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Overcoming Anxiety | Self-Help and the Added Value of Therapy | Gabriel Ellis, PhD · Gabriel Ellis, PhD | The Curious Mind Podcast

0:01
Welcome to another episode of the Curious Mind podcast.
0:04
My name is Gabriel Ellis. I'm a psychologist,
0:07
psychotherapist and a Buddhist scholar.
0:09
And today I want to take a deeper look at a subject that we
0:14
all know, which is anxiety. Statistics show that in Europe,
0:19
between 9% and 15% of all people suffer from one or the other
0:25
anxiety disorders. So this is every 7th or 8th
0:29
person that you can see randomly on the streets.
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And if I put it like this, then it sounds like, you know, a
0:36
rather simple diagnosis. But anxiety is more, it's a
0:40
fundamental human experience. It's emotional response to
0:46
helplessness mostly. And since helplessness first
0:50
appears in childhood, our earliest experiences of anxiety
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also mostly originate originate in childhood.
0:59
Within our own personal anxiety biography and quotes, both are
1:04
stored the circumstances in which the anxiety arose and the
1:09
strategies we used to cope with it, both what worked and what
1:15
did not work. So all of this is stored in our
1:20
emotional, in our anxiety biography, in our archives, in
1:24
our mind. And so for this reason, because
1:27
we repeat what has worked, we neglect what has not worked in
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the past. Our anxiety responses often
1:35
contain a childlike component. We tend to rely on coping
1:40
strategies that we learned long time ago.
1:45
And so in this episode I want to show how we often function as
1:50
complex machines, basically on autopilot in everyday life and
1:54
in anxiety and using situations, and why this feeds our anxiety.
2:00
And I will distinguish between what you can do on your own to
2:05
regulate your system and what happens in deeper therapeutic
2:09
work, for example, in my practice.
2:11
Because in the end, of course, I can only detail what goes on in
2:16
my therapies, even though many colleagues will use similar
2:21
tools. So first I want to describe the
2:25
mechanics of anxiety and why we suffer in what I want to call a
2:31
trance. So this is before we talk about
2:34
solutions and as I mentioned, we have to understand first the
2:39
architecture, the mechanisms of anxiety, the state in which
2:45
anxiety holds us captive. I called an everyday trance and
2:51
I distinguish distinguish here everyday trance from the
2:55
artificial therapy or stage induced trances.
3:00
And if you want to read more about it, I can recommend Steven
3:05
Bolinsky's books where he details how everyday trances
3:11
come about. Whatever absorbs us in our
3:16
everyday life is some sort of a easy, simple, mild trance.
3:26
It's nothing that you know is very unusual to us, but
3:29
nonetheless it has the features of a trance.
3:33
It limits and narrows our attention.
3:36
It narrows the breadth which when our degrees of freedom with
3:40
which we usually can approach and respond to situations.
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So it's a kind of 1/2 sleep in this limitation.
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What I need to explain additionally is in order to make
3:56
understood why we have those trances, why we live on
4:00
autopilot for such big portions of our daily life, is that in
4:06
actuality will live in a very narrow present moment.
4:11
Our mind lives in a very narrow present moment of about two
4:16
seconds. So what we call the present
4:19
tense, the present is about two seconds long.
4:24
Before that, it's complete darkness.
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After that it's complete darkness.
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But of course we are future oriented beings and so our mind,
4:34
without us noticing, has to constantly recalculate what
4:38
comes next. It has to project a future that
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because unconsciously does these recalculations and works with
4:48
the scenarios and what is the most probable.
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It seems like the future is ahead of us and we can actually
4:56
grasp it. We can calculate, we can think
4:59
about it, we can take it into account anticipated, work with
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it and so forth. This is the workings of our mind
5:08
that has only two seconds of present, 2 seconds of
5:13
consciousness and of time available.
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And with these two seconds, it creates the magic of the past
5:21
and the magic of the future. And in order to create this
5:25
stability, it needs to work with anchors.
5:29
It cannot just recalculate everything all the time.
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And so it has to rely on things that it has learned in the past.
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It has to rely on what reality was in the past in order to
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create something that seems like a more or less stable thing for
5:47
the future. Without it, we would hit, you
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know what? We could not calculate.
5:54
We could not assume or anticipate what comes, and we
5:58
would maybe see 2-3 options if we were really free.
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And beyond that, that would be just a black wall of empty
6:06
potential. But no, we'll look into the
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future and we can calculate, we can plan and so forth.
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And in order to do that, the mind, the unconscious mind, has
6:16
to take recourse to what it has experienced in the past.
6:22
So when anxiety is triggered either by external circumstances
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such as stress or an impending loss, or by internal experiences
6:32
like memories that come up or bodily sensations like tightness
6:36
in the chest, this calculation of the unconscious mind changes
6:42
radically. Then with anxiety triggers, the
6:48
mind enters an anxiety trance and begins to calculate a threat
6:55
scenario. It's not a neutral scenario
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anymore. It's not an open scenario where
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everything can happen and I freely can assume the highest
7:05
probabilities. When I'm triggered into a fear,
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into an anxiety, the recalculation of what the future
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holds becomes very narrow under the headline of an impeding
7:20
threat. And so the result is often
7:24
catastrophic fantasies, fantasies that are cognitively
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simplistic. What I mean with that is they
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are not very differentiated in thought, but they are
7:34
emotionally intense. And so with that as the base of
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the calculation of the present and of the future, we no longer
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respond to reality with its complexity, with its infinite
7:50
potential and possibilities. We are reacting to a film of
7:55
past evaluations which are projected onto the present.
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And as I mentioned often enough, those past evaluations go back
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very long time ago to our childhood, to our teenage times,
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to periods of times when indeed our thinking was not very
8:14
differentiated. And so in anxiety, our focus
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narrows and we fall back on preprogrammed reactions that we
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acquired in the past, reactions that became a habit.
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There's a good things about those habits.
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They allowed for very quick information processing,
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especially in response to perceived danger.
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So the quickness and the swiftness is a big pro and one
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could argue evolutionarily a big advantage to have those habits
8:51
and to those preprogrammed filters.
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But they make us unfree, right, Because they make us act like a
9:01
machine on autopilot. They undermine the conscious and
9:06
differentiated judgement that is available to us when we are
9:10
relaxed, when we have all our minds capacity at our disposal.
9:18
Yes, and we begin to function like a machine reflexively
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trying to avoid what we perceive in the catastrophic fantasy as a
9:28
discomfort and a suffering, trying to avoid these.
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OK, so this is the basic architecture of anxiety, and to
9:38
summarize it again, when we perceive triggers of anxiety,
9:44
the mind changes the way it calculates the present and the
9:48
future. It assumes A catastrophic
9:52
threat. It makes us react in a very
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quick way in order to avoid suffering.
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But by doing that it takes away our freedom, It takes away our
10:03
cognitive differentiation, which I would argue makes us mature
10:10
adult beings. And so we fall back onto a state
10:14
of mind that is more childlike. This is what it's called
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regression. And so this is in itself it's
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normal. Also the everyday trances when
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we fall back on habits is relatively normal.
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Anxiety and fear only become problematic and treatment worthy
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when they limit our quality of life, when they reoccur again
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and again in specific situations that repeat themselves.
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For example at work, with colleagues, with authority
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figures of bosses and of course in family life.
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Repetitive situations that causes that cause anger or
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anxiety and relationships. The fear to be controlled, the
11:05
fear to be manipulated, the fear to not to be hurt, to be to be
11:11
hurt in relationships and so forth.
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So when in these very repetitive, reliably occurring
11:19
situations, we experience fear and we cannot come out of it,
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that means exactly because we cannot escape them.
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That means a reduction in the quality of life.
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And then we should do something about it.
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And unfortunately, statistics show that people live with
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anxieties for many, many years before they actually try to
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change something about them through psychological work.
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So again, I want to differentiate between things
11:51
that you can do on your own and then things that can happen in
11:54
therapy, or at least as I would do therapy.
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And I want to start with some effective methods for reducing
12:01
the intensity of those everyday trances, those anxiety trances.
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And these tools serve to cleanse the mind and to create the
12:12
buffer to be able to deal with the everyday situations.
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So they might not be a cure, but they at least extend my range of
12:22
motion, my degrees of freedom. One important thing that is
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necessity, both for yourself, you working on yourself, but
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also of course, but therapy is ethical grounding.
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You want to do that because it saves you a lot of energy and
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increases your buffer. In order to do that, reflect on
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the fact that fundamentally you do not want to wish, You do not
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wish to cause harm either to yourself nor to others, neither
13:00
in daily life nor when you aren't trapped in the anxiety
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trance. You want to be well, you don't
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want to cause harm to others if it's avoidable.
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And this happens in daily life, of course, but especially you
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don't want to cause harm to yourself when you are anxious.
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Now then consider and write down how you typically respond when
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you are anxious. When you're trapped in your
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anxious strands, what do you typically do?
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What do you do in your reactions that is beneficial?
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Maybe there are some things that are beneficial, For example, a
13:40
protection mechanism, communicating in a protective
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way, acting in a protective way, and what is harmful, what is
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harmful that you do in a habitual basis to yourself or to
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others? When you're anxious, maybe you
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push people away, maybe you withdraw, maybe you have
13:59
crippling emotions inside. Oh, this is harmful.
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Become aware of that and now remind yourself that actually
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you wish yourself well. You don't want to cause harm to
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yourself, no matter what state you're in, especially not when
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you're anxious. And so with that, you start to
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develop when you learn to have this perspective, a benevolent
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inner attitude, even in the midst of anxiety.
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It takes practice, but it's doable.
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And this is an essential foundation for a healthy
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development in general and will support your efforts when you
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want to get out of anxiety. The second thing that I can
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offer that you can do on your own is to ground yourself
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through what through what I want to call pure perception.
15:02
We have learned to perceive even our immediate experiences
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through concepts, through a filter.
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So, for example, we don't just see a shape, we immediately see
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a door. We don't see, you know, some
15:17
vague visual aspects. And then we slowly can see how
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it forms into a door. This happens only in exceptional
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situations, for example in twilight or when it's dark and
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we try to understand what a shape is.
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And then we see kind of floating possibilities and then it
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narrows down. And then we have the concept
15:36
locked in, which is could be a door or a table or someone that
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we know. But in broad daylight, when
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there is enough information available, the concept is just
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there immediately. So we interpret extremely
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quickly on an everyday basis, an everyday life.
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And these interpretations, they carry an emotional charge, of
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course, not so much when I see a normal object, but when I see a
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person, when I, when I have developed an anxious avoidance
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or an anxiety in stress related work situations, I just see one
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aspect. I need to see the boss coming
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through the door. I need to see the colleague that
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usually asks me questions that bring me in trouble or whatever
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it is. And then the concept kicks in.
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It's just there very quickly. Why?
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Because our Organism wants to protect, protect us.
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So it brings us into the anxiety mode so that we can react
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quickly. Unfortunately though, when for
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example in relationships or at work, we cannot just escape,
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which we would like to do, We cannot just run away.
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So we stay in them and we have to endure the anxiety without an
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instruction book of how to resolve this.
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And this is then the problematic thing.
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So like I said, anxiety triggers catastrophic fantasies, and the
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emotional intensity of these catastrophic fantasies is
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immense. The implication of a
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catastrophic thought is that something horrible will happen.
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And this thought, especially when we cannot run away,
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paralyzes us. Or to be more precise, the
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emotional overload is paralyzing us.
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And this applies also to the anxiety reactions.
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So in order to counter that, we need to step away from those
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automatic concepts that we have formed, the reality that we have
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learned to see under stress. And so we're going back to the
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pure experience. We unpack our automatic
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interpretations of reality, of the situation by asking
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ourselves, what am I feeling right now?
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What thoughts are present, what is actually going on in my mind,
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right, so I don't fall into the trap that the catastrophic
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fantasy wants to impose on me. I ask questions, and asking
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questions brings differentiation, and
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differentiation is exactly the opposite of what the trans state
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is, which is limited, undifferentiated.
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So I'm asking myself, what exactly am I feeling?
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What are those feelings? Where are they in my body?
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What thoughts are they are accompanied with that?
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And what aspects of reality am I currently filtering out?
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What else is in the room that I don't see?
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I see only the boss moving there, behind the glass window
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of the office, and I cannot help but constantly observing them.
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What am I not seeing in these moments?
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Almost everything. So I pay attention to that.
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Pay attention to the other people that are there, to the
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furniture, to the weather, to the sounds, to my body, how my
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feet are touching the ground, how my buttocks are on the
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chair, all of that. I bring the world back into
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these narrowed perception. This defragmentation of
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perception removes the anxiety's magical spell.
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Both cannot coexist. I cannot be at the same time
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narrow and broad. What is unfortunately lurking is
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the emotion, right? This we cannot help.
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There is the emotion of anxiety. It's strong.
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It also narrows down my vision and my perceptions.
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What I can help is to switch my focus to other things.
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What am I not experiencing? The emotion might be there, but
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it doesn't. It's not a full package.
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The magical spell has broken and so I'm trying to step away from
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the emotional roller coaster into reality.
20:25
It will take time. Emotions are slow.
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I get quickly get into the anxiety because of the automated
20:34
response and I need time to remove myself from it.
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Take your time, take your distance, go to the loo, step
20:42
outside for a little break, talk with people.
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Takes time to get away from the emotion.
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A second thing, you can use breathing and physical discharge
20:54
for this pressure. Slow and deep breathing can
20:58
usually help. It's not a solution.
21:02
It's supposed to give you distance from this, as I call
21:06
it, magical spell or the trance that you're experiencing.
21:10
You know the expression of comfort food people eat for
21:13
comfort. You can use that.
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Again, it's not a solution, but you can bring, you can force
21:19
basically your body through the stomach to go into food
21:25
processing mode, which usually calms us down, which usually
21:30
takes energy away. So you can eat something in
21:34
order to calm yourself down, unless of course, you really
21:38
have a knot in your stomach and you cannot bring anything down.
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Then it's a really strong overwhelming emotion that you
21:44
feel. Third possibility that you also
21:47
know physical exercise. So all this might not stop the
21:52
mental distortion entirely, but these methods can reduce the
21:57
tension that have the tensions that have manifested physically.
22:02
And you can use other physical methods.
22:04
They're all pretty good, yoga, hot bath, sauna, massage.
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So in short, you can use the body and the built in mechanisms
22:15
of relaxation in order to reduce the sharpest edges of the
22:22
anxiety response that you have become habituated to.
22:30
Another thing that you can do is writing or journaling.
22:35
Why is that? Anxiety thrives in vagueness and
22:39
in ambiguity, which means that, as I mentioned before, the
22:45
cognitive aspect of anxiety is usually very simple.
22:49
It's thoughts like, Oh my God, if this happens, then
22:53
catastrophe. I cannot live with myself
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anymore. How could I tell them what?
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Maybe I'll get a heart attack. It's it's not very
23:02
differentiated. It's simplified thinking.
23:07
And usually, as you can imagine, something that I'm afraid of
23:11
that I cannot see that doesn't have a differentiated shape is
23:16
much stronger. And so This is why I say that
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anxiety thrives in vagueness and thrives in ambiguity.
23:24
In order to counter that, write your fears down in concrete
23:29
terms. Give shape to the vague anxiety
23:33
thoughts that you have. You can ask yourself, what
23:37
exactly am I afraid of? What is the catastrophe that I'm
23:42
fearing when my thoughts, when my overwhelming emotions
23:48
suggests that everything would be over if this and that
23:52
happened, if I got fired, if I got screamed at or something?
23:56
Ask yourself what things really would life really be over and go
24:00
through the scenario. What if it actually happened?
24:03
What would I do afterwards, 5 minutes later, an hour later,
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two days later? Does life not continue in a way?
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How? Write it down.
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And so when you put your thoughts on paper, you relieve
24:20
your mind from having to keep them spinning endlessly in your
24:24
working memory, in the background of your mind.
24:27
You bring them to the foreground, you stop the
24:30
rumination, you put them on paper.
24:35
OK, so these are important methods of self help.
24:39
Of course, everything that is related to relaxation is also in
24:42
contribution. I packed that basically under
24:45
the chapter of body related methods to increase your buffer.
24:51
And maybe you have already tried some of these approaches and you
24:55
might have noticed that they help temporarily, but the
24:59
anxiety returns. Now this is common and on our
25:04
own, it is often very difficult to identify the deeper dynamics
25:09
that are working inside of us. We may overlook unconscious
25:13
connections, we may overlook even hidden benefits that we
25:18
drive from anxiety. And that's might sound absurd,
25:22
but we sometimes when we are anxious, when we display
25:27
anxiousness to others, we might receive compassion or we might
25:33
retreat into a passivity that is comforting away from all the
25:38
responsibilities of the world we would treat.
25:41
And this the Organism might experience is positive.
25:45
And so these positive effects, other unconscious connections we
25:49
might really well miss if we are just on our own reflecting.
25:54
And so This is why it's important to have an other to as
25:59
a sounding board to contemplate, to talk to.
26:04
And other can be a book and other can be good content.
26:10
I'm a bit afraid to recommend YouTube, but here I am myself on
26:13
YouTube or Spotify, but there's just a lot of not very good
26:18
material, not very serious and professional material out there,
26:21
but it can be used. We need the other, of course,
26:23
better is if we have trusted friends, if we have partners or
26:29
if we have a therapist, if that is necessary, if unresolved
26:36
needs are embedded within the anxiety response, the need to
26:42
relax, the need to retreat, the need to simplify our lives, for
26:48
example, There may be many more. They will continue to operate
26:53
beneath the surface, even if I'm trying to do some methods to get
26:58
rid of the anxiety, and they will stabilize the patterns.
27:03
This can be very, very nasty. Those habits, those weird
27:09
benefits that we get from negative states of mind from
27:12
anxiety. Other things that we don't see
27:17
on our own is how frequently we rely on what I call crutches
27:23
that are ultimately, ultimately really helpful.
27:26
I want to give you some examples.
27:28
For example, if I have a social anxiety and I got used to before
27:32
I go to a party or network meeting to have a glass of wine,
27:36
for example, this is a crutch. Or if I have claustrophobia, for
27:44
example, and whenever there is an event, I'm positioning myself
27:48
next to the exit. This is a crutch.
27:54
It's a crutch because we avoid the feeling of helplessness by
27:58
doing that, right? If I don't drink the wine and
28:01
I'm going to this network meeting, I feel helpless because
28:05
I don't think that I can contribute, that I'm a good
28:07
talker and so on. So much nicer if I can relax a
28:11
little bit with a wine and suddenly it's easy to talk to
28:15
me. Or the helplessness of being far
28:18
away from the exit door. We avoid all this with those
28:23
crutches and avoidance is it's very important to keep in mind
28:31
anxiety is the silent twin of anxiety.
28:34
It's the second part of the coin.
28:36
Anxiety and avoidance go hand in hand.
28:39
We try to avoid the anxiety inducing triggers in our lives.
28:45
OK, but if we use those crutches, what does the
28:49
unconscious learn? If I got away from the network
28:54
meeting, I had a great time. I drank 1-2 glasses of wine.
28:59
The unconscious will learn. I survived this only because of
29:04
the crutch. It is indeed frightening.
29:11
I could not survive it without. Thank God I had the wine.
29:16
Thank God for the crutches. So the core fear or anxiety
29:20
belief remains intact in the shadow.
29:25
I'm not aware of this. I might be proud even that I
29:27
found a hack, a trick to survive the anxiety inducing situation.
29:33
But for the unconscious it's defeat.
29:36
It will give me as a result feelings and thoughts of
29:41
incompetence. Without the crutch I couldn't do
29:44
it. OK.
29:47
So these are the limitations of self help, not to see important
29:54
elements that stabilize the anxiety that make it continue
29:59
over the months and over the years.
30:03
So therapy I think has added value in the sense that we go
30:10
into the mental lab, the mental laboratory, we go into the
30:15
mechanisms of the mind. At least in my work, we try to
30:21
move beyond the symptom control. We don't just try to make the
30:25
symptoms go away. Of course, this is an important
30:28
part. After all, the feelings of
30:31
anxiety are very uncomfortable. We are trying to work the roots
30:36
of the frightening, the fear inducing, anxiety inducing
30:40
experience. Our central goal is, after all,
30:45
to transform the unconscious, which bombards us with those
30:50
emotions and with the consequences of the catastrophic
30:54
projections with the fear and anxiety.
30:58
We want to transform this unconscious from an adversary
31:02
that gives us unpleasant feelings into an ally, which
31:05
gives us confidence. Now, often enough people to
31:10
suffer from anxiety. They rationally know that, for
31:14
example, a meeting is not dangerous.
31:17
And yet the unconscious still anticipates A catastrophe.
31:22
There's a split between a rational understanding that
31:26
everything is fine, I Will Survive this, and the
31:29
unconscious that has learned to continue with this catastrophic
31:34
projections. Now in therapy, we develop a
31:38
real understanding of your inner reality, how the unconscious
31:42
works and how to guide it outside of its habitual negative
31:51
projections. You learn the logics of how you
31:57
operate inside. You learn to communicate
32:01
basically to yourself how to work with yourself, and then you
32:08
consciously engage with your anxiety triggers, of course, and
32:12
you place them within a newly developed map of yourself.
32:17
You have a big understanding of yourself and you can allocate
32:20
what is happening more or less precisely there.
32:25
An important element, and if you will, a technique that I use is
32:29
sandboxing. And what I call sandboxing is
32:32
basically experimenting in a safe space.
32:36
We experiment with new behaviors in a protected environment.
32:42
So as I mentioned before, one key component of this trance
32:48
that is induced through anxiety is that experience, emotions and
32:54
behaviors become narrow. So we forget the possibilities.
32:58
In therapy we reintroduce possibilities, of course not
33:04
necessarily in the most anxiety inducing situations, but in a
33:08
safe environment that resemble the anxiety situations.
33:15
So then in the sandbox, working through scenarios, the
33:19
unconscious is giving a preview of reality and what it can do
33:25
other than the habits. And only when the unconscious
33:29
sees through lived experience, not the rational thinking, not
33:33
logic, but through the lived experience that the catastrophe
33:37
does not occur, it can begin to release its old programs.
33:43
Another thing that is important in therapeutic work is exposure
33:47
with response prevention. I've mentioned this in other
33:51
videos. I will give you a link at the
33:55
end of the video to that contact where content where I described
33:58
it in more detail. We practice confrontation or
34:02
exposure, that is as it's called, but without the
34:06
crutches. And this is the important point.
34:09
We allow the wavelength of anxiety to rise.
34:12
Imagine yourself with claustrophobia in a jammed
34:17
metro, for example. The anxiety rises.
34:22
You learn to observe what is going on, not to feed the fire.
34:27
You don't engage in catastrophic thoughts.
34:30
You don't use other crutches that prevent the unconscious to
34:35
experience reality. You don't deepen the trance.
34:38
You experience the situation as it is.
34:43
You observed yourself as it is, and most importantly, you
34:47
experience the anxiety as it is. Like a biologist who wants to
34:54
observe a strange animal, you see how it behaves, you remove
35:00
yourself from the equation, and then you'll see something
35:05
peculiar you directly experience after a rise.
35:10
That of course, is anxiety inducing and worrying.
35:14
But when you remove yourself from the equation, you see how
35:18
the anxiety rises and then it plateaus.
35:21
And this is the key point. When you see that it plateaus,
35:25
the unconscious is seeing in two.
35:28
It knows that you have not used any crutches and by that it
35:33
gains confidence. So you reach the plateau, the
35:38
anxiety stays on a high level and then it goes down by itself.
35:42
You have not done anything. Circumstances have not changed.
35:46
You have not used crutches by itself, because it has to be,
35:50
because this is how the mind works.
35:53
The anxiety goes down, you see it, the unconscious sees it.
35:58
The unconscious has to accept that this is what it is, that
36:01
nobody helped. But just by its nature, the
36:04
anxiety went down. No big catastrophe happened.
36:08
And by that it becomes confident, self assured.
36:13
I know that nothing happens, not just a rational thought anymore.
36:17
It's not a calculation, it's not logical, It's experienced, it's
36:21
reality. The third element is to counter
36:26
the passivity, the passive state of mind that anxiety creates.
36:31
Anxiety, as I mentioned, is accompanied by a trance state of
36:35
passivity, and in therapy we address this directly by
36:39
examining where you can take responsibility for your outside
36:45
situation, how to communicate at work, with your boss, and so on.
36:48
And in your inner experience, how can you take responsibility?
36:53
What do you want to do differently?
36:55
Addressing your thoughts, your emotions and so forth, and where
36:59
you cannot so. And this brings us to the core
37:04
that makes anxiety possible in the first place.
37:06
The realistic goal is not to eliminate, eliminate anxiety
37:10
forever. Anxiety is baked into our system
37:13
and it will continue to rise. But what we can do is not to
37:17
permanently abandoned the pilot's seat.
37:21
We remain the captain of the ship.
37:24
We can take responsibility for our action outside and inside.
37:30
And this is, for example, very important in social anxiety,
37:33
this fear of being devalued or judged or failing to meet
37:39
expectations. This is countered by all these
37:44
measures, seeing the mechanisms of the mind, taking
37:48
responsibility, applying the proper techniques.
37:53
This is useful in specific anxiety situations but also an
37:57
existential anxiety where the challenge is to withstand the
38:01
constant pressure of every new demand in life, which is the
38:07
normal state of life. OK, so All in all, wrapping it
38:13
up. Self help is and should be an
38:15
important first step in tidying the house and clarifying your
38:22
states of mind and understanding.
38:24
Have a first basic understanding of what is going on.
38:27
But if anxiety continues to limit your life and you feel
38:32
yourself shrinking and shriveling, disappearing,
38:35
withdrawing, being an autopilot, then I really encourage you to
38:42
look deeper. Read about anxiety from
38:45
qualified books. Don't be afraid that it might be
38:48
difficult to understand You go over it 2-3, four times, and
38:51
then it will make sense. It's good to read those deeper
38:56
literature, those deeper books about it written by specialists.
39:01
Or consider therapy before, ideally before the anxiety grows
39:07
stronger and the avoidance further restricts your quality
39:11
of life. When you work with me in
39:14
therapy, I will treat you like an equal.
39:17
I can offer, of course, my experience and my general
39:20
insides about how the mind works, because this is my
39:24
specialty. I know the traps that the mind
39:28
lays out before you and we can narrow, We can avoid many of
39:33
those traps with good consideration.
39:36
And I can help you navigate, of course, minds in general and
39:40
your mind. But ultimately there can be only
39:43
one true specialist on you and that is you even in therapy.
39:48
So what I can offer is support and becoming a specialist in
39:52
your own mind to practice new behaviors through structured
39:57
experiments and sandboxing and gradually to dismantle the old
40:02
avoidances that you have become so habituated to with new
40:06
strategies. So if you feel ready to engaged
40:10
in this kind of nuanced work together, feel free to contact
40:14
me. And of course, I'm also glad if
40:17
you continue to follow and like the discussions that Ioffer on
40:20
this channel. Until next time, I wish you all
40:24
the best and I see you in the next episode of The Curious
40:27
Mind. Goodbye.