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This sucks, but heals anxious thoughts FAST · Bye Bye Panic

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most people try to heal their anxious thoughts by trying to fight the thought.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They resist the thought.
• 0:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: They argue with the thought, but this only fuels anxious thoughts even more.
• 0:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Healing anxious thoughts is actually quite fast.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just requires a different strategy.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: and a kind of sucks.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it only sucks in the beginning.
• 0:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because once you learn this skill, your life will change forever.
• 0:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you won't struggle with anxious thoughts ever again.
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So in this video, I'm going to break down how to heal your anxious thoughts and you can do it in just three simple steps.
• 0:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: Step one is understanding what makes anxious thoughts unique.
• 0:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, most people treat their anxious thoughts the same way they would with regular thoughts in their life.
• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the first thing is to identify what is the difference between an anxious thought and a regular thought.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Anxious thoughts are trying to make you feel safe.
• 1:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: They do this by trying to demand certainty.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is why Anxious thoughts often start with what if?
• 1:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if I have a panic attack?
• 1:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if this leads to something worse?
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: What if I never get the outcome that I want?
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: So Anxious thoughts cause your nervous system to go into protection mode.
• 1:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the sticky part about anxious thoughts is that they keep repeating because no answer ever feels good enough.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, compare anxious thoughts to just other thoughts.
• 1:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Other thoughts are just information.
• 1:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might have pleasant thoughts, you might have unpleasant thoughts, some might be useful, some might be irrelevant.
• 1:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you do do problem-solving with these thoughts, well, they lead to a clear action plan.
• 1:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And once you have that action plan, they tend to quiet down.
• 1:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now the mistake people make is that they deal with these anxious, what if thoughts the way they deal with any regular thought?
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: They think if I can just find the answer, give it an appropriate answer, well, their thoughts will disappear on its own.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: but anxious thoughts don't work this way.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, it's almost like a Chinese finger trap.
• 2:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: The more you try to resist the thought, the more you try to pull the way, well, the thought brings you back in.
• 2:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In fact, whenever you're engaging with the thought, you're adding more fuel to that thought.
• 2:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're telling your nervous system that this thought is important, and so your nervous system creates a feedback loop where it gives you the same thought over and over again.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you might be thinking, okay, Sean, how do I stop these thoughts?
• 2:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, you have to understand this distinction here, which is understanding the difference between thoughts and thinking, thoughts are passive.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: They come and go.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have any direct control over them.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You have 60,000 thoughts a day.
• 2:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: you don't control any of them.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking is an action.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thinking is engaging.
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have a thought.
• 3:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have any options, you don't have any choice that thought just shows up.
• 3:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: How you respond to the thought is through thinking.
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: thinking is an action.
• 3:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It requires active engagement.
• 3:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a very important distinction because when people are dealing with anxious thoughts, they don't realize that they are engaging with that thought.
• 3:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And when it comes to anxious thoughts specifically, when you engage with that thought,
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, it tells your nervous system, this thought is important.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whenever you begin engaging with that thought, well, your nervous system makes a note saying, this is an important thought to Sean, let's bring it back to him later.
• 3:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so in order to break the cycle is by focusing on the thinking aspect.
• 3:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can have a thought that comes in and choose to not actively engage with the thought.
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't have to react to the thought.
• 3:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: No matter how real and believable that thought is, it's still a thought.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so in order to prevent a thought from coming, well, if you just choose to not engage with the thought, over time, the thought will just stop showing up because your nervous system recognizes that this thought is an important.
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was massive for me because when I was,
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: dealing with an anxiety and panic disorder when my nervous system was sensitized.
• 4:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you have been watching the channel, you know my story, and what I was really dealing with was nocturnal panic attacks.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would get panic attacks between like three to four o'clock in the morning for like a whole year.
• 4:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And one of the things that people don't tell you is that with panic attacks,
• 4:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: you also get a lot of intrusive thoughts.
• 4:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so anytime those thoughts would come up I would get out of bed and I would start engaging and start thinking through those thoughts.
• 4:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I did to actually overcome the nocturnal panic attacks is even when the panic attacks came.
• 4:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: I just laid in bed.
• 4:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever these thoughts came, I just observed the thoughts.
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even when the thoughts felt very real, I just chose not to engage with it.
• 4:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: and something very interesting happened, which is the thoughts just burned to themselves out.
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually fall asleep in the middle of a panic attack.
• 5:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was so wild to me because I felt like I needed to do something about these thoughts about these symptoms.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the most important part was that the mistake I was making in the past was anytime a thought would come up, I would engage with it.
• 5:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I would add more fuel to that thought.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if you can just let a thought pass and recognize what you're in control of, which is the thinking aspect, well, you will see thoughts begin disappearing on its own.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the first step is recognizing that you're engagement with these anxious thoughts is fueling the cycle.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what's causing anxious thoughts to surface up in the first place?
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: This leaves me to point number two, which is it's the beliefs around these thoughts that's keeping it alive.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So most people think it's the thought that's the problem.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: While there are aspects of it that are the thoughts, the deeper layer of what's causing it is the beliefs.
• 5:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: The reason why these specific thoughts bother you specifically is because you have some beliefs around the thoughts.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are some identities, there are some belief patterns that's giving these thoughts energy.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know this because other people can have these thoughts as well, but they might not react the same way.
• 6:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might think that these beliefs are true.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might think that because you haven't found any relief from your symptoms that you will always be like this.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the belief is is that I will always be like this or you might feel like you might not have enough financially because you've always grown up with not having enough and always having to make sacrifices for what you can and can have and so what's really causing this is the beliefs around it when I realized that there were some belief patterns that I had.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: where I felt like no matter what I did, I couldn't make these symptoms go away.
• 6:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the belief pattern was, okay, if I can't make this go away, am I always going to be like this?
• 6:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I realized is that it was these beliefs that were like the engine of all this, that it was the beliefs that was fueling this, it was the belief that was giving energy to these thoughts.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: So then the question is, okay, well, how do I change these beliefs?
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: How do I convince myself?
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I used to think is that I needed to see proof first, I needed to see, okay, I am getting better, okay, these things are happening in my life and then I will believe it's almost like in order to believe I needed evidence first.
• 7:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the biggest profound shift for me was recognizing that beliefs don't work that way.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Beliefs fundamentally are a decision.
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a choice.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You decide what you believe.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so if you don't connect with this, stay with me here because this is the part that also made me disconnect, but this is also where things shifted for me.
• 7:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, your brain is a filtering mechanism.
• 7:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: gathers all the information, processes, things about what's happening, reality, how I feel, and that's it, right?
• 7:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your brain is getting so much input and so much data that it cannot process all that information at once.
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what your brain does is that it picks and chooses what's important.
• 8:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it doesn't see reality for what it is, it picks and chooses what it sees.
• 8:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: So out of a hundred
• 8:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's picking and choosing what's important and it's determining what's important based on your beliefs.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, if you believe you're not going to heal, well, your brain is going to find reasons for why people don't heal.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, if you're watching the news or you scroll through Instagram and it shows somebody that's sick, that's not getting better.
• 8:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you begin engaging with that post.
• 8:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, your brain is recognizing, okay, that's important.
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: but if you know healing is possible, even if you see that post, you'll kind of scroll through without realizing it.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's recognizing that our beliefs create our reality.
• 8:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not like we see reality and then we create beliefs around it.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: what actually happens is that we have beliefs and then reality conforms to that.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the biggest part here is making the decision even when you don't have the evidence.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's a belief.
• 9:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whenever you start looking at it from that lens, well what you find is that you have things in reality that conform to those beliefs, that reinforce those beliefs.
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what's happening right now is that you have a limiting belief
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's preventing you from achieving your goals.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you have your goals of overcoming these symptoms, going back to living, having a thriving life, but you have certain belief patterns that are limiting that, that's holding you back.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so a big part of this is changing the belief
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then as you change the belief, while you start seeing these things surface up.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this all kind of sounds, you know, a little fairy tale, a little abstract, okay, how do I change my belief?
• 10:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give you a practical framework of how to change beliefs.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's called the decision framework.
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now remember what I said?
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Beliefs fundamentally are decisions.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're choices.
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so you can decide what beliefs you want.
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so this decision matrix works really well.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would recommend grabbing a piece of paper and you can do this ideally every morning.
• 10:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's how it works.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You just create three separate columns.
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: On the left column, you say, what belief is currently causing me stress or fear?
• 10:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that can be things like, I'll never recover.
• 10:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll never get the job that provides fulfillment.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will never overcome my panic attacks.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll never heal, whatever it is.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's on the left.
• 10:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now in the middle of it, the middle column, what you want to do is create a new belief.
• 10:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I can recover.
• 10:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can get the fulfilling job, the partner, the relationships.
• 10:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can't have that thing that fulfills my life.
• 11:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can do that.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I can heal from this.
• 11:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then,
• 11:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Once you have that written out on the right, say, ask yourself, what evidence do I have that the new evidence is true?
• 11:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if it's the option of, hey, I can recover.
• 11:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, what evidence do you have?
• 11:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I've seen other recovery stories.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've seen other stories where other people have recovered as well.
• 11:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can also go deeper.
• 11:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've done all the tests, and my doctors say, I am fine, I am healthy, everything is good.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is only a nervous system issue, and this can be fixable.
• 11:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so what you do is you write down this new evidence, and you just acknowledge that evidence.
• 11:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what you will find is that as you write through the new evidence, you'll kind of start realizing, you're like, yeah, actually you're right.
• 11:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are possibilities where this could be true that I could get what I want.
• 11:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, this isn't going to fix it immediately.
• 11:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What you're going to have to do is you're going to have to repeat this, because your brain has developed habits around the old evidence.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been looking at everything through a certain frame.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Creating a new frame is by showing and giving your brain evidence of the new things that you want.
• 12:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The new things that you desire, what is possible?
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're recognizing that your brain is only filtering the negative things, so let's show it the positive things and at least we can see reality for what it is.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: over time, the new beliefs will become embodied.
• 12:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: As you have these new beliefs, as you make these new choices, and you see that these choices are working, well, then it just becomes part of you, getting those things in life become inevitable.
• 12:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so making the decision is one of the biggest things you can do.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, we have thoughts, we have decisions, but we're missing one fundamental piece that helps us
• 12:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: and that is point number three, which is action dispels fear.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: What I have found is that many people deal with these anxious thoughts that don't seem to stop because they're always hesitating.
• 13:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: They have a very difficult time making a decision on something.
• 13:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And oftentimes they have this indecisiveness because they're afraid of being wrong.
• 13:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're afraid of failing.
• 13:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're afraid of, okay, if I do this, and the outcome doesn't turn out to the way it should, well, then that reinforces my beliefs.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the pain of being wrong is just much higher than the possibility of it being right.
• 13:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: What happens is that people don't make any decision.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: They just kind of have these anxious thoughts that feed on itself.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: There are thoughts that are there to help you find a conclusion, but then there's also thoughts that just feed on itself and anxious thoughts whenever you're indecisive just feeds on itself.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the biggest takeaway here is taking action.
• 13:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Most people want to know what the roadmap is before taking action.
• 13:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want to know for sure.
• 13:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: They want to know exactly what's going to happen throughout this journey.
• 13:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to things like this, it's recognizing that the journey shows up as you move forward with it.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's not like you know exactly where you're going to be heading and you move forward.
• 14:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: You might not know where things end up, but you still take the steps forward.
• 14:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a skill that
• 14:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: every successful person that I've ever met has, which is they are able to make decisions quickly.
• 14:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're able to make decisions.
• 14:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're able to learn from those decisions and they're able to pivot, change, reorient or keep moving forward.
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the people that often stay stuck that don't really achieve much, especially in a professional setting, they often hesitate.
• 14:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They can't make decisions.
• 14:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they're velocity around decision making is very slow.
• 14:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what I
• 14:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: my mentors.
• 14:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The people that I find very successful, they make decisions very quickly.
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, people hesitate with this because they think, oh, well, you're making decisions quickly.
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, isn't that reckless?
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Aren't you just taking the shotgun approach of just making a decision?
• 15:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, there are consequences to decisions, right?
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that makes total sense.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I would say, what's reckless isn't making a decision quickly, what's reckless is not making a decision and flirting with different options all at the same time.
• 15:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I mean by this is that this is something I see as we're helping people on the healing journey.
• 15:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Before they decide to fully commit, they're trying to kind of float with everything.
• 15:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: They try some breathing exercises, they try some regulation tools, they watch this creator, they go to this therapist, they're trying like all these different things, and trying to see what works, and then doubling down, but really, they're not really doing anything.
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're just kind of spinning their tires.
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're not making any meaningful progress to anything.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Take that as one side, but take somebody else who decides to commit.
• 15:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: and makes that action and makes that decision.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, that might be the right decision, that might not be the right decision.
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what this person has now is context.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: They recognized, okay, I want this direction.
• 16:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want fully into it.
• 16:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: It didn't work.
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't it work?
• 16:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And let's change.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's adjust.
• 16:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they're able to do this quickly, and as they are doing this, well, the journey shows up on its own.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: They're able to see more of the horizon because they're making decisions, so they know exactly which direction to go.
• 16:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Compare that to somebody who just isn't making a decision and just staying right where they are.
• 16:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so the framework here...
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's really important is understand that there's no such thing as success and failure.
• 16:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to fail in order to succeed.
• 16:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to be able to do things that might not take you to the direction you want, but help you reorient to the direction you want.
• 16:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the mistake people make is that anytime they make a decision, they go back into
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: self-deprecating mode, self-loathing, feeling like, oh look, I tried this, it didn't work.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: See, I'm broken, I'm unique.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so they just stop trying because the pain of being wrong again is too painful for a committed person that's on this journey.
• 17:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's the healing journey, whether it's the growth journey, who cares how many failures?
• 17:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: If there's a hundred failures, there's a hundred lessons to be learned.
• 17:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right for a committed person,
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's ready to heal, that's wants to get what they want.
• 17:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Every mistake that's made is just a learning opportunity.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: It just rearrains them to getting what they truly desire, and they don't beat themselves up, and they don't like tear themselves down, or they don't reinforce their limiting belief.
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: They say, okay, this didn't work.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why didn't it work?
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's reorient.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And most people are not playing because they want to achieve what they want.
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: They play the game so that they just avoid losing, because the pain of losing is so high.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: and it feels so painful, but if you can just focus on the reality of this is the outcome that I want.
• 17:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: These are my options.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this is what I'll decide and what I determine as success.
• 17:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if things don't work along that way, I will adjust.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will pivot.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I will figure it out eventually, but I don't need to figure it out right now.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is how you eliminate anxious thoughts incredibly fast.
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want more resources on the nervous system recovery journey, working with me and my team, there's a bunch of resources in the description box.
• 18:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for watching.
• 18:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll see you in the next one.