The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast

Among people that struggle with chronic or disordered forms of anxiety, there are a wide range of individual primary fears or concerns. When you ask a large enough number of our friends what they are afraid of, you’re going to get a pretty wide range of answers primarily because everyone experiences fear, worry, concern, and anxiety in a slightly different way.

But hidden within this apparently wide range of specific and individual fears are some common thread and themes.

This week on The Anxious Truth we're exploring four common themes found when a few hundred anxious people expressed the fears and worry they're struggling with right now.

• Fear of Immediate Physical/Medical Threat
• Fear of Immediate Psychological/Mental Threat
• Fear of Being Overwhelmed or Unable to Adequately Cope
• Obsessive Fixation on Specific Feared Outcomes

For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/291

For more anxiety and recovery resources:
https://theanxioustruth.com

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

People struggling with chronic or disordered states of anxiety often find themselves in a situation where they are hyper aware and therefore overwhelmed by sensory input.

Non-anxious humans are so oblivious to what we sense that we sometimes pay to have people tell us to notice what our eyes, ears, noses, and skin are sending and perceiving. But for anxious people dealing with chronic or disordered forms of anxiety, this is not a problem at all. We have the opposite issue. We are constantly paying very close attention to sensory input. We are hyper aware.

Why are we hyper aware? Because we MUST evaluate ourselves constantly to stay ahead of our triggers. Anxious people are continually checking themselves for physical sensations that don’t seem right, thoughts that might be going south, or emotions that they won’t be able to handle. If you’re here today listening or watching, I would wager a large sum that a good portion of your time is spend checking on yourself, then evaluating the results of that internal scan to to see if you’re OK, or you have to start taking evasive action to stay safe … from yourself.

Episode 290 of The Anxious Truth provides a reframe on sensory overload and overwhelm that ties the experience directly to an overactive, overprotective threat detection and response system. This reframe and explanation could be helpful in informing new action that helps us learn the experiential lessons we need to learn in recovery.

For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/290

For more anxiety and recovery resources:
https://theanxioustruth.com

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Sometimes the toughest opponent we have in anxiety recovery is the belief we can't outrun. This episode challenges you to question the certainties that have defined your battle with anxiety. Is the intensity of our emotions a reliable compass? Is our self-knowledge as accurate as we believe? We'll explore the potential for a fleeting moment of power even amidst the storm of fear, and how reassessing our core beliefs can unlock new possibilities. The thought that what was once unthinkable can become thinkable, what felt impossible can indeed become possible. Reflect on the resilience hidden in your stories and perceptions as we navigate through the complexities of anxiety together.

For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/289

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

DO I HAVE TO STOP BEING AFRAID TO TRULY ACCEPT ANXIETY (AND TO GET BETTER)?

Good question. But this is a backwards interpretation of acceptance so let’s clarify.

• Acceptance is not finding a way to turn off your fear
• Acceptance is not figuring out some method for hating your anxiety less
• Acceptance is not about creating a new state of being or feeling from an emotional or mental standpoint

Acceptance is an ACTION, not a feeling.

Acceptance is a precursor to less fear, acceptance is not the result of less fear. This is critical because it keeps quite a number of people stuck, so let's talk about it on episode 288 of The Anxious Truth.

For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/288

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Anxiety Triggers: When The List Is Growing

Many members of our community will find that over time their list of anxiety triggers or panic attack triggers is growing. More and more things become triggers, which starts to get frustrating and disheartening. Let's talk about why that happens, and what it means in the recovery process.

Important Timestamps:

02:17 - Everything becomes an anxiety trigger when you're in an anxious state

08:08 - If you feel like everything is a possible anxiety trigger, remember this

13:15 - Learning to face fear requires courage and it requires repetition

Full show notes on this episode:

https://theanxioustruth.com/287

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Let's do an old fashioned anxiety questions and answers session, shall we? Today we're answering questions from our friends on Facebook.

• 02:24 How do I face a scary exposure?
• 05:58 Is it normal to still have symptoms or scary thoughts in recovery?
• 08:48 What do I do when I'm not anxious and have no symptoms or thoughts to deal with?
• 10:40 Which comes first, scary sensations or scary thoughts?
• 12:37 How can I be sure if it's just anxiety or my intuition?
• 15:01 The selfish nature of anxiety and anxiety disorders

For full show notes on this episode or to access more anxiety recovery resources:
https://theanxioustruth.com/286

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Having panic attacks does not always mean you have panic disorder. This week on The Anxious Truth we're digging into what differentiates panic attacks - even recurring panic attacks - from panic disorder.

In a nutshell, the primary differentiator here is fear/avoidance. When you begin to fear panic attacks because you interpret them as dangerous or too overwhelming, then you begin to modify and restrict your lifestyle to prevent or avoid them, you are panic disorder territory. Compare this to the very large number of people that will have panic attacks now and then without ever treating them this way. They have panic attacks, which they experience as individual events that they do not link together, and go about their lives mostly unconcerned or worried about a next panic attack.

This week we're also talking about why being anxious all the time is quite common in panic disorder and how panic disorder relates to other closely related conditions all categorized as "anxiety disorders" from a diagnostic point of view.

For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/285

For more content and resources:
https://theanxioustruth.com

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Struggling with constant anxiety, recurring panic attacks, or a full blown anxiety disorder? Avoiding anxiety and panic triggers might seem like the safest path, but let's look at why this understandable and common response can be more foe than friend.

In this episode we'll look at some of the mechanics of panic attacks and panic disorder, shedding light on why evading anxiety can inadvertently feed the beast, intensifying and fueling the cycle of fear. Prudent prudent avoidance in the face of true danger is a helpful survival tool, but avoidance can become problematic when we use it to sidestep anxiety and fear themselves, rather than actual danger.

So if avoidance is more harmful than helpful, what next?

Unfortunately, what's next is the dismantling of avoidance and a turn TOWARD what you fear most. This may sound ridiculous or unthinkable to you right now, which is perfectly OK. Everyone comes to grips with this approach - or doesn't - in their own way and in their own time. If you're not feeling this idea today, it doesn't mean you're doing something wrong, broken, worse than everyone else, or beyond hope. Take whatever time is needed to think about this and consider the concept. Everyone has to do that part - the mental wrestling with an unpleasant idea.

As we move toward an acceptance based recovery, embracing discomfort becomes an unexpected and paradoxical compass. This approach may appear daunting, yet it paves the way to teaching our brains that the alarm bells of anxiety and fear are false signals. that don't actually need to be interpreted and treated as disasters or emergencies. There is quite a bit to digest when we decide to move away from avoidance and toward facing fear. It can't all be explained in one video or one podcast episode. There are lots of principles to follow and concepts to understand.

If the idea of eliminating avoidance to recover is making sense to you know and you want to know HOW this works, first accept that you're going to have to take some time to listen, learn, contemplate, and get a better understanding of the principles and mechanics of acceptance based recovery. Take advantage of all the free podcast episodes, videos, and social media content I've created that all discuss these ideas. Check out the workshops I've created to help explain these principles. Consider consulting my recovery guidebook, also called "The Anxious Truth". You won't solve this problem or change your relationship with anxiety overnight, but you can start to turn in the direction of recovery by reading, learning, listening and starting to consider this different approach.

Links from this episode:

Episode 152 - Agoraphobia Explained
My Panic Attacks Explained Workshop
My Agoraphobia Explained Workshop
My Panic and Agoraphobia Recovery Guidebook

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

LIVING WITH ANXIETY ...

I HAVE TO RECOVER SO I CAN LIVE MY LIFE AGAIN!

But really, do you? Or is it better to do your best to re-engage in life so that you can recover?

This week we're examining the concept of life AS recovery rather than life as something you get to do only after you've reached some magic state of "recovered". Yes, at times recovery from an anxiety disorder involves manufactured exposures and doing things that don't look all that much like a regular life, but recovery can be so much more.

We can also intermix life - as best we can - into the recovery process in such a way that we use life activities and experiences to help us practice handling anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and discomfort. Moving through an anxious moment while doing something that feels like life is generally more valuable and will likely lead to a deeper and more durable recovery, so consider living (to the best of your ability today) to recover, even when you're convinced that you're not ready for life.

For full show notes on this episode visit
https://theanxioustruth.com/283

To find my books, workshops, social media links, and all the other anxiety and recovery resources I produce, visit my website at theanxioustruth.com.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

HOW TO CALM DOWN FROM A PANIC ATTACK?

This is one of the million dollar question in our community, so let's take a look at how to calm down from a panic attack.

I know you likely want tips and tricks for how to stop a panic attack and calm down, but could the act of embracing, rather than fighting off a panic attack, be the hidden doorway to "calm"? Let's look at true acceptance, and unpack the idea that true calmness emerges not from a frantic search for escape but through allowing and riding out the panic storm.

This isn't about finding a quick fix. It's about redefining your relationship with anxiety and recognizing the strength in vulnerability. Remember, every moment of openness to the experience is a step toward lasting improvement and recovery.

Episode Links:

My Recovery Guidebook
https://theanxioustruth.com/recoveryguide

Panic Attacks Explained:
https://learn.theanxioustruth.com/panic-attacks-explained

Agoraphobia Explained:
https://learn.theanxioustruth.com/agoraphobia-explained

My website:
https://theanxioustruth.com

Full show notes for this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/282

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.