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Overcoming Anxiety in six steps | Anxiety Therapy | Gabriel Ellis, PhD · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:02
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Curious Mind
0:05
podcast. My name is Gabriel Ellis, I'm a
0:07
psychotherapist, Buddhist scholar and philosopher of
0:10
consciousness, and today I want to talk about something that is
0:13
quite practical in my therapeutic practice, which is
0:17
anxiety and how to overcome it. There is of course, depth to
0:22
this problem. Obviously anxieties are not
0:26
trivial in the sense that they would be overcome by a simple
0:32
hack or a simple technique. Otherwise people would do it.
0:36
And I know very smart, very intelligent people, also people
0:39
who have experience with psychology on their own minds,
0:43
who struggle with anxiety. And so I thought it would be
0:47
nice to present what I think is the most reliable method under
0:53
most circumstances to overcome anxiety.
0:57
Basically, I see anxiety as a miscalculation of the
1:01
unconscious mind. The good news is that anxiety is
1:08
structured in a relatively simple way.
1:11
And with structured I mean that the mechanics of the mind that
1:14
are involved in anxiety and the maintenance of anxiety are
1:19
relatively simple. And also the therapy is what is
1:24
much more difficult to treat the different varieties of
1:30
depression. Why is it more difficult?
1:34
Because depression is usually characterized by a too little
1:40
that is apparent in consciousness.
1:42
There are too few feelings, too little vitality, too little
1:48
impressions, too few thoughts. Of course we have ruminating
1:53
thoughts, but overall depression is rather characterized through
1:57
a lack of mental activity and healthy mental activity, whereas
2:03
anxiety gives us a lot of material to work with.
2:07
With a big exception, that one category of anxiety can be
2:12
hidden behind the facade of avoidance.
2:17
And when we are strongly avoiding, then we don't see so
2:22
much the aspect of the anxiety that is working and that can be
2:26
a little bit more tricky to work out.
2:29
So those aspects of symptoms where we have either too little
2:34
or too much is called in clinical psychology positive or
2:39
negative symptoms. So this has not to do with good
2:44
or bad. Positive means there is an
2:47
excess, there is too much of something.
2:49
So hallucinations, for example, are positive symptoms and
2:54
negative symptoms is when asymptomatic is characterized by
3:00
a too little of something. And anxiety is typically
3:04
characterized by a too much of something, too much of
3:08
discomfort, too much of physiological symptoms like
3:12
sweating, heart pounding, catastrophic thoughts when it
3:17
comes into panic mode and so forth.
3:22
I already pointed out the very important aspect of avoidance.
3:27
Avoidance is kind of the poison, the poisonous negative aspect of
3:34
anxiety. Avoidance is when we on a
3:39
regular basis habitually evade a situation.
3:44
And by invading, by avoiding, we are sending a signal to our mind
3:50
and our unconscious mind. And we tell our mind this
3:55
situation is really dangerous. And now I want to give you an
4:00
example of how weirdly this can work.
4:03
It's not too long ago when we have most of us have been
4:07
affected by the COVID epidemic. And for many people, this meant
4:12
that they stayed, spent more time inside than they usually
4:17
would have. And I know this from myself and
4:20
I have heard this from other people that when things started
4:24
to open up again and people could get out again of the house
4:28
more conveniently, that there was a certain trepidation or
4:34
inhibition to go out as if, and I want to emphasize the as if,
4:41
as if I was anxious of going out.
4:45
And this has to do with an artificial effect that is the
4:49
result of the avoidance we avoided collectively during
4:55
COVID to go out. So we stayed in more than we
5:00
usually would have. And this is exactly what are the
5:02
normal circumstances and avoidance would be, right?
5:06
So I don't go out because it's dangerous outside or there are,
5:11
I don't know, uncomfortable neighborhood or there's
5:15
something to be worried about. And yes, during COVID, we were,
5:20
we were worried about things, but it was kind of an abstract
5:24
worry. We didn't want to be exposed to
5:27
germs and viruses. And that was basically the
5:31
motivation. But it was not a concrete
5:33
danger. So as soon as the imminent
5:39
danger went down and we could free move, move freely again for
5:45
the Organism and for the unconscious, it was in a way as
5:50
if we have avoided for a good reason to go out, that it was a
5:55
necessity to be anxious. And so it reflected back to us
5:59
what under normal circumstances would be an anxiety, meaning we
6:04
can artificially produce anxiety when we bring people to avoid
6:09
certain things. To give you another interesting
6:14
example, I was raised Jewish, and so naturally, we were
6:19
avoiding to mix dairy products with meat.
6:23
It's part of, you know, more or less observing Jewish culture.
6:29
It's not a big religious thing, but it's custom.
6:33
It's based on an interpretation of a passage in the Bible.
6:39
It's not written as clearly regardless.
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So when we came to Germany, when we as kids moved to Germany, we
6:47
still observed that food tradition.
6:51
But with time, of course, as a teenager, I stopped to care
6:54
less. And so I started to mix dairy
6:56
and meat. And at the beginning it was
6:59
there was such a an internal discomfort to do this because
7:06
artificially through culture, I have been avoiding to mix those
7:11
two ingredients of food. And so again, my system reacted
7:15
as if I was anxious of it by the artificial avoidance.
7:22
So with these examples I tried to point out what an interesting
7:28
relationship anxiety as the positive symptom and avoidance
7:32
as the negative symptom have often enough.
7:37
When we are in quotes only successful with managing our
7:42
anxiety, what it typically means is that we are successful in
7:46
avoiding the triggers of the anxiety.
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And so avoidance is a baked in feature in helping us to manage
7:55
our anxiety, not to resolve. And often enough the avoidance
8:00
has an aspect of it's, it starts to grow.
8:04
It's not static. When I'm avoiding certain
8:07
things, they become more prominent in the mind.
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The unconscious, as I said, interpreted as something to be
8:14
avoided, really dangerous. And under certain circumstances,
8:19
it starts to assume that maybe it's also good not to just stay
8:25
away from the crystal clear triggers of anxiety spiders or
8:29
something. Maybe it's also good to avoid
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situations where it could occur. So there is, if I have an
8:36
anxiety of spiders or achnophobia and there is a dark
8:41
corner in a house that I don't know well, it's probably it's a
8:45
good idea to avoid that corner as well.
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I don't have coronary phobia, but the system, my unconscious
8:54
assumes that because I have a legitimate reason, emotional
8:57
reason, to be uncomfortable or anxious of spiders.
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Maybe it's good to extend this also to not brightly lit corners
9:07
in a house that I don't know. And so anxieties and avoidance
9:13
have a tendency to grow, which is why managing anxieties with
9:19
avoidance is not a solid long term strategy.
9:26
So we have to take care of the avoidance and we have to take
9:28
care of the actual feelings of discomfort and anxiety.
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Why is the unconscious such a skeptical observer?
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I think there's a pretty good answer to this.
9:41
As you know, during daily life we have to endure a lot of
9:46
discomfort when it comes to work.
9:48
It can pertain to relationship conversations, feelings around
9:54
relationships. It can be household stuff,
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insurances, administration, bureaucracy.
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We have to go through a lot of uncomfortable things that are
10:05
not even, you know, serious in the sense of a physical disease,
10:09
for example. And we have to manage our
10:12
discomfort around those situations.
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So we still have to go to the office.
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We still have to, you know, deal with insurances.
10:19
We still have to go through the relationship stuff with
10:21
conversations and so forth. And this is often accompanied by
10:27
messages that we're telling to ourselves, we'll be fine.
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Just do this one thing, get it over with, Don't procrastinate,
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pull yourself together so that it's meant well.
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It helps us to manage those situations.
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But the unconscious that of course sees what we are doing
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because it is in charge of interpreting reality.
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It sees that we as our conscious eye is often enough bullshitting
10:55
ourselves because we just push ourselves to do things right.
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And so we treat ourselves with those messages.
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And the purpose of this message is not to be 100% true.
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The purpose of this message is to motivate us.
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And this motivational speech towards ourself can be more or
11:20
less deviating from the truth. And the unconscious sees that we
11:24
are regularly, regularly stepping into the zone of white
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lies, right out lies, toxic positivity and all this sort of
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things. So it's job as basically the
11:41
protector of truth, which for me the unconscious is it comes to
11:47
the conclusion that we might not be the best judge when it comes
11:52
to reality, so it has to take over.
11:55
So sometimes the unconscious has to make decisions in spite of us
12:00
saying it will be fine or I should be not anxious of this,
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or it's not such a big deal to step into water or to go into
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confined space of the metro for example, or full bus.
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Intellectually we tell ourselves shouldn't be a big deal, just do
12:17
it. The unconscious that has learned
12:20
from experience to distrust us gives us different signals.
12:25
And one category of signals that it gives us is physiological
12:30
symptoms, heart pounding, sweat, physical discomfort in so many,
12:37
so many other ways. I can't be nauseous.
12:41
I can't feel unstable, weak. All of these are sweat.
12:46
All of these are symptoms that are typically associated with
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anxiety. So the unconscious can decide
12:52
for us because it doesn't believe that what we tell
12:55
ourselves is actually true. There are aspects of ourselves
13:01
that we don't like. There are aspects of the outside
13:04
reality that we don't like. When it's connected to the
13:06
unconscious, sorry. When it connects it to anxiety,
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we can push the anxious part of us away from consciousness.
13:15
When I'm afraid of my boss, but at the same time I cannot avoid
13:19
him or her because I have to go to work and go through this
13:23
discomfort and I'm flooding myself with those positive, you
13:26
know, messages. You can do it, you should do it.
13:28
It's good for you. You'll learn with your obstacles
13:32
and you grow and so forth. It means that I'm partly,
13:37
initially at least, I perceive my discomfort.
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It can be also physiological or just emotional or just on the
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level of thoughts and fantasies. I'm perceiving those, but they
13:48
are not allowed to be there. They are messing up my daily
13:52
life and my work and my career. So I shove them away, I suppress
13:55
them, and then they turn into what Karl Gustav, Young
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associate of Floyd for a while, called the shadow.
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It's a special part of the unconscious that contains the
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things that I don't endure to see in the shadow.
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Of course, those anxieties, those anxious thoughts, they,
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they don't lose their potential. They're still potent, they're
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still active. I just don't notice them or not
14:30
as clearly. So they're still doing their
14:33
thing, they're still working in the shadow, but the system has
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decided not to let me. As the consciousness know, this
14:41
is partly what we're confronted with when we do anxiety work
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with a shadow. We have to confront these
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things. We have to understand and see
14:54
patterns where we avoid things and we have to bring them out to
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the surface so that we can confront it.
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Now, of course, there's always a when it comes to anxiety,
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there's always a level of reasonable.
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In a dangerous neighborhood, it's good to be anxious.
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It's good to protect myself by not even thinking about going to
15:19
this dangerous part of town, even though there might be a hip
15:22
party or I don't know what. So of course, the purpose of
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therapy and the purpose of anxiety treatment is not the
15:31
ability to confront myself with anything and everything that
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makes me uncomfortable. There's always the measure of
15:38
what I need in order to have a good quality of life.
15:44
And so I have to identify the things that I'm avoiding, the
15:47
things that I'm anxious of that limit this quality of life.
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When I live in a city that is burdened by traffic jams and it
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would be so much more convenient to use the metro or the public
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bus that has its own lane, but the buses are full and the
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metros are full, or just generally feel unpleasant, not
16:13
at ease and confined spaces that are not easy to escape.
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In the case of an emergency. I will have some sort of anxiety
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towards these spaces and I will still sit in the car, sit in the
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traffic jam for two hours a day, even though I could go to work
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in 20 minutes. This in connection with the life
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in general, assuming that I have a relationship.
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Maybe I have kids, maybe I have hobbies, maybe I need time to
16:40
relax. This additional one hour that I
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lose in traffic because I'm anxious of confined spaces and
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there's nothing else to fear. It's like people go to use the
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public transport all the time. That is an aspect of loss of
16:57
quality of life because I'm taking into account and I'm, I'm
17:03
accepting every day, every work day, one hour or less of quality
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time. And I of course, I can tell
17:11
myself the stories that it's fine that I'm listening to very
17:14
valuable podcasts in the car that I get some things done on,
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you know, with emails and so forth.
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I can tell myself all these things.
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But at the end of the day, when I'm honest with myself and I
17:27
look in the mirror, I see that the main fact that makes me
17:35
avoid the public transportation system is anxiety.
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And I'm not generalizing. Not everyone sitting in the car
17:43
is anxious. But when I'm looking myself in
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the mirror and I come to the conclusion though it makes me
17:47
anxious and This is why I use the car, then I have a
17:51
significant reduction of quality of life because of that anxiety.
17:55
And then it's good to do it. OK, What is the goal of the
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therapy? The goal of the therapy is not
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to, as you might think, to argue the anxiety away, not to manage
18:10
the anxiety. The goal of the therapy, to put
18:14
it precisely, is to show the unconscious through real world
18:19
experience that what I am afraid of in my current state is
18:24
actually no reason to be afraid. It's again, the target is my
18:30
unconscious. In my anxious state, the
18:33
unconscious has the world view that certain situations or
18:37
triggers need to be avoided, that it should convince me
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through physiological symptoms, Discomfort, pain, sweat,
18:53
constricted chests, all of these symptoms.
18:57
It convinces me to get the hell out of those or to avoid those
19:00
situations. When I, through my intellectual
19:03
understanding, through my reasoning, through
19:05
conversations, understand that this is an overreaction, but my
19:11
unconscious is not convinced of it, then I have to prove to the
19:15
unconscious that going through these situations are actually is
19:19
actually not dangerous. And this is the core of exposure
19:27
therapy. Now, exposure therapy is a core
19:30
element of cognitive behavioral therapy, but it's, I think,
19:34
superficial and insufficient to see it only as such.
19:38
Let's do something on the behavioral level.
19:42
Let's expose. Let's send someone you know to
19:44
the metro or to the overfill bus.
19:47
Let them go, go through with it, and trust that the effect of it
19:54
will remain effective. Why is that not sufficiently
20:00
thought out? Because if I don't make my
20:04
unconscious the target, if I leave the understanding of
20:07
reality that the unconscious have has in place, then the mere
20:13
change on the behavioral level will be superficial and
20:17
eventually there is a big risk that the unconscious will fall
20:20
back on its old habitual beliefs and will infuse.
20:26
This situation or another situation that is somewhat
20:30
loosely connected with it with again, discomfort and anxiety.
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So This is why I take this practice of exposure that is
20:42
classically belongs to cognitive behavioral therapy and I enrich
20:48
it with what I think is the essential element, which is to
20:52
convince the unconscious, not my intellectual mind.
20:56
And by the way, when sometimes cognitive behavioral therapists
21:01
argue that this is an invention of scientific cognitive
21:05
behavioral therapy, maybe starting from the 1940s or 50's.
21:10
The oldest historical example of exposure therapy we can find in
21:14
the original texts of ancient Buddhism 2500 years ago, where
21:20
the Buddha describes that previously before he was
21:22
enlightened and he was interested in the phenomenon of
21:27
anxiety. He exposed himself to anxious
21:33
anxiety inducing situations and he basically applied what I will
21:38
describe now as exposure therapy.
21:40
So it has been there. I'm sure also other people then
21:44
the to become Buddha and other traditions in the past did this
21:49
and applied this mechanism. I just wanted to point out that
21:53
some things have tradition in psychotherapy.
21:57
It just needs a way to systematize those and to make it
22:01
applicable for many people who don't have the intuition of
22:04
doing things in the most healthy way.
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OK, so let me go after this introduction.
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Let me go with you through the process step by step, how
22:14
exposure therapy enriched with this understanding of the
22:18
unconscious works. The first step is to really
22:22
understand the theoretical model.
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This is called psychoeducation. So before you start, you have to
22:29
understand what you're doing and why you're doing it.
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And this is what I tried to provide in this introduction.
22:38
To just push oneself through an experience that is anxiety
22:42
inducing will not do the trick exactly because there is little
22:46
confidence in the mind and the unconscious does not know what
22:50
you're doing and why it should you know.
22:53
Get away. Put away with the anxiety
22:55
symptoms. Step 2 is to verbalize the
23:01
catastrophe fantasy. What I mean with that is we have
23:05
to, as I said before, when we push things into the shadow
23:09
because they should not be there, our anxious, you know,
23:15
helpless reactions that are quite undignifying.
23:19
So when a client comes to me and says these are all very simple
23:25
cases, I'm afraid of confined spaces.
23:28
So help me, please, to get through it.
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Then one of my questions should be, what are you exactly afraid
23:34
of? What would happen if you sat in
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the train, if you went into a full bus?
23:40
And people usually don't think about it.
23:43
They have a vague feeling that something catastrophic,
23:46
catastrophic would happen. And this vague feeling, and you
23:50
might know this from children, yourself, other people, when an
23:56
anxiety is vague, it's much more powerful to bring it down to
24:04
earth, to make it tangible. It's very important to verbalize
24:11
this vague, otherwise vague anxiety.
24:15
What would happen? Yeah.
24:16
I think I would feel very uncomfortable.
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OK Is that it? OK.
24:21
I would feel uncomfortable, and I think I would get nauseous.
24:24
OK, so then you would just have to ask somebody to let you sit,
24:28
right? No, I think beyond that.
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I think really, my heart would go and pound.
24:33
Maybe I wouldn't get air to breathe.
24:36
Maybe I would get a heart effect, a heart attack stroke.
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And so we go through those steps in order to verbalize them and
24:46
then ask for this reaction, you know, oh, I think I would get a,
24:50
a stroke. Is that correct though?
24:52
I think no, that would be exaggerated.
24:54
I don't think I would get a stroke.
24:56
We'd get into some dialectical conversation about those
25:01
verbalizations until it's fits, until my client says, I think
25:07
this is what would actually happen.
25:10
I would be very uncomfortable. And then that would be it.
25:15
So verbalizing the catastrophic fantasy is an important step so
25:19
that we all know what we have to deal with.
25:23
By the way, another side note, when people have catastrophic
25:27
fantasies that ends with them being dead or seriously injured,
25:31
it is of course very important that this check this with
25:34
doctors is then underlying heart condition, is then underlying
25:39
blood pressure condition. Many people wouldn't have it,
25:42
but of course, who am I as a talking therapist to decide for
25:46
the client, no, you will not die.
25:48
If there is a serious concern that they would die, go and
25:52
check before we do the exposure therapy itself.
25:57
OK, so again, the verbalization is addressing the power dynamics
26:04
within ourselves. The unnamed horror is always
26:10
stronger than the named 1. So we we unmask, we take some of
26:14
this this magic in the negatives, the spell we take
26:21
partly away from by speaking about it.
26:24
It takes it's it's it's it's usually it's a calming effect
26:29
for the clients. OK, what is the third step?
26:32
The third step is to create an inventory of crutches of
26:39
responses that prevent us to be really uncomfortable in the in
26:44
the exposure situations. What do I mean with that?
26:48
When we force ourselves to go into uncomfortable situations
26:52
and meeting with our boss, a conversation with our partner,
26:56
confined spaces, whatever it is, we typically use crutches to
27:01
help us through. A crutch can be, and this is the
27:06
strongest imaginable crutch. It can be a substance abuse,
27:10
right? I will go to work, but I'll have
27:13
a drink or two before the meeting with the boss, Or
27:17
anxiety medication, right? Or other kinds of drugs,
27:23
painkillers, whatever I can use, right?
27:25
This is such an obvious crutch. When I do this, my unconscious
27:30
not only believes that it's tricked, it knows effectively
27:34
that I am super worried. No drug induced confidence can
27:39
convince the unconscious. Another category of a crutch can
27:44
be a time trick. When I tell myself I'll go to
27:47
the meeting, but it's only 10 minutes, I only have to survive
27:50
those 10 minutes and after that I will be done with it right?
27:54
Again, What I'm actually suggesting to the unconscious is
27:57
that this conversation is super difficult, that it's a short
28:02
time will not change the understanding of the unconscious
28:05
of what the reality of this meeting is.
28:08
And it will assume correctly, that I'm super afraid of it.
28:13
So I will not expose myself and remind myself that it's just,
28:18
it's just two train stops. It's just 5 bus stops.
28:20
For the sake of practice. No, I will put away all those
28:26
magic believes that time will help me get through the
28:30
experience. I dispose of it.
28:32
I will not use it just as much as I don't use the drink.
28:35
I don't comfort myself with the belief that it's only 5 minutes,
28:39
10 minutes, 20 minutes that I have to endure.
28:42
Another category of crutches is a body armor.
28:46
We know this. When we are stressed, we
28:48
typically put stress into the jaw.
28:51
We clench other muscles, we tense muscles.
28:55
It can be the chest, it can be back pain.
28:57
And then when we get out of this experience, we feel how tense we
29:01
were physically. So we cannot 100% avoid this,
29:04
but at least we don't allow ourselves consciously to, you
29:08
know, to tense the muscles, to clench the jaw muscles to, to,
29:14
you know, have a tight fist or something like this.
29:18
As much as we can, we relax the body so that the unconscious at
29:23
the end cannot say or cannot believe.
29:27
Well, you went through this because you tensed your muscles,
29:30
otherwise you wouldn't have been able to do it to, to get through
29:34
with it. Another category of crutches is
29:40
the internal flight, which means I can go into a breathing
29:43
exercise. I can go into the traffic into
29:48
into the full bus, for example. I can say let me breathe through
29:52
it. I close my eyes, I breathe in
29:56
and out all the time until finally the release comes and I
29:59
can get out again. This is an escape almost as
30:03
strong as the drug escape is. And what are people typically
30:07
doing? They're either breathing or they
30:09
go to an inner island of comfort.
30:12
They just imagine they're somewhere else.
30:13
They're basically dissociating from the situation.
30:17
And again, what other conclusion can the unconscious have other
30:21
than to think, well, you no wonder you're dissociated?
30:25
Of course, we continue to be afraid of those situations
30:28
because you didn't actually make it through.
30:30
You just beamed yourself to another place.
30:33
So all of this crutches must be abandoned during the exercise,
30:38
otherwise the unconscious will continue to attribute the
30:42
success to the crutch. You only survived this because
30:46
you did this and that. That was Step 3.
30:49
So again, let me repeat what those three steps so far were.
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One is the psycho education, 2 is to verbalize and to
31:00
understand what the catastrophic fantasy is behind the anxiety. 3
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is to do this inventory of crutches and to create the
31:08
strong commitment to not use those crutches and the anxiety
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inducing situations. 4 is the conscious exposure, the
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confrontation. We go into the anxiety
31:20
triggering situation and we follow our plan.
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Now what will happen is, and this what I'm saying now
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actually belongs to the category of psychoeducation to the first
31:32
part. What will predictably happen
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will be that the anxiety goes up.
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If we give it numbers from zero to 1010 is the highest possible
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anxiety. It will.
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I'm already a little bit anxious.
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So it starts with a three, doesn't start with a 0.
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I see. I'm standing at the bus stop,
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Bus is not even there yet, but I'm already at the 434.
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I see the bus coming still far away.
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It's a 4-5. I see it coming.
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I see, Oh my God, it's full. I take a look around.
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There's still 10 more people with me at the bus stop that,
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you know, start to prepare to get into the bus.
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I assume it will be in fuller than that.
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Some people come out. I hope that many people come
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out. They don't.
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We start pushing in, it gets into a 6-7.
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There's the initial push when we get into the actually the coach
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and then it settles in and then it's at A7 and then it's an 8.
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Things don't change. It's still an 8.
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Maybe it goes even to a nine. But now this is important.
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If I don't use those crutches and if I don't indulge in the
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catastrophic fantasies that Oh my God, I will die.
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Oh my God, I will die if I do need of those, if I'm just an
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observer of what actually is happening with my feelings, with
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my body. This curve will not grow more.
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It grows to a certain point and then it goes to a plateau.
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And once it settles in a into a plateau and by reviewing the
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plateau, have I done this? Have I used the crutch?
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And I come to the conclusion, no, I have not used a crutch.
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It's still very uncomfortable, but it doesn't grow anymore.
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This is the first magical moment where the unconscious
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understands, oh, the catastrophe that I thought that I'm becoming
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unconscious. I have to throw up or I'm
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getting a stroke. It does not happen.
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It's uncomfortable, but I endure it.
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This is the first insight. There's the first boost of
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confidence after a while in this plateau.
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And I can tell you from experience with clients, and I
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tried this in situations by myself when I'm really good at
33:59
not putting wood into the fire by enraging myself in
34:05
catastrophic fantasies nor using crutches.
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This plateau is very short, a minute or two.
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Typically we are not professionals in the mind, so we
34:15
will do something in a suboptimal way.
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So the plateau might linger on for four or five minutes, but
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then inevitably it must come down.
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And when it starts to come down, let's say I wasn't an 8, it
34:28
comes down to A7, it comes down to a six.
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I'm far away from being at 0, but the seeing how it comes down
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induces the second big push and confidence and the second
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understanding of reality in the unconscious.
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It's uncomfortable still, but it's going down and I have not
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used the crutch. It's going down by itself and I
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have not encountered the catastrophic fantasy.
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I'm still alive, I'm still well, heart is pounding, I'm sweaty,
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I'm uncomfortable, but it's going down.
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Wow, what a revelation. And then finally my, you know,
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the desired bust up comes and I'm getting out.
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I'm still hyped from the experience.
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Maybe I'm into four, maybe I'm five, maybe it's a 3, but I come
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out with it and my unconscious comes out with it with a genuine
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insight into the mechanics of the mind, especially pertaining
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to this specific anxiety. The model works is an insight I
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prepared myself. I anticipated what happened.
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The model said it will go to a 5678, maybe 9 for a short while,
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but then it said a plateau will come and then it said it will go
35:45
down and this is actually happening.
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It's not a placebo. I didn't use a crutch.
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I just observed that what I expected really came true.
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So now there is the confidence of self management.
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This is how the mind works and this gives me the boost to do it
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again and part of psycho education.
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And the first step is when you will do it again, it will be
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shorter and it will be not as strong as the first time.
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So I do this again. It can be, you know, after a
36:19
break at the same day, maybe it was a very exhausting experience
36:23
or maybe you know, you should do this at another time.
36:27
You will do it again. The experience will be if it's
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not too far away, if it was just a few days afterwards, still
36:33
uncomfortable, but it's not an 8 or a nine anymore, It's A7.
36:37
Why? Because the unconscious is much
36:40
more confident. It's still has the doubt.
36:44
Maybe it was a fluke, maybe you had a good day, but it has.
36:49
The unconscious has to admit we went through it and it was
36:52
successful. So reduction of anxiety, we do
36:56
it again. If it's the same pattern, even
36:59
more confidence. And after a while the
37:03
unconscious understands, wow, not a big, big deal at all.
37:09
And it looks back and it doesn't understand how it reacted with
37:13
so much anxiety, how it had this enormous catastrophic fantasy.
37:18
And this is the learning experience.
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This is the aha moment, this last bit, this is the
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integration and repetition phase.
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And these are the five steps in the exposure therapy enriched by
37:33
those understandings of the unconscious.
37:36
Let me repeat them again. The first part is the
37:40
theoretical model, the psychoeducation.
37:43
The second step is verbalizing the catastrophic fantasies
37:48
around the anxiety. It this can be a bigger part if
37:51
the anxieties are complex. I just in my examples, I had
37:54
very simple anxieties. So there might be a history to
37:57
it, there might be another associations with it.
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So the verbalization part is not to be underestimated. 3 We
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understand our crutches and we prepare ourselves, We commit
38:09
ourselves not to use those crutches. 4 We do the conscious
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exposure, 5 we observe the anxiety curve, and six, we
38:23
integrate and repeat. And this is the anxiety therapy,
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this is how it works. It's quite a reliable effect,
38:34
especially when it's met and enriched by the understanding of
38:38
the unconscious. But of course, people are very
38:42
individual and how they do it, how they approach it, the most
38:47
important thing is that they're confident in the theory.
38:51
When there are doubts, always address them.
38:54
If doubts are unaddressed and they somehow pulled back or they
38:58
push themselves, then again we will have some sort of crutch
39:02
that the unconscious will come up with in order to protect
39:05
itself. So it's essential to do all
39:07
these steps in a in a good well prepared manner.
39:13
If the anxiety is strong, get help from a therapist.
39:18
Not all anxieties are therapy worthy, so I encourage you to
39:26
make controlled experiments with small anxieties.
39:29
I'm emphasizing those because I'm curious in your feedback
39:35
what experiences you make with this approach if you think you
39:40
can do it on your own. So it would be interesting for
39:42
me if you have an anxiety on the 345 level, something relatively
39:46
minor. I would be really curious if you
39:48
apply this, if you have found this to be effective or if your
39:52
conclusion is no, I need an interlocutor, I need a person to
39:56
talk with because to do it alone is not efficient enough.
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So I'm curious about your feedback.
40:03
I hope you found this very experiential and practical
40:08
approach to anxiety interesting, and if anything, I hope that you
40:13
gain some understanding into the mechanics of the mind, which is
40:17
the main purpose of my channel here.
40:20
I hope to see you next time. Write some feedback in your
40:23
experiences in the comments if you like, subscribe if you're
40:27
interested in this content and see you next time.
40:29
Goodbye.