

SPEAKER_03 32:58

Uh I've got two small written did it anyways. Shall I read one? Yep. And then two. So it did it anyway, then a question, then a did it anyway. How's it? Okay, let's do that. Uh this one's a nice one. Uh, I'm so glad I stumbled upon your podcast in search of help from DPDR. I just finished the episode on it, and I've never felt more seen. I'm a medical student who's read all the literature on the topic and still struggle to find an answer. Really thought I was going crazy until I heard you guys talk about it. This is what this is the bit I like. It truly made me think of DPDR in a whole new way and not keep ruminating about it. It's helped me more than anything I've ever read. Thank you. The key there is I think about it differently and I stop the ruminative compulsion. Well done.

SPEAKER_02 33:51

Yeah, very good. Then that's a scary thing to do because DPDR is that dissociative state that is so scary and disturbing. But so well done.

SPEAKER_03 33:58

Yeah, it'll actually let me read the other one out and then we can just wax lyrical on the question in a bit. Uh good afternoon, Josh and Drew. Since the beginning of COVID, we've all been working from home. And we go into the office once every so often by choice. In spite of preparing myself for it in the lead up, I still ended up feeling awfully self-conscious and overwhelmed as I kept getting thoughts and feelings of I am going to lose it or shout out. Felt very close to it. What's all that about? That's called um an urge compulsion or something, isn't it? My false urge or something. Anyway, I stayed and I did it. Whoop whoop. PS. I'm working with an incredible therapist, Mark. Yeah, we know Mark. It's very good. Mark Dawson. Every one of you listening are so incredibly brave beyond words.

SPEAKER_02 34:50

Oh man, that last line being encouraging for everybody else. Love it.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Yeah. Well done. Well done. And well done to Mark as well. He's one of the good therapists.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Absolutely, man. Always a fan of that sort of stuff. I love that, you know, that recognizing the erg, like, oh, my thought will become an impulse that I won't be able to control. Yeah, it doesn't work that way. So good job.

SPEAKER_03 35:10

And and those urges, uh, as someone with OCD, it's like, oh, but I felt the urge to go towards the bridge, or I felt the urge to pick up the knife, or I felt the urge to strike that person. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's like a like like a conscious testing, isn't it? You know, like um that it's really common with OCD and yeah, uh in indicative of the fact that you won't do it, funnily enough.

SPEAKER_02 35:35

Yeah, I like the idea, and uh, and then we'll move on. Like, well, I had a thought about picking up the knife, and then I got really emotionally charged about that thought, so I interpreted that as an urge. No, I had a thought about a knife, it made me feel big, and so I fused with that thought, and and then it I confused the thought about picking up the knife with the act of picking up the knife.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

Yeah, there's that, but also even on a small level, it's like you you're testing yourself to see if this catastrophe is true. So there's people there that like oh I did that. Uh like if they're on a bridge, they'll be like, but I took one step towards the edge. Yeah, you still chose to do that, you're not losing control. It's just it's like this really like micro testing that people with IOCD do, yeah, but they're still not gonna do it. But no, no, I did, I did. I was in the car and I did accelerate a bit. And I was yeah, because you but you knew you were safe when you did it. I did the knife test.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

I did a knife test when I was struggling. I gotta pick up the knife. Will I hurt myself? But I I picked up the knife. Yeah, I was doing it. Doing self-ERP. I was testing, I didn't know what I was doing, but I was on my kid, I was testing. Yeah, yeah, and all the stuff like that. Oh, cool. We got a question, haven't we? We do, it's an audio question, so let's hear it.

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Hi, Drew and Josh. Um, I love your podcast. I've been listening for the last six months, I believe. Um, so I just have a quick question. Um, about six months ago, I started having intrusive thoughts. Um, I was watching a video on TikTok and it brought on an intrusive thought, and I haven't been able to shake it off since then. Um I am doing a little bit better now, but I was very anxious and distressed for the first couple of months. Like I couldn't really even concentrate on things. I did seek therapy. My therapist thinks it's just anxiety, but it's the same thought over and over again. And so I know my therapist says that it's not OCD, and I've heard so many stories about Piero. Um, and so I just wanted to know does OCD come on later in life? Like I'm 34, I've I've had intrusive thoughts all my life, but I've never really had it this bad to where it distressed me. I'm anxious, I'm scared. And so I just wanted to know does OCD just pop out of nowhere in life, or is it just purely anxiety? Thank you. Love what you guys do. Um, it's very, very comforting hearing you guys on my drive to work or at home. So thank you.

SPEAKER_02 38:09

What do you think? Good question.

SPEAKER_03 38:11

Um, first of all, to answer the second part of your question, yeah, OCD can pop up all parts of life. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:18

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 38:19

Um, and like you said, like sometimes the threat response can just latch on to the intrusive thought. You said you've had intrusive thoughts all your life, and then yes, sometimes that one thought can be the focus of attention, particularly if there's been lots of stress and stuff like that. Um, so I I'm thinking what Drew's thinking, and and without even vocalizing it, I would be very don't lose your critical lens when it comes to the professionals you're working with. If you're struggling with an intrusive thought that triggered watching a TikTok video that is there continuously every day, and you've got the imagery of it, etc. And then it does sound a lot like puro OCD, you know, like like pretty pretty pretty 101. Pure O 101. I would question the therapist here and be like, well, why is this not pure O? And what does it mean when you say it's just anxiety? Because lots of anxiety is you know categorized differently, particularly in our community. Uh, I'd maybe look at the formulation there and hopefully that your therapist is OCD informed, because most people with OCD are actually pure O. It's mostly um uh internal. Um, you know, but um that's what I would say to that. And I would say, yeah, pretty I would I would put a bet that that is OCD pure O.

SPEAKER_02 39:50

Yeah, and you know what? It's okay to ask for clarification. You know, I in fact your therapist probably wants to hear that. Hey, can we talk about this for a bit more? I need some clarification. Why do you think this is not OCD? Like Josh said, because sometimes I'll I'll play the flip side of the equation, right? I've had people who will say, Oh, and that's my OCD. And I'm like, okay, tell me why you think you have OCD. And yes, it 100% looks like OCD. And then we have to have the conversation of like, listen, it you we all have all of it in a certain I don't mean all, like the general public. In the anxiety disorder community, if you have panic disorder, there's a really good chance at some point you're going to present with some sort of like presentation that looks a whole lot like OCD because the borders are just so amorphous and diffuse between these things. So it's okay, that might be why the therapist is saying, no, no, no, don't worry about it, just anxiety. Okay, it's just another presentation of your your gener your anxiety disorder. That's okay, that makes sense. But ask for clarification, you're allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_03 40:42

Yeah, ask for clarification and it sounds like your own, you're doubting it a bit yourself there. It's like and to be honest, if it's the the same thought, intrusive thought, every day, constantly we're ruminating on and we're struggling and resisting against, that does sound a lot like pure row, but you know, uh without knowing more, you know. I I just advise, you know, bring it up with your therapist and and always ask for an alternative opinion as well, you know. You're allowed to do that.

SPEAKER_02 41:09

And the context you're in matters, you know, if you spend all your time in therapy, not that there's anything wrong with this wonderful kind of therapy if it works, just talking about how you feel, which is fine because there that can be really helpful in certain circumstances, then you kind of care more about what Josh is saying, like that doesn't why would they dismiss that then? But if you're already doing the type of work that you hear us talk about, you know, in the podcast, then there might be a little bit more of a an explanation as to why. Now don't worry about the OCD because we don't want to also get like, oh, now I also have OCD, so now I have three problems. Uh that can white wear you down when it doesn't have to. So good question, though. Thanks for sending it in. I think we're good. 42 minutes.

SPEAKER_03 41:48

Yeah, thank you for tuning in, guys. Um, you can send in questions and voice notes to disordered.fm. Uh thank you for to Brigita for who messaged us saying there was a typo on the on the website. Uh, and we laughed about that. Thank you. And we thank you. Is it fixed? Oh, brilliant. Look what we did, and by we drew. And uh, and yeah, um thank you so much for the lovely reviews and things. Uh, the book Drew mentioned is uh 7% slow. It's a really good book, particularly if this kind of episode applies to you. And uh yeah, we'll catch you soon. Yeah, see you guys next week. Thanks for listening. We're out.