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Intrusive Thoughts Masterclass: Overcome Overthinking, Rumination, and Fear · Bye Bye Panic

0:00
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're dealing with intrusive thoughts, thoughts like, what if the doctors have missed something?
0:05
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I'm going crazy?
0:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What if this one specific symptom is because of something more serious?
0:11
[SPEAKER_00]: These thoughts can have a huge emotional punch behind them.
0:14
[SPEAKER_00]: And these thoughts can be so terrifying, so overwhelming that you might be even trying to run away from the thought.
0:22
[SPEAKER_00]: But what you find is that these thoughts keep coming.
0:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you're wondering how do I make these intrusive thoughts go away?
0:29
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in this video, I'm going to be giving you a breakdown of how to overcome these thoughts in order to do that.
0:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to first understand the mechanics of your mind, how anxiety works, how your nervous system works, and how this all plays in with these intrusive thoughts that you have.
0:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, before we jump into it, let's set some ground rules.
0:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Number one, this isn't going to be a quick fix video.
0:52
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're looking for a quick tip or a quick grounding technique or a distraction technique on how to overcome a thought or how to ignore a thought or distract yourself from a thought, sorry, this video is not going to be for you.
1:05
[SPEAKER_00]: This video is for people that are interested in learning to overcome intrusive thoughts for good, not just coping or managing.
1:13
[SPEAKER_00]: This video is also going to require you to have some patience
1:16
[SPEAKER_00]: and to show up in these videos with the certain level of receptivity.
1:20
[SPEAKER_00]: In order to overcome what's happening, it's really important that you understand what's going on.
1:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's going to require some education.
1:27
[SPEAKER_00]: This way you know what's going on and what you'll find is once you know what's going on, you'll lose some of the fear.
1:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And then as you begin reversing the cycle, you will see exactly what's going on.
1:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I was never interested in just managing or coping with thought.
1:40
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to learn how to overcome these.
1:43
[SPEAKER_00]: The intrusive thoughts, the physical symptoms, the depersonalization, the emotions, the intense anxiety, physical symptoms that I was experiencing.
1:50
[SPEAKER_00]: I wanted to overcome those and go back to living.
1:53
[SPEAKER_00]: And in many ways, the intrusive thoughts specifically were very sinister.
1:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it was the intrusive thoughts that were driving a lot of these what-if conversations, these what-if inner dialogues that I had.
2:05
[SPEAKER_00]: And it caused a lot of rumination, it caused a lot of overthinking,
2:09
[SPEAKER_00]: And by the end of the day, I just felt extremely exhausted.
2:12
[SPEAKER_00]: So in this video, I'm going to be sharing with you exactly how to overcome this.
2:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be wondering, okay, why is Sean making a deep dive video on this?
2:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a couple of reasons.
2:21
[SPEAKER_00]: We've helped people around the world overcome their symptoms and the main purpose of this channel is to help educate others.
2:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So my goal in this video is to give you as much education upfront so that you can begin the recovery journey.
2:34
[SPEAKER_00]: What I've found is there's two things that happen.
2:36
[SPEAKER_00]: People learn this, they apply it in their lives, and they go back to living, and that's the case, congratulations, or what happens is people apply it, they get stuck, and they reach out for our help.
2:48
[SPEAKER_00]: Either way, you win.
2:50
[SPEAKER_00]: And even if you do decide to work with us in the future, you won't be starting off at zero.
2:55
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to understand that when it comes to this healing journey, there's three phases of understanding.
3:00
[SPEAKER_00]: The first phase of understanding is education.
3:03
[SPEAKER_00]: This is helping you conceptually understand what's going on.
3:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It helps you intellectually understand why you're experiencing symptoms.
3:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It gives you the proper information that you need to begin the recovery journey.
3:15
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the purpose of this channel.
3:16
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the purpose of these videos.
3:18
[SPEAKER_00]: But the second type of understanding is experiential understanding.
3:23
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where you begin applying these things and real life and seeing what's happening.
3:28
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the difference from reading a book about swimming and jumping into the water.
3:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Sure, reading some books can help, but it's really until you jump into the water
3:38
[SPEAKER_00]: where you start actually learning how to swim.
3:41
[SPEAKER_00]: This is often where we also begin helping a lot of people.
3:44
[SPEAKER_00]: They might have some understanding.
3:46
[SPEAKER_00]: They might have some educational understanding.
3:48
[SPEAKER_00]: There might be some gaps.
3:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Really when we're going through the recovery journey, when we're guiding people on the journey, we're helping them with their experiential understanding.
3:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Now the last type of understanding is embodiment.
3:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Once you experience that this is working, once you experience the cycle reversing, what what happens is that it just becomes a part of you.
4:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Learning how to respond to intrusive thoughts doesn't require conscious thinking anymore.
4:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just part of you.
4:13
[SPEAKER_00]: It's almost obvious in many ways.
4:15
[SPEAKER_00]: When you do this over and over, it just becomes who you are.
4:18
[SPEAKER_00]: You will learn a principle I teach you called the alarm principle that will show you how to respond to thoughts.
4:24
[SPEAKER_00]: When I show you that, you might be thinking, is this something I'm gonna have to do forever?
4:28
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, in the beginning, you'll feel conscious, and then over time, you will be doing it so much that you'll get the hang of it, and then over time is just gonna be your natural response.
4:36
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not gonna have to consciously think about doing it.
4:39
[SPEAKER_00]: It just becomes who you are.
4:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So sit back, grab a piece of paper, and pencil, try taking notes, and let's get it started.
4:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So before we jump in, let's take a moment and acknowledge something that a lot of people don't acknowledge.
4:52
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not your thoughts.
4:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You know that, right?
4:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not your thoughts.
4:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Your thoughts come and go.
4:57
[SPEAKER_00]: In fact, people have sixty thousand thoughts a day.
5:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You are not the one that's creating these thoughts.
5:03
[SPEAKER_00]: These thoughts surface up because of different things.
5:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes it's from your memory bank.
5:08
[SPEAKER_00]: It's from other things that have happened in your life.
5:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's based on what's happening in the moment right now.
5:14
[SPEAKER_00]: and what happens is a lot of people become identified with their thought.
5:18
[SPEAKER_00]: They think, oh, this thought is happening, that means it must be true otherwise why would I be having these thoughts?
5:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So before we even jump in, let's take a step back, you are not your thoughts.
5:28
[SPEAKER_00]: You are the awareness behind your thoughts.
5:31
[SPEAKER_00]: What this means is that you don't have to engage with every thought.
5:35
[SPEAKER_00]: No matter how real, no matter how intense, no matter how believable these thoughts are, you still have the choice
5:43
[SPEAKER_00]: to not engage with it.
5:45
[SPEAKER_00]: This is something that a lot of people miss and in fact it's a very profound understanding because you'll find on this healing journey that it's not just a healing journey but in fact in many ways it can be kind of a spiritual journey.
5:56
[SPEAKER_00]: If you start realizing, wait I'm not my mind, I'm not these thoughts, who am I?
6:00
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is a lot of people get these thoughts and they start creating identities behind them.
6:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They start having thoughts, and they feel guilty about having those thoughts.
6:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But the truth is, is that thoughts come into go.
6:10
[SPEAKER_00]: We've all had thoughts that don't align with our values and principles.
6:14
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't make us bad people.
6:16
[SPEAKER_00]: What determines our character is how we respond to these thoughts, how we take our actions, our behaviors.
6:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But having a thought alone doesn't mean anything.
6:24
[SPEAKER_00]: And what you're going to learn in this master class is that, in fact, it's the engagement with the thought that reinforces it.
6:30
[SPEAKER_00]: But before we jump into that, just take a moment and remind yourself again, you are not your thoughts.
6:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just the awareness behind them.
6:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the second thing to understand is also the concept of nervous system sensitization.
6:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Many of us were not educated very well on how the nervous system works, especially around stress, and we just didn't have an idea of what was happening.
6:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I want to take a moment and help you understand how your nervous system falls into these thoughts.
6:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You might have certain thoughts that are really strong to you, what if thoughts, thoughts of maybe going crazy, thoughts of, you know, your doctor missing something, thoughts of, you know, you might be doing something that, you know, is out of character.
7:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so before we even get into the contents of the thoughts, let's focus on how the nervous system works.
7:13
[SPEAKER_00]: your nervous system in many ways is designed to handle stress.
7:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It's designed to protect you from predators from danger.
7:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Any stressor or any perceived stressor or danger that surfaces up your nervous system reacts with that fighter flight response.
7:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens with this fight or flight response?
7:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, a couple of things happen.
7:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Your body historically delts with stressors that were environmental.
7:36
[SPEAKER_00]: So these were a couple of things.
7:37
[SPEAKER_00]: These were, let's say I'd predator trying to grab you.
7:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this was a tribal warfare.
7:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Maybe this was you requiring to run away from something or for you to fight something.
7:47
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is that in this response, your body begins to mobilize.
7:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Your blood goes to different parts of the muscles, your respiration starts increasing, and what also happens is that your mind starts racing.
7:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why would your mind race in a fighter flight response?
8:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, when you're in a fighter flight response, every moment counts.
8:07
[SPEAKER_00]: Any sort of mis-up, any sort of forgetfulness, means game over.
8:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And so one of the things that happens is that as your body is mobilizing, your brain starts racing.
8:16
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts doing cost-benefit analysis.
8:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts thinking through what's happening.
8:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It becomes very focused.
8:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It starts looking at everything through the filter of, is this dangerous, is this going to get me?
8:27
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what it does is that it begins to skew your reality.
8:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you're in this stress response, you will start thinking, what if this goes wrong?
8:34
[SPEAKER_00]: What if that goes wrong?
8:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why am I bringing this up in this video?
8:38
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, what happens?
8:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is one of the most important pieces is that when people are in a prolonged stress response, well, something happens to their nervous system.
8:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Their nervous system becomes sensitized.
8:50
[SPEAKER_00]: What this means is that their nervous system becomes more hypersensitive to normal stressors they might be experiencing.
8:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Many times when this happens people fall into having their very first panic attack or they have a few panic attacks.
9:02
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't always mean that they are required to have a panic attack.
9:07
[SPEAKER_00]: But what I have found is that let's say, seventy percent of people often fall into this.
9:12
[SPEAKER_00]: And when they become sensitized, it's normally after a panic attack.
9:15
[SPEAKER_00]: And when you have a panic attack, it's just your body mobilizing.
9:19
[SPEAKER_00]: full fighter flight mode, adrenaline dump, and just say, okay, let's go.
9:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's time to focus, it's time to fight, and so that's what happens with a panic attack.
9:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the reason why I'm telling you this is that what happens is that your nervous system becomes very sensitive to stress.
9:33
[SPEAKER_00]: This is also a state.
9:35
[SPEAKER_00]: We like to think of anxiety as an emotion.
9:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'm anxious about this.
9:39
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not anxious about this, but when I'm using the term anxiety, I'm using this as a state.
9:44
[SPEAKER_00]: This means that when your nervous system is sensitized, it's there.
9:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It sensitizes for a prolonged period of time.
9:51
[SPEAKER_00]: This doesn't fluctuate every day, like a little bit sensitized, a little bit not sensitized.
9:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You are sensitized.
9:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be thinking, okay, but what is the survival advantage of that?
10:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would I do that?
10:01
[SPEAKER_00]: Why would my nervous system do that?
10:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's burning through so many resources.
10:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It's making me so tired.
10:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the reason why it's doing it is because, again, it just takes one wrong move back and prehistoric times for it to be game over.
10:14
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you saw Tiger once and you managed to escape, your nervous system isn't going to go back to normal.
10:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system is going to say, Hey, I saw a tiger once.
10:23
[SPEAKER_00]: I managed to escape.
10:24
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to be sensitive and I'm going to be making sure that there's no tiger in case there's another one that shows up.
10:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Chance is words that if you want a life or death situation, you managed to escape.
10:34
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean it was an isolated situation.
10:36
[SPEAKER_00]: There might have been situations in your environment that
10:40
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, a tiger might show up or a tribal warfare might show up somewhere else.
10:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's important to be mobilized.
10:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's important to understand that this nervous system is very, very, very intelligent.
10:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's designed to protect you.
10:52
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is that this same response is what's fueling what we call these intrusive thoughts.
10:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the whole purpose in me telling you this is because when you understand nervous system sensitization, you'll acknowledge that what you are experiencing are intense physical symptoms
11:10
[SPEAKER_00]: intense intrusive thoughts, maybe panic attacks, you might be getting a deep personalization de-realization and you might be experiencing this all the time.
11:19
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why you're experiencing it all the time is because your nervous system is sensitized and remember
11:24
[SPEAKER_00]: This is a state.
11:25
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not any motion.
11:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't go up and down with the emotions.
11:28
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a state.
11:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It takes a while for your nervous system to come back to baseline.
11:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be wondering, how long does that take?
11:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But the key is not really how long it takes.
11:38
[SPEAKER_00]: It's how do you stop putting your nervous system into the stress response?
11:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens is that it comes back to baseline on its own.
11:48
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not overnight.
11:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system is going to be looking out for danger, and you're going to have to teach your nervous system that there's no threat.
11:55
[SPEAKER_00]: There's nothing to do to make the nervous system desensitized.
11:59
[SPEAKER_00]: Think about just putting a ball underwater.
12:02
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a ball, put it underwater, that's your nervous system being sensitive.
12:06
[SPEAKER_00]: All you have to do is just let go of the ball and the ball comes up on its own.
12:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system wants to come back to baseline.
12:12
[SPEAKER_00]: But what's happened is that because you don't know what's happening, well, you're responding in fear, you're responding in fixing, you're responding in frustration.
12:22
[SPEAKER_00]: And all that's doing is that it's adding more pressure to your nervous system.
12:26
[SPEAKER_00]: Now take a moment and ask yourself why am I helping you understand how the nervous system works?
12:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Take a moment and really think about it.
12:34
[SPEAKER_00]: How does this relate to your intrusive thoughts?
12:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Just go ahead and pause this video, think it through, and then hit play again.
12:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the reason why I'm explaining this to you is because when your nervous system is sensitized, your body is creating stress hormones.
12:51
[SPEAKER_00]: It's creating adrenaline.
12:52
[SPEAKER_00]: And in this adrenaline you can feel your heart pounding.
12:55
[SPEAKER_00]: You can feel your breath becoming shallow.
12:57
[SPEAKER_00]: But one of the things that also happens is that your mind starts racing.
13:01
[SPEAKER_00]: You start getting a whole bunch of thoughts.
13:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Before you might feel like you didn't really think that much or you thought like any normal person, but now you feel like your mind just doesn't stop racing.
13:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't stop at all.
13:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So why is this happening?
13:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, simply because your nervous system is in this hypersensitive state, and when it's in the state, it's going to naturally produce more stress hormones.
13:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Again, this is a survival advantage.
13:24
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're in this state or fighter flight, it's better just to keep producing
13:28
[SPEAKER_00]: A lot of this cortisol, this adrenaline, as opposed to somebody that is in a calm state who might not be in danger.
13:36
[SPEAKER_00]: But if he is in danger and he's in a calm state, probably he's not going to make it.
13:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But someone who is in danger, who has this fight or flight response system on, what happens is that they're likely to survive and they're likely to be able to continue reproducing.
13:50
[SPEAKER_00]: So as you'll know, you'll get a lot of thoughts because you're in the state.
13:54
[SPEAKER_00]: But you'll also notice that these thoughts aren't just normal, benign, random trivial thoughts.
14:00
[SPEAKER_00]: These thoughts are actually very scary.
14:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is that it's important to understand with anxiety.
14:06
[SPEAKER_00]: An anxiety basically looks at all the scariest situations in your life.
14:11
[SPEAKER_00]: anxiety has access to your memory bank, it can think up of anything and what it'll do is we'll grab the scariest one and what that does is that it magnifies it.
14:20
[SPEAKER_00]: So let's say if someone is dealing with heart palpitations and they've recognized a couple of their family members
14:26
[SPEAKER_00]: have had a history of heart disease or have died from heart attacks and even though they've gone to their doctors and got everything ruled out well because they're having the heart palpitations and because they have that memory bank of their you know uncles or whoever that passed away with a heart attack well now anxiety is going to latch on to that thought and make it seem true
14:46
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's gonna say, well, the doctors might miss something.
14:49
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, maybe at that time it wasn't serious, but this time it is.
14:52
[SPEAKER_00]: What if the doctors have missed something?
14:54
[SPEAKER_00]: All these different things, as a way to stay alive.
14:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's important to understand that when you're in the state, your reality gets distorted.
15:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And so why this is important is that when you're in the survival state, you're looking at everything as a threat.
15:07
[SPEAKER_00]: And so any sort of thought that comes is a way to keep you in this anxiety response.
15:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, why is your anxiety doing this?
15:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it just trying to ruin your life?
15:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it just trying to prevent you from just enjoying yourself?
15:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because you have some chemical imbalance?
15:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because of a genetic issue?
15:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it because of any of these things?
15:26
[SPEAKER_00]: No.
15:27
[SPEAKER_00]: It's doing this because historically, if you're anxiety state alive,
15:32
[SPEAKER_00]: you state alive.
15:34
[SPEAKER_00]: So what's happened is that you've had this survival instinct, the survival mechanism that's worked really well.
15:42
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's worked well because it's state alive when it needed to.
15:45
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what's happening right now is that once your nervous system becomes sensitized,
15:50
[SPEAKER_00]: anxiety wants to stay alive.
15:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to find different ways to stay alive.
15:55
[SPEAKER_00]: And the way it does it is through these thoughts.
15:58
[SPEAKER_00]: And so it's understanding that it doesn't matter what the thought is.
16:02
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter what you think, whether you feel like the doctors have missed something, whether you feel like you're going to do something that's had a character, whether you feel like this is going to be your life forever.
16:10
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter what the content is.
16:14
[SPEAKER_00]: All that matters is that you're having these thoughts because your nervous system is sensitized.
16:19
[SPEAKER_00]: And like I mentioned this beginning in the video, you are not your thoughts.
16:23
[SPEAKER_00]: So how do you respond to these thoughts?
16:25
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you handle these thoughts?
16:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, before I show you the alarm method that we use to help people overcome your thoughts,
16:32
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's focus on something first.
16:35
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to ask yourself, what is the difference between thoughts and thinking?
16:40
[SPEAKER_00]: This is really important for people that deal with rumination, people that are overthinking, people that are constantly thinking about whatever is going on, and they feel like they can't stop ruminating.
16:51
[SPEAKER_00]: So what is the difference between thoughts and thinking?
16:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, thoughts come and go.
16:56
[SPEAKER_00]: You have no control over it.
16:57
[SPEAKER_00]: If I tell you, don't think of a pink elephant.
17:00
[SPEAKER_00]: You've already thought of it.
17:01
[SPEAKER_00]: That's how it thoughts work.
17:03
[SPEAKER_00]: You can't stop it.
17:04
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking, however, is an engagement of the thought.
17:08
[SPEAKER_00]: So if you're having thoughts, well, when you begin thinking about the thoughts, when you start responding to the thoughts, when you start engaging with the thoughts, now you're thinking.
17:18
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking is an action.
17:20
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking is in your control.
17:22
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's important to make this distinction because what happens is people often will have thoughts and they will become identified with that thought and they will feel like having their thought means that there's something inadequate about themselves.
17:34
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's important to understand that you have no control over these thoughts.
17:37
[SPEAKER_00]: These thoughts are natural, they're normal, they're gonna happen, they might be completely out of character, they may be super bizarre, they might start judging them and all these things.
17:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But you have no control over those thoughts, and those thoughts are not a reflection of you.
17:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking, however, is you engaging with the thought.
17:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, something interesting happens when you begin thinking, when you begin engaging with the thought.
17:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you start teaching your nervous system that this thought is important, right?
18:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Your nervous system watches everything you do.
18:04
[SPEAKER_00]: And it says, okay, Sean's responding to the thought, okay, this thought is very important.
18:09
[SPEAKER_00]: So it starts engaging with that thought.
18:11
[SPEAKER_00]: And because you're engaging with that thought, well, what happens is that that thought begins to recycle.
18:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Have you noticed that you don't tend to have thoughts that you're not too worried about?
18:19
[SPEAKER_00]: Somebody with anxiety isn't thinking, oh my God, am I a potato chip?
18:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Right?
18:24
[SPEAKER_00]: If someone said, hey, you're a potato chip.
18:26
[SPEAKER_00]: You would just look at them and we were be like, okay, or even if you had the thought that, hey, I'm a potato chip.
18:30
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd just be like, that's a ridiculous thought.
18:32
[SPEAKER_00]: You wouldn't even engage with it.
18:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You'd just move on.
18:34
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not even worth your energy to try to convince yourself you're not a potato chip.
18:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So you don't have those thoughts every day.
18:40
[SPEAKER_00]: But you'll notice the thoughts that you're engaging with.
18:43
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I'm going crazy?
18:44
[SPEAKER_00]: What if something's wrong?
18:45
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I do something bad?
18:46
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I'm a bad person?
18:47
[SPEAKER_00]: What if, you know, I'm always like this.
18:50
[SPEAKER_00]: All these things, these are the thoughts that keep showing up.
18:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it any coincidence that the thoughts that keep showing up are the thoughts that you're fearful of?
18:57
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's also the thoughts you engage with?
19:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to understand and make the distinction of what you have control over and what you don't have control over.
19:05
[SPEAKER_00]: So people say, how do I get a thought to stop?
19:08
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, the key isn't to try to make it stop.
19:11
[SPEAKER_00]: The thoughts keep coming because of the consequence of you engaging with the thoughts, right?
19:17
[SPEAKER_00]: It also has to do with a lot of identification around the thoughts.
19:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Like I mentioned in the beginning of the video, you're not your thoughts.
19:23
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're identified with the thoughts,
19:25
[SPEAKER_00]: If you have a certain identity around a thought, I am X, Y person, I do this.
19:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And you have thoughts that are not in character and you start judging yourself.
19:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you begin spiraling, right?
19:36
[SPEAKER_00]: And then you start engaging and you start fighting in the thoughts that you don't want.
19:40
[SPEAKER_00]: are the ones that come.
19:42
[SPEAKER_00]: And because you're in a sensitized state, it's not just a thought that comes.
19:46
[SPEAKER_00]: You will notice that there's a huge emotional punch behind it.
19:49
[SPEAKER_00]: When you've experienced a thought, it's not just a thought, it's the emotion behind it too.
19:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why thoughts can be so scary.
19:55
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why sometimes people even want to run away from a thought.
19:58
[SPEAKER_00]: How do you run away from a thought?
20:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just so scary.
20:02
[SPEAKER_00]: And people get so triggered by their own thoughts.
20:05
[SPEAKER_00]: A huge part of it is because their nervous system is sensitized.
20:08
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's important to understand here what you're in control of and what you're not.
20:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Thinking you're in control of.
20:14
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have these scariest thoughts in the world but you can choose not to engage with it.
20:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You can have a benign thought and you can choose to engage with it.
20:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Just remember, when you engage with the thought, all it does is that it reinforces that thought.
20:28
[SPEAKER_00]: We think that if we just solve the problem, if we could just figure this out, if we identify this, well, then the thought stops.
20:35
[SPEAKER_00]: That might work in other parts of our lives, but when it comes to thoughts, especially intrusive thoughts, it's the engagement that keeps it alive.
20:44
[SPEAKER_00]: People think I need to solve it.
20:46
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is this isn't something you solve.
20:49
[SPEAKER_00]: And every time you solve it, you begin engaging.
20:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And as you begin engaging, it starts reinforcing.
20:53
[SPEAKER_00]: So what happens is people start developing this loop.
20:56
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this loop of overthinking.
20:58
[SPEAKER_00]: It's this loop of rumination.
21:00
[SPEAKER_00]: People start asking, how do I stop ruminating?
21:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The first thing to understand is taking radical responsibility.
21:06
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important to understand that the person that is illuminating is you, right?
21:11
[SPEAKER_00]: So you have developed this habit of constantly thinking through this problem.
21:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you've been thinking so long about this problem and you've been thinking about it so much throughout the day that now you've developed a feedback loop.
21:24
[SPEAKER_00]: a cycle where you've developed a habit of thinking this through.
21:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And when something becomes a habit, it becomes autopilot, right?
21:32
[SPEAKER_00]: When your body can do something better than like you consciously thinking about it, now it's a habit, right?
21:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And so what happens is people have developed a habit of rumination.
21:41
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's also important to understand that you didn't forcefully choose to create this habit.
21:47
[SPEAKER_00]: All that happened is that you began thinking in this moment.
21:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You began ruminating in this moment.
21:51
[SPEAKER_00]: And you did that enough times that what happened is that you developed a cycle.
21:56
[SPEAKER_00]: Unlearning the cycle is the exact same thing.
21:58
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not trying to break the cycle.
21:59
[SPEAKER_00]: You're focusing on what do I need to do right now.
22:02
[SPEAKER_00]: So you might be wondering, what do I do now?
22:05
[SPEAKER_00]: This is where we get to the alarm method.
22:06
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, it's important to understand that the purpose of the alarm method isn't to make the intrusive thought go away.
22:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You might be thinking, wait, then why would I do it if my thought doesn't go away?
22:17
[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose of alarm is to stop fueling the cycle.
22:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, as the cycle breaks, the thoughts eventually lose power, they lose their grip and they start going away on their own.
22:29
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is people use alarm with the intention of trying to make the thought go away.
22:34
[SPEAKER_00]: I want to make it very clear that everything you've done up to this point to try to eliminate the thought hasn't worked.
22:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't use the alarm as a sophisticated way of doing the exact same thing.
22:44
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't use alarm as a way to make this thought go away.
22:47
[SPEAKER_00]: The purpose of alarm is to teach you how to respond to an intrusive thought.
22:51
[SPEAKER_00]: What that does is that that breaks the cycle.
22:54
[SPEAKER_00]: If you've ever read Claire Weeks book, we talk about two fears.
22:57
[SPEAKER_00]: There's the first fear and the second fear.
22:59
[SPEAKER_00]: The second fear is what you're doing, and I'll break that down more.
23:03
[SPEAKER_00]: The second fear is what's causing the first fear, which is intrusive thoughts, the intense emotions that come with that thought.
23:10
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's not that you eliminate the first fear, you eliminate the second fear, and that in turn slows down the first fear, and eventually it has the first fear, go away.
23:19
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's how alarm works.
23:21
[SPEAKER_00]: It's a basic acronym that goes like this.
23:24
[SPEAKER_00]: A stands for acknowledge.
23:26
[SPEAKER_00]: which is acknowledged the thought.
23:28
[SPEAKER_00]: The thought is here.
23:29
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the elephant in the room.
23:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't neglect it.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't avoid it.
23:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't distract from it.
23:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Label the thought.
23:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Label this thought as anxiety.
23:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember how I mentioned that all that's happening is that your body's creating excess adrenaline and a lot of this adrenaline is being burned off in your brain.
23:45
[SPEAKER_00]: So all you need to do is label this thought as an intrusive thought.
23:48
[SPEAKER_00]: The same way as your heart is palpitating.
23:51
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're experiencing anxiety or panic attacks, you just label it as anxiety.
23:55
[SPEAKER_00]: The same way with these thoughts, you want to label it as anxiety.
23:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Next is A, which is except.
24:01
[SPEAKER_00]: except the thought.
24:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Not saying believe that it's true, but just accept it.
24:06
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to fight it, you don't have to fix it, you don't have to focus on it, just accept the thought.
24:11
[SPEAKER_00]: If it is, it is.
24:12
[SPEAKER_00]: My favorite phrase during this healing journey when I was going through anxiety recovery, I would just say to myself, it'd do be like that sometimes.
24:20
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't make any sense.
24:21
[SPEAKER_00]: But the point wasn't to make sense.
24:23
[SPEAKER_00]: The point was to accept the symptom, whatever, accept the thought, that's fine.
24:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Have almost a blaze, a nonchalant attitude towards it.
24:30
[SPEAKER_00]: And then the R is refocus.
24:33
[SPEAKER_00]: So whatever you are doing, whether that was watching dishes, going to the grocery store, hanging out with your friends, going to work, watching a video, watching a movie, whatever it is, refocus, and then move on, go back to living.
24:46
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the alarm method.
24:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Now I want to give you a couple of scenarios of how to use the alarm method.
24:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's say you have this thought that
24:52
[SPEAKER_00]: This is gonna be my life forever.
24:53
[SPEAKER_00]: I've tried everything, and I've been doing this, and I've been watching Sean's videos, and I've been doing all this, but I just feel like I'm not gonna get better.
25:01
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm just in a very high anxiety moment right now, and I'm starting a panic that I just don't know what to do to get out of this.
25:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, we're gonna use the alarm method with that thought.
25:12
[SPEAKER_00]: We're gonna start with acknowledging that thought.
25:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey thought, you're there, that's okay.
25:17
[SPEAKER_00]: L you're going to label this thought okay this thought isn't there because it's true this thought is there because my nervous system is sensitized my body's producing access adrenaline so I'm just going to label that thought as anxiety so I'm labeling that
25:30
[SPEAKER_00]: as an anxious thought.
25:32
[SPEAKER_00]: It's an anxiety thought.
25:33
[SPEAKER_00]: A is accept.
25:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, if it is, it is.
25:36
[SPEAKER_00]: That's fine.
25:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I still have to focus on other things.
25:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And then we refocus.
25:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, what was I doing?
25:41
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I was washing the dishes.
25:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Let me just finish this up.
25:44
[SPEAKER_00]: And then move on.
25:45
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, once I finished the dishes, I'm gonna go hang out with my friends.
25:48
[SPEAKER_00]: And let the thought be there as much or as long as it wants.
25:51
[SPEAKER_00]: Now people say I can't accept this thought.
25:53
[SPEAKER_00]: Sean, this thought is way too intense.
25:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Sean, this is my livelihood.
25:56
[SPEAKER_00]: This is my life.
25:57
[SPEAKER_00]: I can't just accept it.
25:58
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not asking you to accept it in that sense.
26:01
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm not trying to have you accepted like it's true.
26:04
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to help you accept it because remember in the beginning of this video I talked about how you have sixty thousand thoughts a day.
26:11
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't fight with every single thought.
26:13
[SPEAKER_00]: Just because a thought is there doesn't mean you have to engage with it.
26:16
[SPEAKER_00]: The second you accepted, what that does is that that stops the thinking process.
26:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So you're not engaging with the thought.
26:23
[SPEAKER_00]: The thought is there.
26:24
[SPEAKER_00]: But you don't do anything.
26:25
[SPEAKER_00]: See, people think that if you don't do anything about the thought that thought will keep reminding you.
26:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Initially, yes.
26:31
[SPEAKER_00]: But long term, your nervous system learns that that thought is not important.
26:35
[SPEAKER_00]: Sean is still alive.
26:36
[SPEAKER_00]: He's still living.
26:38
[SPEAKER_00]: So this thought is probably not helpful or useful to him right now.
26:41
[SPEAKER_00]: So we will go ahead and eliminate it.
26:43
[SPEAKER_00]: Think of it as scrolling through social media, right?
26:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you engage with a post, you're teaching the algorithm that, hey, I need similar posts in this.
26:52
[SPEAKER_00]: So your algorithm starts sending you posts that are similar.
26:55
[SPEAKER_00]: Your brain is no different in this aspect.
26:58
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, some of the common pitfalls I see during this time is people do two things.
27:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Sometimes they'll acknowledge, label, and accept, but they won't refocus and move on.
27:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What this does is that this makes you constantly focus on the anxiety.
27:09
[SPEAKER_00]: You just constantly are hyper focused.
27:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it there?
27:12
[SPEAKER_00]: Is it not the anxiety still there?
27:14
[SPEAKER_00]: The anxiety still there?
27:15
[SPEAKER_00]: The anxiety still there?
27:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, you are
27:17
[SPEAKER_00]: Uh, accepting, but you're not going back to living.
27:20
[SPEAKER_00]: You're not making other things a bigger priority than your anxiety.
27:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Likewise, sometimes people don't even acknowledge a label or accept.
27:27
[SPEAKER_00]: They just focus on refocusing and moving on.
27:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Guess what we call that?
27:31
[SPEAKER_00]: That is distraction.
27:32
[SPEAKER_00]: That is avoidance.
27:33
[SPEAKER_00]: You're basically running away from something.
27:35
[SPEAKER_00]: You see a thought and you're not even looking at it.
27:37
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just going to go to your own thing or just trying to avoid it.
27:39
[SPEAKER_00]: You're just running away.
27:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you don't want to do either or.
27:42
[SPEAKER_00]: You want to make sure you go through each step, the alarm method.
27:46
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you might be thinking, okay, but how do I know if I'm doing this alarm method correctly?
27:50
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, you can use it with what we call the five Fs.
27:53
[SPEAKER_00]: This is to make sure you're not doing any of these five Fs.
27:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're unsure if you're doing the alarm method, all you have to do is do a quick spot check.
28:00
[SPEAKER_00]: Am I doing any of these five Fs?
28:02
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, don't overthink this, right?
28:05
[SPEAKER_00]: This is very simple.
28:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What I'm teaching you is very simple.
28:08
[SPEAKER_00]: People get frustrated by how simple this is.
28:11
[SPEAKER_00]: Don't make this complicated.
28:13
[SPEAKER_00]: People want to justify their suffering by making the problem more complicated than it actually is.
28:18
[SPEAKER_00]: The solution is actually incredibly simple.
28:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So here's how the five F works.
28:23
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you trying to fix the thought?
28:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you focused on the thought?
28:27
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you getting frustrated by the thought?
28:29
[SPEAKER_00]: That's a big one.
28:31
[SPEAKER_00]: Are you fearing the thought?
28:33
[SPEAKER_00]: And are you fighting that thought?
28:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Just ask yourself, am I doing any of these things?
28:38
[SPEAKER_00]: And if the answer is no, then move on.
28:40
[SPEAKER_00]: And actually move on.
28:42
[SPEAKER_00]: Go back to living.
28:43
[SPEAKER_00]: If you don't have things to do, even if you're laying in bed, just laying in bed.
28:47
[SPEAKER_00]: You can be.
28:48
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to do something all the time.
28:49
[SPEAKER_00]: You can just be.
28:51
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean you're always needing to fight with the anxiety.
28:54
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, one of the things that happens is that people try to make themselves very unique in the anxiety recovery journey.
29:00
[SPEAKER_00]: They say, okay, Sean, but this is work for OCD.
29:03
[SPEAKER_00]: Sean does this work for a specific type of
29:06
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, anxiety that I'm dealing with.
29:09
[SPEAKER_00]: I want you to understand that whether you're dealing with panic disorder, agorophobia, OCD, health anxiety, whatever you want, these are just different branches of the same tree.
29:21
[SPEAKER_00]: The solution is still the same.
29:24
[SPEAKER_00]: Fundamentally, if you are somebody that are dealing with OCD or feeling like your OCD is different than this,
29:30
[SPEAKER_00]: OCD is obsessive compulsive disorder.
29:33
[SPEAKER_00]: Really what's happening?
29:35
[SPEAKER_00]: The reason why this has become a disorder, these intrusive thoughts have become a disorder, is because you've had a compulsion of trying to fix it.
29:42
[SPEAKER_00]: No different than someone who is dealing with hard palpitations that's convinced
29:45
[SPEAKER_00]: that what they're dealing with is a heart attack, and they're Googling their symptoms, and they're going to doctors.
29:50
[SPEAKER_00]: That is another form of a compulsion.
29:52
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the same thing in just a different context.
29:55
[SPEAKER_00]: But what happens is people try to use these labels, these diagnoses that doctors have that have a very clear function, and that function is for the doctor, not for you.
30:05
[SPEAKER_00]: They start making that an identity.
30:07
[SPEAKER_00]: So they say, okay, Sean, this will work with health anxiety, but this is work with panic.
30:10
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, Sean, this works with panic, but does it work with OCD?
30:13
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't understand that it's all part of the same umbrella.
30:15
[SPEAKER_00]: It's still part of the exercise nervous system umbrella.
30:18
[SPEAKER_00]: It's just how your symptoms are manifesting.
30:21
[SPEAKER_00]: So whether it's OCD, how things ID generalized, anxiety disorder, panic disorder, whatever you want to call it, it's all just different branches of the same tree.
30:28
[SPEAKER_00]: So don't complicate this fundamentally.
30:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This is an issue, not that you're experiencing anxiety, but that you have a compulsion that's actually fueling the cycle.
30:39
[SPEAKER_00]: And many ways, you can make the argument that what I'm really dealing with is an obsession issue, the fact that I'm so obsessed with these thoughts.
30:46
[SPEAKER_00]: And that is true.
30:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the reason why you're obsessed with these thoughts or these symptoms or these sensations is because you have meaning behind them.
30:53
[SPEAKER_00]: You think that they're dangerous.
30:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You think there's something wrong.
30:56
[SPEAKER_00]: And so the purpose of this video and the purpose of my channel in general is to help educate you on what's happening.
31:01
[SPEAKER_00]: It's helping you understand.
31:03
[SPEAKER_00]: that your belief structure around this, what you're believing about these thoughts, what you're believing about these physical symptoms, what you're believing about the deeper personalization de-realization.
31:11
[SPEAKER_00]: It's all wrong.
31:12
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not actually what's going on.
31:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't use the word right or wrong very often, but in this case, the belief structure that you have, that this thought means this, this symptom means this, that is not accurate.
31:25
[SPEAKER_00]: And because it's not accurate, you start refueling the cycle.
31:29
[SPEAKER_00]: And this is why people that are struggling with anxiety get so confused.
31:32
[SPEAKER_00]: They don't understand.
31:33
[SPEAKER_00]: There's no rhyme or reason for what they're dealing with or why this happens.
31:37
[SPEAKER_00]: Why does it that this shows up in certain instances but not others?
31:40
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is it you go in the same situation and it won't trigger this time but then it will trigger in a different situation.
31:46
[SPEAKER_00]: People try to figure this out.
31:48
[SPEAKER_00]: But the answer isn't to figure this out.
31:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's to use the alarm method.
31:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Now while we're on this topic, it's also important to understand that the intrusive thoughts isn't going to be just latching on.
31:59
[SPEAKER_00]: to your anxiety symptoms.
32:00
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to be lagging onto anything you value, anything that's important to you in this moment.
32:06
[SPEAKER_00]: What happens often, and as we're guiding people to the healing journey, what happens at the recovery roadmap is that people will begin alarming, but what will happen is their anxiety will latch onto the alarm method.
32:17
[SPEAKER_00]: They will try to do it perfectly.
32:19
[SPEAKER_00]: They will try to do it a hundred percent accurately.
32:22
[SPEAKER_00]: Now it's not so much about the thought.
32:23
[SPEAKER_00]: It's about, okay, my alarming.
32:25
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the best way I can.
32:27
[SPEAKER_00]: What if I'm not alarming it correctly?
32:29
[SPEAKER_00]: The important thing to understand is that your anxiety is trying to stay alive.
32:34
[SPEAKER_00]: Why is your anxiety trying to stay alive?
32:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, like I mentioned, historically, if your anxiety stayed alive, you stay alive.
32:41
[SPEAKER_00]: And so now that you're breaking its grip, what it's going to do is it's going to try to find everything.
32:45
[SPEAKER_00]: It's going to try to latch onto whatever you can.
32:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Even the alarm method is going to try to latch onto the alarm method and saying, oh, you're not doing this right or it's not perfect.
32:54
[SPEAKER_00]: And the truth is that this is also an intrusive thought.
32:57
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, recovery is very simple.
33:01
[SPEAKER_00]: This is the difficult part.
33:03
[SPEAKER_00]: It's the simplicity that causes people to slip up.
33:06
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why we guide people to the healing journey.
33:09
[SPEAKER_00]: Not because it's complicated, but because it's so simple that it's hard to stick to it.
33:14
[SPEAKER_00]: Because the most simple things are often the most difficult.
33:18
[SPEAKER_00]: We think, oh, it's simple.
33:19
[SPEAKER_00]: That means it's easy.
33:21
[SPEAKER_00]: Not always.
33:22
[SPEAKER_00]: When you're in this state, it's hard to really trust yourself in many ways, right?
33:25
[SPEAKER_00]: Your mind is going so many different directions.
33:27
[SPEAKER_00]: You can throw the things under the anxiety umbrella, but what do you do moving forward?
33:31
[SPEAKER_00]: This is why it's very important to have people that are on your side that have your best interest at heart, whether it's family, whether, you know, it's, you know, by my panic program, whatever it is, like having people with you that are walking with you step by step that can help you provide some clarity.
33:47
[SPEAKER_00]: Give you some insight of what's going on and then help you make the best decision for you.
33:52
[SPEAKER_00]: Now again, one of the biggest things about this is that it doesn't matter what the content is, right?
33:58
[SPEAKER_00]: So many times people say, okay, Sean, but what about this thought?
34:01
[SPEAKER_00]: But what about that thought?
34:02
[SPEAKER_00]: They start isolating each thought.
34:04
[SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't matter what the thought is, whether it's a thought about
34:07
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, being like this forever, whether it's a very unique thought, whether it's a specific thought, it doesn't matter the content of the thought doesn't matter.
34:17
[SPEAKER_00]: What matters is the context and the context is that your nervous system is sensitized and because of that, well, you're going to be getting all these thoughts and everyone's going to be different.
34:26
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not trying to piece me or each one and try to fix each thought.
34:30
[SPEAKER_00]: It's recognizing all these thoughts are coming up because you're experiencing more adrenaline and your mind is burning it off.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now, the last thing to understand is really asking yourself what makes a thought intrusive, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: What's the difference between intrusive thought and a thought, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Intrusive thoughts are simply thoughts that are unwanted, that are uninvited.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These are not thoughts that are neutral.
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[SPEAKER_00]: These thoughts are like, oh no, I don't want to have that thought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So in order to understand this, it's not about, okay, the thought is uninvited.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'm trying to fix it.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's by recognizing that that resistance towards that thought is making it intrusive.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Had you not resisted the thought and let it come in?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Well, it's no longer an intrusive thought.
35:09
[SPEAKER_00]: The problem happens is that people
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[SPEAKER_00]: Make it an intrusive thought because A goes against all their values.
35:15
[SPEAKER_00]: B, that thought brings up a lot of other emotions.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's not just anxiety.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It can bring shame.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It can bring guilt.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Other emotions that they're avoiding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And then what happens is that it becomes an obsession loop.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You try to fight that thought.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And if you're not careful, you fall into the content and the frame of that thought.
35:30
[SPEAKER_00]: Now you're trying to fix something where, you know, you're fixing a problem that might not even be there, but it feels like it's a problem.
35:36
[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, there's two parts in this healing journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There's the education piece, which is the purpose of this channel.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That helps you get started.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It points you in the right direction.
35:45
[SPEAKER_00]: But then there's the recovery roadmap.
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[SPEAKER_00]: This is when you're going through the terrain of recovery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Recovery is gonna look very different day by day.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Different things are gonna surface up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: There is absolutely no way I can make every video on that, right?
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[SPEAKER_00]: Just like there's no perfect book or video, even thousands of books that can explain swimming.
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[SPEAKER_00]: The way just jumping in the water will show you the same way when things are either recovery.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You can't make a video on everything.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now that you're going through the recovery roadmap, well now it's about seeing what surface is up.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Now it goes from
36:17
[SPEAKER_00]: educational understanding to experiential understanding.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so in order to experience this and fix along the way and see what changes you need to make, it's very important like I recommend always finding a guide, finding people that can walk you through the healing journey that really knows what's going on.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So remember watching a video, my bring some clarity, getting education might provide some insight, but don't substitute that for the work that needs to be done.
36:46
[SPEAKER_00]: The work that needs to be done is going to be how you respond to these thoughts.
36:50
[SPEAKER_00]: It's also going to be you regaining your life.
36:53
[SPEAKER_00]: There's going to be times you don't want to do things.
36:54
[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to go out.
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[SPEAKER_00]: You don't want to do certain things, but it's a productive for your healing journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: It's important for your healing journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: So it's going to feel like work.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And so if you're just watching these videos, what people can do is that they can circumvent that work by watching these videos or watching this type of content.
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[SPEAKER_00]: And it makes it seem like they're doing work.
37:13
[SPEAKER_00]: And so avoid that trap as well.
37:16
[SPEAKER_00]: Make sure to find a guide to help you on the healing journey.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Remember, the part of this that's very important is the experiential understanding and then the embodiment.
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[SPEAKER_00]: That's the key here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: If you want to know what the recovery stages look like, what are the stages in each step as you're going through the healing journey, make sure to check out this master class right here.
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[SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for watching.
37:37
[SPEAKER_00]: I hope you enjoyed.
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[SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in the next one.