0:00

When struggling to overcome chronic and

0:02

disordered states of anxiety, acceptance-based strategies are

0:04

superior to control and management-based strategies. But

0:06

don't take my word for it. A

0:09

large number of your peers seem to

0:11

agree. So we're going to talk about

0:13

that this week on The Anxious Truth.

0:20

Hello everybody, welcome back to The Anxious

0:22

Truth. This is episode 314 of the

0:24

podcast. We are recording in March of

0:26

2025 in case you are watching or

0:28

listening in the future. This week on

0:31

The Anxious Truth, we're going to talk

0:33

about the difference between acceptance-based strategies and

0:35

control slash management-based strategies when we're dealing

0:37

with chronic and disorder states of anxiety.

0:39

So stick around for that. If you're

0:41

new to the anxious truth, this is

0:44

the podcast where we talk about all

0:46

things, anxiety, anxiety disorders and anxiety recovery.

0:48

I am Drew Linsolata creator and host

0:50

this fine podcast or I hope it's

0:52

a fine podcast or this YouTube channel

0:54

depending on where you're consuming. I am

0:56

as of March of 2025 a pre-licensed

0:58

therapist practicing under clinical supervision. Specializing in

1:00

the treatment of anxiety and anxiety disorders.

1:02

I'm a three-time author on this topic.

1:04

I am a podcaster not only hosting

1:06

The Anxious Truth but also co-hosting Disordered

1:08

with my buddy Josh Fletcher. I am

1:10

a past sufferer of these very same

1:13

problems that I talk about for many

1:15

many years of my life, but much

1:17

better now completely recovered for many many

1:19

years now as well. Psycho educator and

1:21

advocate social media guy and I am going

1:23

to try to help as best I can

1:25

within a one-to- many helping helping model of

1:27

either a podcast episode or a YouTube episode

1:29

or a YouTube video. So if you're new

1:31

to the anxious truth and you just stumbled

1:34

upon us today, I hope you find what

1:36

you find here helpful or useful or applicable

1:38

in some way. And of course, if you're

1:40

a returning listener or viewer, thanks, I appreciate

1:42

you stopping by and hanging out for another

1:44

20 minutes or whatever we're gonna do today.

1:46

So we're gonna talk about the difference between

1:49

acceptance and control strategies when you're dealing with

1:51

anxiety and anxiety disorders, chronic and disordered

1:53

states of anxiety, which I have to

1:55

remind you just quickly is a little

1:57

bit different than just I have anxiety.

2:00

We talk about I have anxiety all

2:02

the time, everybody talks about it, it's

2:04

all over the place, we're talking about

2:06

internally generated states of anxiety. There's a

2:08

difference between I'm really anxious because my

2:10

boss is stressing me out, I'm really

2:13

anxious because I'm really anxious because I

2:15

have final exams coming up, I'm really

2:17

anxious because my neighbor and I are

2:19

in a conflict, that's one type of

2:21

anxiety, here on the anxious truth, we're

2:24

always talking about the internally generated anxiety

2:26

that results. from being anxious about being

2:28

anxious. It doesn't matter why you're anxious,

2:30

you only care that you're anxious, the

2:32

anxiety itself becomes the most important thing.

2:34

The scary thoughts, the sense of distress,

2:37

the discomfort, that's what we're talking about

2:39

here. So we call that disordered anxiety,

2:41

some people might call it chronic anxiety,

2:43

and that's what we're addressing. When you're

2:45

in this situation. We feel like you're

2:48

uncontrollably anxious all the time for a

2:50

variety of reasons. That might mean panic

2:52

attacks, which lead to agoraphobia. It could

2:54

be generalized anxiety disorder, constant persistent states

2:56

of overthinking and ruminating and worrying. It

2:58

could be OCD, it could be health

3:01

anxiety. There's a million different ways we

3:03

can get to this chronic or disordered

3:05

place. But when you're struggling with that.

3:07

The most common way to try to

3:09

address that, and if you spend a

3:12

lot of time scrolling around on YouTube

3:14

or listening to podcasts or doing the

3:16

endless scroll on platforms like Instagram or

3:18

TikTok, you're going to see a lot

3:20

of people advocating for control and management

3:22

based strategies. So when you hear things

3:25

like regulating your nervous system, nervous system

3:27

regulation, vagus nerve activation, managing triggers, avoiding

3:29

triggers, techniques for instantly calming down, count

3:31

the things that you can hear, see,

3:33

see, smell. count four blue things in

3:35

the room, tap on your cheek, get

3:38

an ice pack, jam your face in

3:40

a bucket of ice, put your feet

3:42

in the grass, breathe this special way.

3:44

This is a one way to end

3:46

panic attacks forever or instantly calm down

3:49

or these are ways to like eliminate

3:51

anxiety forever. You are being taught about

3:53

control and management based strategies. Now that

3:55

makes common sense because if you are

3:57

an externally sort of normally ang- person

3:59

and you understand that you are anxious

4:02

because of something that's happening that's stressing

4:04

you from outside your skin, well yeah

4:06

those might be good stress management and

4:08

anxiety management techniques that we can use

4:10

to help you like deal with it

4:12

and move through it a little more

4:14

so you can stay focused on solving

4:16

the problem at hand or getting safe

4:19

or getting out of the stressful situation

4:21

or whatever it happens to be. But

4:23

when we are in a chronically or

4:25

disordered state of anxiety, when you cannot

4:27

get away from your own internal experiences

4:29

like bodily sensations and scary thoughts, especially

4:31

when those are being triggered by a

4:34

fear response and your body and mind

4:36

are just doing what it's designed to

4:38

do, trying to control and manage that

4:40

experience by... acting directly on symptoms and

4:42

thoughts and trying to use interventions or

4:44

techniques or hacks or tricks designed to

4:46

prevent the triggering of anxiety or instantly

4:49

fix it, manipulate it, control it or

4:51

stop it when you do get uncomfortable

4:53

tends to be counterproductive and while you

4:55

might find some strategies that are helpful

4:57

on the short term. sometimes you will

4:59

also probably find that they don't help

5:01

on the long term and even if

5:04

you can find some coping strategies that

5:06

are based on control and management that

5:08

can get you through anxious moments you

5:10

have to keep using them again and

5:12

again and again and you may wind

5:14

up in a situation where you're wondering

5:16

I don't understand why I'm still afraid

5:19

to panic I don't understand why I

5:21

still have OCD I don't understand why

5:23

I'm still so worried and ruminate about

5:25

my health all the time. So we

5:27

have to look at the application of

5:29

control and management strategies in the case

5:31

of chronic and disordered anxiety and maybe

5:34

give the side eye a little bit

5:36

because those things tend not to work.

5:38

Now what we're talking about, and would

5:40

you hear people like me talk about

5:42

all the time, people who specialize in

5:44

the treatment of chronic and disordered anxiety,

5:46

we are relying on evidence based, and

5:48

I say evidence based not to be

5:51

a snob or our science snob, but

5:53

these types of treatments or approaches to

5:55

chronic and disordered anxiety. that are based

5:57

on things like acceptance and mindfulness have

5:59

far better consistent outcomes for the people

6:01

who employ acceptance and mindfulness-based strategies as

6:03

opposed to people who rely on avoidance

6:06

control or management-based strategies. We just have

6:08

too much data over many many years

6:10

that shows us that. Now acceptance and

6:12

mindfulness is really sort of those are

6:14

sort of the hallmarks of the most

6:16

current forms of most effective empirically validated

6:18

treatments for anxiety disorder or chronic anxiety

6:21

anxiety disorders or chronic anxiety but they

6:23

have been baked into things like cognitive

6:25

behavioral therapy for a long time just

6:27

that in the past even cognitive behavioral

6:29

therapies were a little bit control-esque if

6:31

you will. Let's show you that your

6:33

thoughts are irrational and then you can

6:36

change them. which as it turns out,

6:38

doesn't really work all that well also.

6:40

And that was a little bit too

6:42

control heavy and wound up with a

6:44

lot of high relapse rates and people

6:46

had a hard time maintaining a level

6:48

of recovery that they found to try

6:51

to control their thoughts or instantly change

6:53

their thoughts or change their beliefs just

6:55

because they know that the old beliefs

6:57

were irrational. Right. So we are really

6:59

looking toward acceptance and mindfulness-based strategies as

7:01

the most effective ways to deal with

7:03

these things. This is a hard sell

7:05

because it is very difficult to convince

7:08

somebody who is incredibly uncomfortable, afraid, or

7:10

feeling distressed and feeling a little bit

7:12

worn down and hopeless by that, that

7:14

the way out of that is to

7:16

learn to accept the situation. We are

7:18

never talking about, this is where it's

7:20

really important to understand the difference between

7:23

internally and externally generated anxiety. If it's

7:25

an external threat, we do not accept

7:27

external threats. And a threat can be

7:29

defined in a lot of different ways.

7:31

If you are getting stressed out over

7:33

things that you simply cannot change in

7:35

the world, but that don't don't pose

7:38

an immediate threat to you, well, now

7:40

we have like a generalized anxiety disorder

7:42

kind of thing or we have that

7:44

overthinking over planning sort of control freak

7:46

thing. We all understand the term control

7:48

freak. But if you are trying. to

7:50

control things that you actually can interact

7:53

with that are making your life worse

7:55

and stressing you out, then that's a

7:57

good plan, right? So the issue here

7:59

is when we're trying to apply control

8:01

and management in situations where they were

8:03

never meant to be applied. Control and

8:05

management in the context of our internal

8:08

experiences like thoughts or emotions or beliefs

8:10

or ideas or even physical sensations, which

8:12

I know we don't always include. physical

8:14

sensations technically in the realm of internal

8:16

experiences, but it's important to recognize that

8:18

when we're trying to apply control and

8:20

management approaches to things inside of us

8:22

that were simply not designed to be

8:25

controlled or managed or manually operated, your

8:27

nervous system doesn't actually have levers and

8:29

knobs that you can manually operate. I

8:31

don't care what your favorite podcast biohacker

8:33

tells you is true. That simply doesn't

8:35

appear to work at least in our

8:37

population. when we try to apply management

8:40

control strategies things tend to go off

8:42

the rails they backfire and then you

8:44

can wind up feeling really frustrated when

8:46

we talk about accepting remember since it's

8:48

an internal state that we fear or

8:50

we find so uncomfortable but internal states

8:52

are not dangerous when we talk about

8:55

acceptance what we're learning to to accept

8:57

or deal with and navigate through or

8:59

respond to more productively is a state

9:01

where we are very uncomfortable or maybe

9:03

really afraid but we are not an

9:05

any actual danger. There really is no

9:07

threat that we're trying to protect ourselves

9:10

from or get away from. The perceived

9:12

threat comes from inside us and while

9:14

that can be every bit as uncomfortable,

9:16

scary and triggering, no doubt about that,

9:18

we have to acknowledge the fact that

9:20

we're not asking anybody to use acceptance-based

9:22

strategies in the course of chronic and

9:25

disordered anxiety to accept an actual threat

9:27

or accept actual danger. It just feels

9:29

like you're trying to accept a dangerous

9:31

situation. Feeling like and reality are not

9:33

always matched as anybody who listens to

9:35

this podcast can personally attest. It's part

9:37

of the thing that maintains that chronic

9:39

or disordered state. So we are looking

9:42

for acceptance based strategy. which start from

9:44

the premise that what my body and

9:46

mind does are not necessarily designed to

9:48

be manually operated, controlled, or managed by

9:50

me. There are physiological processes, there are

9:52

societal norms, there's acculturation, there's all kinds

9:54

of stuff going on. There's just biology,

9:57

there's neurobiology, there's all of the things

9:59

that got us to this point and

10:01

us, I mean... all of us as

10:03

human beings combine to make humans susceptible

10:05

to respond to what they think is

10:07

a threat in certain ways. When there's

10:09

no threat, that threat comes out of

10:12

order. There's a threat detected before there

10:14

is actually danger. That's why we call

10:16

these disorders because they're out of order

10:18

and we wind up becoming afraid of

10:20

our own bodies and minds. And then

10:22

we hope that we can try to

10:24

somehow find a way to control our

10:27

bodies and minds. We didn't evolve to

10:29

be able to do that, so we

10:31

have to learn to say, well, this

10:33

is actually happening right now. I do

10:35

suffer from chronic or disordered anxiety. I

10:37

have developed a fear of my own

10:39

bodily sensations or my own thoughts or

10:42

my own emotions. And what am I

10:44

going to do with that now? I

10:46

could try to control that and bend

10:48

it to my will and stop it

10:50

for all from happening and hack my

10:52

nervous system and learn to regulate and

10:54

rub my ear or my neck and

10:56

try to activate my Vegas nerve. And

10:59

it's not really working for me. or

11:01

I'm going to have to be okay

11:03

with the idea that this is in

11:05

fact the situation that I find myself

11:07

in and now I have to work

11:09

on learning to respond to this in

11:11

a different way so that I can

11:14

learn through experience that I don't have

11:16

to fear my own body in mind.

11:18

Those states are certainly uncomfortable or even

11:20

downright terrifying at times not trying to

11:22

like counter that that is 100% true

11:24

That subjective experience is very disturbing. However,

11:26

we can in fact learn that if

11:29

we don't stop everything dead in its

11:31

tracks to try to directly operate on

11:33

how we feel to make it change

11:35

or stop it or go away Well,

11:37

we learn that even if we don't

11:39

do that we come at the other

11:41

end of these experiences and while it

11:44

may take a lot of repetition and

11:46

time to learn those lessons, you are

11:48

actually learning over time and teaching the

11:50

lower part of your brain responsible for

11:52

managing that threat detection and response system

11:54

that it's okay to be anxious. It's

11:56

okay to even panic. It's okay to

11:59

have scary thoughts that may be related

12:01

to OCD or generalized anxiety disorder or

12:03

specific health concerns. All of those things

12:05

are okay. I don't have to stop

12:07

everything, manage them, stop them, make it

12:09

go away, force myself to calm down

12:11

in order to be okay. If I

12:13

actually learn to do nothing, but accept

12:16

that this is a very uncomfortable situation

12:18

that I'm in, because my brain is

12:20

sort of stuck in a loop where

12:22

it keeps looking for threats, and then

12:24

it creates the very threats that's looking

12:26

for. If I don't accept that situation,

12:28

I begin to approach it in a

12:31

different way. fighting it, I learned to

12:33

work with it and through it and

12:35

that involves challenging sometimes some very long-standing

12:37

beliefs that like no you don't understand

12:39

it's impossible if I panic I have

12:41

to go to the ER, I have

12:43

to get an ice pack. Okay well

12:46

those are control and management strategies whereas

12:48

an acceptance-based strategy would suggest that you

12:50

actually don't have to do that and

12:52

you will still wind up okay. So

12:54

in an acceptance or mindfulness-based strategy Those

12:56

things really come together. I've talked about

12:58

mindfulness a lot lately, but in an

13:01

acceptance-based strategy, we are not trying to

13:03

manage control, turn off the feelings, hack

13:05

the feelings, trick the feelings, do three

13:07

simple things that instantly calm you down

13:09

or stop you from being anxious. We

13:11

cannot just decide to not be anxious.

13:13

We can't choose positivity techniques to just

13:16

feel happy even though we're terrified. We

13:18

can't do any of those things. We

13:20

have to let what happens happens so

13:22

that we can get better at having

13:24

those experiences. And when we discover that

13:26

we are competent in the area of

13:28

handling our own internal experiences, even the

13:30

scary ones that we hate, well then

13:33

there aren't so scary anymore over time

13:35

and things change. If I don't have

13:37

to be a... afraid of my own

13:39

body and mind, then I don't have

13:41

to worry so much about trying to

13:43

manage those things to keep them from

13:45

doing things that I don't like. Now,

13:48

I said in the very opening of

13:50

this episode that you don't have to

13:52

take, where are we? I don't know

13:54

how long I've been going. I'm going

13:56

to try and keep this under 20

13:58

minutes. You don't have to take my

14:00

word for it. I said, your peers

14:03

tend to agree. Where does this come

14:05

from? I asked my Instagram audience. Tell

14:07

me what the most valuable principles of

14:09

anxiety recovery are for you. And overwhelmingly,

14:11

the responses were acceptance-based. There was a

14:13

few people kind of doing the control

14:15

thing, which is totally understandable, and by

14:18

the way, you always have autonomy, you

14:20

can pick whatever strategy you think is

14:22

right for you. I might not necessarily

14:24

agree that it's the most effective way

14:26

to approach it, but if you think

14:28

that control and management is the best

14:30

way for you and avoidance counts as

14:33

control of management, then... I would support

14:35

you on that. You get to make

14:37

that choice. You won't get a lot

14:39

of information on my channel or my

14:41

podcast that supports that sort of thing,

14:43

but I do support your ability or

14:45

your right to choose that path for

14:48

sure. And I respect that. So while

14:50

a very few of the responses were

14:52

a little bit control-based, and usually those

14:54

indicate newer listeners or newer followers on

14:56

the social platforms who were just becoming

14:58

familiar with this type of approach, and

15:00

it's totally fine. may take you quite

15:02

a long time to get to the

15:05

point where it's like maybe there's something

15:07

to that. It's okay if you want

15:09

to dismiss this out of hand because

15:11

it seems ridiculous. Pretty much everybody thinks

15:13

that the first time. So it's okay.

15:15

The vast majority of responses not only

15:17

pointed at a shift to acceptance-based strategies.

15:20

We use terms like willful tolerance or

15:22

floating or surrendering or like working through,

15:24

allowing, not fighting, dropping resistance, learning that

15:26

I can handle these things. The responses

15:28

were just over and over the same

15:30

responses. But to me, the most important

15:32

thing was the vast number of people

15:35

in this response set. And by the

15:37

way, this isn't scientific, it's a big

15:39

audience, but there's nothing scientific about the

15:41

sampling, just full disclosure on that. The

15:43

vast majority of people also took note

15:45

of the fact that they had to

15:47

shift toward acceptance. So there were many,

15:50

many responses to my question that included

15:52

phrases like, I had to learn, or

15:54

coming to realize that, or finally believing

15:56

that it was okay to have a

15:58

scary thought. So many people in this

16:00

response said, while they will echo. in

16:02

their own real personal experiences is not

16:05

just me talking this is actually anxious

16:07

people who are working on this particular

16:09

issue and trying to overcome it they

16:11

are echoing the fact that well acceptance-based

16:13

strategies really are working better for me

16:15

most important for me in this response

16:17

set was that they had to learn

16:19

that they had to embrace that finally

16:22

they had to come to that conclusion

16:24

they had to give it a shot

16:26

some people were forced to do it

16:28

because for whatever reason they started panicking

16:30

in circumstances where they couldn't run away

16:32

or couldn't get their safe person and

16:34

they were forced to learn that like

16:37

wow if I just had to let

16:39

it play out it would play out

16:41

and I would be okay anyway so

16:43

It's not just me, it's not just

16:45

the therapist, it's not just the researchers,

16:47

it's not just those of us who

16:49

have this theoretical orientation, actual anxious people,

16:52

and I will include myself in that

16:54

set because I used to be in

16:56

the same boat that you are probably

16:58

in today, I got out of it

17:00

using acceptance and mindfulness based strategies. Now

17:02

when I was doing the heavy lifting

17:04

in my recovery, I didn't know that's

17:07

what I was doing. I know I

17:09

was using acceptance. I didn't really understand

17:11

that I was using principles of mindfulness,

17:13

but I used mindfulness and acceptance-based strategies

17:15

to learn to work through my most

17:17

triggered circumstances that I used to be

17:19

terrified of. Now they don't scare me

17:22

anymore, so I frankly don't care whether

17:24

I panic or not. I had that

17:26

personal experience. It aligns with my theoretical

17:28

orientation as a clinician and a mental

17:30

health professional, but... actual anxious people going

17:32

through this this process just like you

17:34

are right now seem to like yeah

17:36

when I do give that a shot,

17:39

acceptance-based strategy is shot and I kind

17:41

of turn away from the control and

17:43

management stuff, things do begin to change.

17:45

Is this the biggest part of the

17:47

community, which I'm starting to hate that

17:49

word, but the community of anxious people,

17:51

no, it's not. Most people are still

17:54

going to kind of follow along with

17:56

the control and management based strategy. And

17:58

I understand why. Because it would seem

18:00

to offer immediate relief or instant relief

18:02

when you feel like it's urgent and

18:04

you gotta feel better right this second.

18:06

I get that. Somebody tells you to

18:09

get an ice pack or tap on

18:11

your cheek or active at your Vegas

18:13

nerve is offering you some form of

18:15

possibly immediate relief from a very scary

18:17

circumstance. So I totally don't blame anybody

18:19

for going down that road. And social

18:21

media platforms, it's certainly a lot easier

18:24

to get likes when you teach people

18:26

how to calm down, that it is

18:28

trying to teach people to try not

18:30

to calm down and learn from that.

18:32

So... I get it, you might be

18:34

looking around and say, yeah, but how

18:36

come all these giant accounts keep talking

18:39

about ice packs and 54321 and box

18:41

breathing and this technique and that technique?

18:43

Well, because it's certainly a lot easier

18:45

sell and it's easier sell and it's

18:47

easier to get algorithmic traction on public

18:49

platforms advocating for control and management strategies.

18:51

But when we look at the most

18:53

empirically validated, MCT, that sort of stuff.

18:56

you're going to see acceptance and mindfulness.

18:58

You're not going to see control. In

19:00

fact, if you have OCD and you're

19:02

going through exposure and response prevention, which

19:04

is the goal standard treatment for OCD

19:06

right now, forgive me ICBT folks, I

19:08

know you're working on it, but if

19:11

you're going through ERP therapy for OCD,

19:13

and by the way, all exposure is

19:15

exposure and response prevention, not just for

19:17

OCD. One of the most interesting things

19:19

for clinicians to see when they learn

19:21

how to do ERP is that at

19:23

no point during that response prevention do

19:26

we teach calming interventions. We don't do

19:28

it. The person has to learn that

19:30

even when they're triggered if they kind

19:32

of don't do anything. that experience is

19:34

going to rise and fall naturally because

19:36

that's the way it happens. So even

19:38

therapists have a hard time understanding if

19:41

they don't decide to specialize in this

19:43

thing that I specialize in and by

19:45

the way I'm not better than them

19:47

this is just my specialization that's all.

19:49

So even people who don't specialize in

19:51

this who are you know well-intentioned kind-hearted

19:53

wanting to help mental health professionals have

19:56

a hard time understanding that like wait

19:58

when do I teach the person how

20:00

to calm down but we don't teach

20:02

them. They have to learn that even

20:04

if they don't forcibly try to like

20:06

turn the knobs and pull the levers

20:08

on their nervous systems and their emotions

20:10

and their thoughts, they wind up okay

20:13

anyway. So when you get into the

20:15

most empirically validated like proven effective and

20:17

I say proven effective as they have

20:19

the best outcomes when looked at on

20:21

a large scale with the least or

20:23

the lowest relapse rates and return to

20:25

treatment because people relapse. these are acceptance-based

20:28

strategies. So again, we see it in

20:30

act, we see it in MCT, we

20:32

see it in all the third wave

20:34

therapies, they're really effective. And unfortunately, they

20:36

are hard sell. But that is exactly

20:38

why I talk about them. because they

20:40

work and when you are listening to

20:43

this podcast or watching this YouTube channel

20:45

or following me on social media you

20:47

keep hearing this acceptance based strategy again

20:49

and again and again that's why people

20:51

like me will talk about that but

20:53

also your peers that have adopted this

20:55

strategy will in fact confirm by and

20:58

large like I have a much better

21:00

chance of a positive long-term outcome if

21:02

I stop trying to control manage and

21:04

avoid and I go down the acceptance

21:06

route. All right, so that is probably

21:08

and I'm you know you guys are

21:10

gonna laugh if you follow along at

21:13

all I'm not the one simple trick

21:15

to end anxiety forever But I am

21:17

going to suggest and I've said this

21:19

before on this YouTube channel of this

21:21

podcast that if you can try and

21:23

put your brain around one Concept just

21:25

to get the ball rolling and start

21:27

to change your circumstances and move toward

21:30

the change that you're hoping for it

21:32

would be to at least consider that

21:34

maybe trying to control or manage your

21:36

body and your mind and your emotions

21:38

and your nervous system things that tend

21:40

to fall outside of our control because

21:42

they were not designed to be controlled

21:45

maybe is it at least possible that

21:47

that's not the best way to do

21:49

this and while it might be the

21:51

way that you want to go if

21:53

you're looking for immediate relief every time

21:55

you're triggered on the long term if

21:57

you're feeling frustrated because you can't seem

22:00

to make any progress. Well, know that

22:02

your peers, other anxious people are, they

22:04

themselves, talking about how acceptance-based strategies really

22:06

started to change things for them and

22:08

help them move forward in the recovery

22:10

process. So it's not just me, it's

22:12

not just the guy with the camera

22:15

and the microphone, it's not just the

22:17

therapist like the guy with the camera

22:19

and the microphone, it's actual anxious people

22:21

who begin to confirm this if you

22:23

ask them. you would have to go

22:25

into again communities we're going to talk

22:27

about that word very soon because there's

22:30

a lot of stuff that's starting to

22:32

bother me about that word and we'll

22:34

get there but if you go into

22:36

communities around this podcast the anxious truth

22:38

or disordered that I host with Josh

22:40

Fletcher you could find that at disorder

22:42

dot f m if you look at

22:44

people who are engaged in certain online

22:47

recovery programs like dare Michelle and i

22:49

either are a great therapist that run

22:51

the dare program they are an acceptance

22:53

and mindfulness based program like Anybody who's

22:55

involved in the acceptance and mindfulness stuff,

22:57

anybody who's following the work of Dr.

22:59

Claire Weeks online, where those people congregate,

23:02

the stories you will hear are, boy,

23:04

it's really hard to do this because

23:06

I have to be brave and allow

23:08

these really uncomfortable experiences, but once I

23:10

do learn how to do that, things

23:12

actually do start to improve. So if

23:14

you're still trying to hang on to

23:17

like, please tell me a way to

23:19

prevent my panic attacks or instantly stop

23:21

them when they happen, for instance. you

23:23

might consider like well maybe I have

23:25

to look for alternative strategies here and

23:27

those alternative strategies would be acceptance and

23:29

mindfulness base and if you look into

23:32

communities or online gatherings of people who

23:34

are using those approaches you will start

23:36

to understand like oh wait these people

23:38

are actually starting to make some progress,

23:40

it would appear. Although they will always

23:42

acknowledge, and I will always acknowledge, it's

23:44

hard to accept things that we don't

23:47

like and not instantly fight against them.

23:49

So that is probably the number one

23:51

thing that you really have to think

23:53

about. I have to pick between going

23:55

toward control and management or going toward

23:57

acceptance and navigation in a mindful way.

23:59

One gives me a better chance of

24:02

a long-term outcome according to the data.

24:04

I have to learn over time that

24:06

it's okay to be triggered. It's okay

24:08

to be anxious, okay to have scary

24:10

thoughts. I don't have to manually operate

24:12

them and fix them to be okay.

24:14

Or the other side is, I have

24:16

to learn how to calm down any

24:19

time I don't feel good. And I

24:21

can do that, but it feels like

24:23

I have to keep doing that. And

24:25

then that's just like a lifelong coping

24:27

strategy that tends to get in the

24:29

way. So again, everybody gets to pick

24:31

whatever path they want to take. There's

24:34

nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong

24:36

with that. There's nothing wrong with that.

24:38

There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing

24:40

wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with

24:42

that. There's nothing wrong with that. There's

24:44

nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong

24:46

with that. There's nothing wrong with that.

24:49

There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing

24:51

wrong. There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong.

24:53

There's nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong. There's

24:55

nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong your peers

24:57

will tell you that acceptance-based strategies seem

24:59

to have a better chance of producing

25:01

a positive outcome and producing a life

25:04

closer to the one that you would

25:06

rather be living than an anxious life.

25:08

So important, this is the thing. I

25:10

will close with one other sort of

25:12

concept when it comes to acceptance versus

25:14

control and management. It will be tempting

25:16

very often and many people wind up

25:19

a little bit stuck in this no

25:21

man's land. to say, oh yeah, okay,

25:23

cool. This guy seems to know what

25:25

he's talking about. Or like, yeah, when

25:27

I do the research, like there's a

25:29

ton of data that seems to support

25:31

what this dude is saying. Cool. And

25:33

I'm going to try to do acceptance,

25:36

do acceptance. We can talk about that

25:38

some other day, because it's not a

25:40

thing we do. But all right, I'm

25:42

going to try and drop all my

25:44

resistance and try to accept my anxiety.

25:46

We're either allowing or we're not allowing.

25:48

We are either dropping our resistance or

25:51

we are still resisting. If you find

25:53

that you're in that middle ground, we're

25:55

like, yes, I get it, I hear.

25:57

I hear you Drew, I hear you

25:59

Josh, I hear you Kim, I hear

26:01

you Claire Weeks, you know, Dr Weeks,

26:03

unfortunately has passed for many years now,

26:06

but whoever, Russ Harris, Stephen Hayes, I

26:08

hear you all of these acceptance people,

26:10

I'm doing that, but I'm also trying

26:12

to manage my symptoms and manage my

26:14

thoughts and calm myself down with special

26:16

techniques and not be triggered because I

26:18

do these special health techniques that are

26:21

meant to keep me calm and regulate

26:23

my nervous system, there can be some

26:25

stagnation. those are in fact control

26:27

and management strategies which are really in

26:29

the end avoidance strategies so if you're

26:32

trying to accept your anxiety and learn

26:34

that you can in fact handle being

26:36

really anxious and uncomfortable because of your

26:38

internal state but at the same time

26:41

you're trying to manually operate your internal

26:43

state to try to not feel it

26:45

or turn it down instantly well what

26:48

are we actually learning so sometimes we

26:50

wind up with competing objectives and we

26:52

try to put together acceptance and management

26:55

based strategies They don't tend to fit

26:57

together all that well. Again, that's

26:59

not an indictment of your

27:01

choice to use management or

27:03

control strategies or avoidance strategies.

27:05

You get to pick those.

27:07

There's nothing wrong with that.

27:09

I'm not, I wouldn't judge

27:11

you negatively for that, but just

27:13

know that it's really difficult to try

27:16

and put these two things together. You

27:18

almost got to pick one or the other.

27:20

So that is episode 314 of the anxious

27:22

truth, wrapping. why that is what the data

27:25

shows us and how you know groups of

27:27

your peers when asked will sort of validate

27:29

this just that it's a hard sell to

27:31

want to go down the acceptance route and I

27:33

get that so I hope you have found it

27:35

helpful in some way shape or form I'll come

27:38

back again in two weeks with another podcast

27:40

episode I'm not really sure I'm going to

27:42

talk about but I will actually think you

27:44

have talked doing a driving episode driving anxiety

27:47

episode so if you want to Use the

27:49

link in the podcast description to send me

27:51

a text message to say yay or nay

27:54

on driving anxiety or YouTube comments. I will

27:56

listen I promise I think driving anxiety talking

27:58

about specifically like what is look like for

28:00

driving anxiety. I might do that episode, but

28:03

that'll be in two weeks. We'll see, I'll

28:05

do that one, but I don't do it

28:07

in two weeks, I'll do it at some

28:09

point. If you're listening to the podcast on

28:12

a platform that lets you rate or review

28:14

the podcast and you really like what you're

28:16

hearing here, leave a fire star rating because

28:19

you really like what you're hearing here, leave

28:21

a fire star rating because it helps, and

28:23

you really like what you're hearing here, leave

28:25

a firestar rating, leave a fire star rating,

28:28

There are more goodies on my website at

28:30

the Anxious Truth.com so you don't have to

28:32

stop with just this YouTube channel or just

28:34

this podcast. Go over to my website and

28:37

check out what else is there. And what

28:39

else can I tell you? Just remember, no

28:41

matter what step you take today that moves

28:44

you away from retreat and toward moving through

28:46

your fears, even if it's the tiniest little

28:48

change dropping a tiny little safety behavior or

28:50

doing one little thing that you thought you

28:53

surely couldn't do. Anytime you take that step

28:55

it actually counts as long as you can

28:57

learn something from that experience and take it

29:00

with you into the next experience. There are

29:02

no wrong experiences and anxiety recovery. Only wins

29:04

or learning experiences. Try to hang on to

29:06

that. Be nice to yourself. Want to criticize

29:09

yourself for bailing or being too weak. None

29:11

of that is true. Hang in there one

29:13

moment at a time, one experience at a

29:15

time. If you get there, I didn't think

29:18

you could, I wouldn't be doing this. Thanks

29:20

for hanging out and I will see you.

29:22

I guess online or I'll see in two

29:25

weeks. Take care.