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

Anxiety Recovery Relapse Prevention - The Morning Routine | EP 349

One of the more common mistakes people make as they progress in anxiety disorder recovery is treating recovery as something separate from the rest of their lives. You do the therapy work in one box, and everything else goes in another. That tends to backfire.In this episode I want to introduce the concept of relapse prevention, and I want to do it in the context of building a daily routine that keeps you connected to the strategies and principles that helped you make progress in the first place.--Want to talk about what you heard in this episode? I'm hanging out in the Disordered Community Space:https://disordered.fm/community--This is not a magic morning routine. I'm not going to promise you'll be unrecognizable in six weeks or that you'll never have a setback. What I will say is that people who build consistent habits around these practices do tend to fare better when life gets hard again, and life always does. The old pathways never get deleted. They just get unused for a while. So it's worth building habits that make it harder to accidentally fall back into them.I walk through a four-pillar framework for building that kind of routine: attention and mindfulness practice, physical movement, emotional expression, and what I'm calling exploration, which is the part where you stay connected to the things that actually matter to you and feed something other than your anxiety.I also talk about the trap of feeling good, because feeling good is exactly when a lot of people start quietly abandoning the habits that got them there. And I have a word for the internet, which tends to ruin this kind of thing with aesthetics, comparison, and influencer nonsense.For full show notes on this episode:https://theanxioustruth.com/349Send in a question or comment via text.Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated! Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.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 Do I Stop Obsessing Over ...? | EP 348

Everybody wants to know how to stop obsessing over whatever has them scared right now. In this episode I explain why that's the wrong question, and what to ask instead.In OCD and anxiety disorders, an obsession isn't just a strong thought or a passing worry. It functions like a threat. That's why you can't just decide to turn it off. You can't out argue it, out logic it, or replace it with a happier thought, and I'm guessing you've already tried all three.The real leverage is in the compulsion, the thing you do to try to feel safer once the obsession fires. Checking, reassurance seeking, mental rituals, researching, arguing with your own fear in your head. Those are learnable, even though resisting them is genuinely hard. I get into why the distress that shows up when you resist a compulsion doesn't mean you've made a mistake, and why stopping the obsession ends up being a side effect of working on the compulsion, not the goal itself.--Want to talk about what you're hearing in this episode? You can interact with me on the Disordered Community Space:https://disordered.fm/community--Send in a question or comment via text.Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated! Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.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.

The Truth In Anxiety Recovery. There Are No "Game Changing" Moments | EP 347

In my anxiety recovery journey, there were no game-changing moments. No mic drops, no epiphanies, no single concept or technique that suddenly moved me forward. And when I look at the people I've worked with in my therapy practice and the community I've built around this podcast, that's pretty much how it goes for everyone.You're probably searching for one, though. I get it. Everybody has a right to want to feel better quickly, and the endless scroll is very good at promising you the ONE thing that changes everything. But that search can quietly become its own problem.In this episode I share what my recovery actually looked like: slow, quiet, and mostly unnoticeable until it wasn't. The progress showed up as backward-looking realizations, not forward-looking epiphanies. I moved out of that "anxiety disorder apartment" one item at a time over a long stretch. Then one day I looked around and the place was empty and it was time to leave. So anti-climactic!I also talk about the important moments that did show up along the way, why even those weren't game changers, what the actual mistake is when you've been searching and scrolling for years, and what a genuine shift looks like when you're ready to make one.For full show notes on this episode:https://theanxioustruth.com/347Want to talk about this episode, interact with me and Disordered co-host Josh Fletcher, and participate in a community of supportive people that are sharing your experience? I'm hanging out in the Disordered community space:https://disordered.fm/communitySend in a question or comment via text.Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated! Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.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.

Core Principles of OCD Recovery w/Kimberley Quinlan | EP 346

In this episode, we are breaking down five core principles of OCD recovery. To help explore this topic, I am joined by Kimberley Quinlan, an anxiety and OCD specialist practicing in Los Angeles and host of the Your Anxiety Toolkit podcast.OCD recovery is often viewed as a rigid list of steps, but it is better understood through specific attributes and ingredients that you can learn to practice and strengthen over time.Here is what you need to know about the core components of OCD recovery:1. Clarity of VisionHaving a clear picture of what you want your life to look like is a powerful predictor of success. This does not mean you must have every detail mapped out perfectly, but you need a general template of the life you want to live. Recovery is not merely the absence of intrusive thoughts or anxiety; it is about deciding what your life will look like when you choose to let those thoughts exist without letting them run the show.2. Willingness to Endure DiscomfortYou must be willing to let OCD come along for the ride. This means moving forward with your valued life plans whileexperiencing discomfort, intrusive thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges, and images. Whether you are practicing driving in your neighborhood or returning to school, you must learn to slow down and be in relation to actual physical discomfort.3. Self-Compassion and KindnessPracticing while uncomfortable is difficult, and it requires kindness toward yourself. This means eliminating the critical, negative inner dialogue that tells you that you are a failure or that you should be further along in your journey. Kindness also means physically validating your own distress, acknowledging your racing heart or somatic symptoms, and making space for them rather than fighting them.4. Attentional AwarenessAttention training is your ability to intentionally choose where to direct your focus in the midst of chaos. Intrusive thoughts feel chaotic, but you have the agency to anchor your attention to a focal point in the present moment, whether that is a sound, a physical task, or a loved one's voice. This is a muscle that you strengthen through small, repetitive daily actions.5. Focus on Response PreventionWhile exposure and response prevention (ERP) is the gold standard for treatment, the emphasis belongs heavily on response prevention. Identifying your compulsions and safety behaviors, and then slowing down or stopping them, is far more critical than seeking out the most intense exposures. Take an honest inventory of your compulsions and work consistently to reduce them.A Note on Consistency These attributes are not static personality traits, nor will they remain at a constant level every day. Some days your willingness will be low, or your self-compassion will wane. Recovery is messy, and consistency matters far more than intensity. Be gentle with yourself, allow space for humor when you catch your OCD trying to trick you, and keep making small, practical choices to move forwardFind Kim online:InstagramWebsitePodcastFor full show notes on this episode:https://theanxioustruth.com/346Send in a question or comment via text.Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated! Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.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 Does an Anxiety Therapist NOT Get Triggered? | Ep 345

How Does an Anxiety Therapist Talk About Anxiety All Day Without Getting Triggered?People ask me this constantly. I'm a former sufferer of panic disorder, agoraphobia, OCD, and depression — and now I spend my days immersed in all of it. Therapy clients, podcasts, books, social media. Anxiety is basically my entire professional life. So how does a person like me not end up right back where they started?The answer isn't a trick or a technique. It's what recovery actually produces — and once you understand it, it reframes what you're working toward in a pretty significant way.In this episode I explain why talking about anxiety all day doesn't trigger me, what changed through my own recovery process, and why the same change is available to you. I also share a real example from the last few months involving my dog Copper, some stress-related symptoms that showed up during a difficult time, and what it looked like to have those experiences without fear driving the whole thing.We also get into my OCD history with existential thoughts — something that used to pin me down for weeks — and what that same material looks like now. Same discomfort. Completely different relationship to it.This one is old school Anxious Truth. No script, no notes. Just an honest answer to a question a lot of you have been asking, and what I think it means for where you're headed.For show notes on this episode:https://theanxioustruth.com/345Want to talk about this episode with me, Josh Fletcher, and others that are sharing your experience and know what it feels like? I'm hanging out on the Disordered Community Space:https://disordered.fm/communitySend in a question or comment via text.Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee.   Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website.  None of this is never required, but always appreciated! Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.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.