Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today on the podcast we are talking about facing your fears with Dr. Patricia Zurita Ona, or Dr. Z for short. Dr. Z is a licensed clinical psychologist in California treating clients with OCD, anxiety and trauma. She has written several amazing books including Living Beyond OCD Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy and The ACT Workbook for Teens with OCD. In our interview, Dr. Z discusses how to use Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to augment treatment of OCD, social anxiety, panic disorder, and phobias. Dr. Z shares with us WHY facing your fears is so important and something you should want to do! In this episode, Dr. Z talks about, 1. Ruling your thoughts and how to unpack them. 2. How to date your mind. 3. How to know which behaviors are working and which are not. 4. How to find values that energize you. 5. Create your own ERP menu that includes your own triggers and avoidant behaviors. 6. Learn how to react using wisdom. 7. Learn how to identify the ways your brain creates patterns. Dr. Z's websites www.actbeyondocd.com and www.thisisdoctorz.com Dr. Z's Instagram @dr.z.passionatebehaviorist Link to Dr. Z's books https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/books/ ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Recently we have talked a lot about self-compassion. If you go back to episodes 134, 146, and 147, you will see self-compassion mentioned a lot. Today we are going to expand on that discussion by learning how to write ourselves a self-compassion letter.  I have actually been doing this with my clients for years and it really just involves putting your self-compassion into words which can actually be so helpful. There are several steps in writing your self-compassion letter. The first step is to show awareness of your struggle. You might say “I see that you are having a hard time.” Whatever it is, just bring it to your awareness and write it down. The second step is bringing in some words of unconditional love. No matter how much you are suffering, you still get to be loved and cared for. The third step is to show yourself some empathy for the distress you are in. You might say “I see you. I see the pain you are going through. I can relate to that.” The fourth step is recognizing your common humanity. In your letter, you want to bring in the common humanity of your struggle. You could say “Everybody knows what it is like to have anxiety. I am definitely not alone.” Next you want to normalize the fact that when we suffer we all want to engage in safety behaviors. A safety behavior is anything you may do to try and take away your fear, or shame, or sadness. Safety behaviors usually have unintended consequences and they usually end up causing more problems. Instead you would want to explore some more helpful solutions. You are going to look at the situation and say “How might I help myself?” The last step is to say something really, really kind to yourself and finally you are going to read your self-compassion letter aloud. Below is an example of my own self-compassion letter. Kimberley, my dear one. It’s okay that I’m having a hard time right now. I feel afraid and I really just want to jump out of my skin. This is really a difficult time for me. Now, what I am feeling is not wrong. I’m doing the best I can with what I have at this moment. My suffering, this discomfort I feel, it deserves to be met with kindness and tenderness. I deserve that. I am worthy of this kindness and tenderness I’m giving myself. And I wish for myself to have some peace of mind. I know it’s a hard time, but I know I will find peace. Now I’m going to find this peace mostly by doing what I’m doing right now, which is changing the way I respond to my suffering. Every single pain that shows up inside me, I’m going to meet with kindness and I’m going to recognize that each moment of suffering is worthy of self-compassion. I’m strong and I can face fear and I can hold space for my emotions, no matter how hard it is. I deserve to be a safe place for fear, as it rises and falls in my body. I am my best ally and I have everything I need right here inside me to get through these hard times. Now I promise to be there for myself when things get hard. I’m sending you my love. Now Kimberley, go gently into this moment, my darling. ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today on the podcast we are talking with Christian Newman about managing health anxiety.  Christian is an anxiety coach who has done a lot of work learning to manage his own health anxiety and today he is sharing with us the tools that he has used to help regain his life from health anxiety.  In this interview, Christian shares his own struggle with health anxiety and how it impacted his daily life. He shares how a terrifying panic attack led him on a journey to discover how to deal with his health anxiety. He shares with us several important tools that he has used to help him effectively manage his health anxiety. The first tool is the contract that he made with himself. In this contract, Christian wrote down everything that he was going to do to overcome his anxiety. This included stress management, diet, exercise routine, and sleep habits. Once he made this contract, he committed to taking action in his own life. One of the first actions that he took involved addressing the compulsions that fueled his health anxiety. He asked himself what positive actions he could take instead of engaging in the compulsive behavior. This allowed him to teach his brain to engage in something more positive which would then allow him to move forward. He also discusses how mindfulness including journaling, setting intentions, and meditation have helped along with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  He explains that at times he still has moments of uncomfortable symptoms or sensations, but he has learned how to recognize what is happening and not allow those feelings to derail his life. Christian’s Instagram @healthanxiety.coach Christian’s website www.healthanxiety.coach ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today I want to talk with you all about the feelings of uncertainty you may have coming out of COVID-19. As we slowly begin to move out of quarantine, a lot of my patients and clients have started to talk about how scary it is to go back into life because there are so many uncertainties. Coming out of a difficult time requires us to accept change while staying in the uncertainty. When we begin coming out of COVID-19, we must face this sort of uncertainty, not knowing whether it will stay or whether it will get better or if it will come back. What is it going to look like in six months? What is it going to look like in a year? These are the questions we are all asking and because we are asking those big, big questions, we are going to have big, big emotions about them. Having these big emotions does not mean that you are not handling this well.  It doesn't mean that there is something wrong with you. My hope is to give you permission to have them. My second wish is to ask you to please not judge yourself for what you experience as you begin coming out of COVID-19. If those big emotions show up, before you judge yourself gently say, "It's okay. It's okay that I feel this. I'm allowed to feel these emotions." Remember, it is normal to feel anxiety. You might have anxiety about having to go back to seeing people in person. You might have anxiety about having to find a new rhythm to life. You may have been secretly benefiting from quarantine because it meant that you didn't have to be around the thing that scared you before COVID-19. If you have been lucky enough to not see the thing that frightens you, I really urge you to go right back into staring that fear in the face as soon as possible, because the longer you delay it, the harder it's going to get.  The thing to remember about anticipation is that is ultimately just about the uncertainty.  It's about leaning in and saying, "Okay, I radically accept that I don't know. I'm going to take one step at a time. I am not going to beat myself up. I'm going to do my best to be non-judgmental. And I'm going to try and find a glimpse of joy along the way." I'm going to look for those teeny tiny shimmers of joy that may be along the way. I still believe that when we open our eyes to joy, we can find it, even if it's once a day.  So, I hope you go with intention and give yourself permission to have all the feels.  ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today we are going to talk about a really important topic: learning to trust yourself.  Trust is so important for our feelings of safety and security. So often I hear from people who are experiencing anxiety and depression that they do not trust themselves. Today I want to share with you all a metaphor about trust, that I love, and I think it will help you conceptualize how to look at trust. This is a metaphor that Brene Brown has talked about a lot. She said that when you meet somebody they have an empty jar (metaphorically) and overtime as they show you in little ways, it might be their consideration, their respect for you, maybe they remembered your birthday, perhaps they sent you a little care package, every time they do something nice for you one marble is placed in the jar. If they do another small thing, you put another marble in the jar and overtime that jar fills up. This is how we experience a sense of trust for that person. Trust is something that grows and it often doesn’t come from the big things. It comes from the teeny tiny things. Maybe a little smile when you are having a hard time, or checking in with you, or holding a safe place for you when you are struggling. So, now that we have that conceptualization that trust is something we build over time, we also need to recognize that when somebody has let us down the marbles may come out. Maybe half the marbles. Maybe all the marbles. Perhaps just one. We can always grow trust back even if someone has betrayed us. If we want to build that trust back up, this involves giving the person a second chance. Often when someone has been very seriously betrayed, they make the choice, "I don't want to trust that person. I don't want to ever put myself in that position again.” Whereas other people might say, “well I love this person. I'm willing to take the risk.”  Now, this applies to ourselves too. You begin learning to trust yourself based on the small acts that you do for yourself. It's about taking care of yourself, making sure you're well-fed, making sure you're listening to your body. When you're frightened, it's about doing the hard thing instead of the easy thing. Every time we do that we are saying, “I've got your back unconditionally even during the difficult times.”  Now, just like I said before if you betray yourself, you ignore your needs, and put yourself down, you take out some of those marbles. If I've let a friend down or my partner down or my child down, I will intentionally try to regain their trust, and I'll do it in very small ways. I will be there for them, be kind to them, show up for them. This is the case for myself as well. If I have let myself down, I will need to show up in small ways with the intention that I want to trust myself.  A lot of the time, when I'm doing hard work in therapy with clients, they back down because they tell themselves, “I can't do this. I can't.” I tell them this is a matter of trust. You think you can't because you haven't in the past. This is a part of the process of learning to trust yourself, and it's an intention that you need to work on every day. Through those small acts, you'll get there. There will be days when you lose marbles. We all make mistakes, but we can all stand up and make the intention to build trust again for ourselves. It has to be unconditional. That is where our long-term wellness can benefit. So, I'm going to challenge you to think about how full your jar is for the people around you and the one for yourself and then ask yourself how intentional you are about building up that jar of trust. ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today we have on the podcast an amazing guest, Heather Hansen. Heather is a trial attorney, television legal analyst, and author of The Elegant Warrior: How to Win Life’s Trials Without Losing Yourself. Heather shares how we can learn to become a better advocate for ourselves using many of the same tools that she has used in the courtroom.  In this episode, Heather details the “tools of an advocate” that you can use to help win over your own self jury, that critical voice in your head that may say “You’re not good enough. Things aren’t going to work out. It’s time to be anxious.”  One of the tools Heather discusses involves collecting evidence when faced with self-doubt or worry. She suggests writing down, at the end of the day, what has made you proud. By collecting evidence, you start to build credibility with yourself. You can’t advocate for yourself unless you believe in yourself. Collecting evidence, building credibility and believing in yourself are the first steps in learning to become a better advocate.  Another tool of the advocate involves the words that you use and particularly the words you say to yourself. Words can create your reality. If you are anxious and use the term ‘I am freaking out’ you likely will freak out.  However, changing your words to ‘I am concerned’ can actually change how you view a situation. The next tool is perspective. If you view the world as dangerous and scary then the world is going to feel dangerous and scary. There are always many ways to view a situation, Heather challenges us to look at all of those different views and then choose the perspective that best serves you. Finally Heather spends some time discussing how presentation, body language, and tone are also important tools of an advocate. Heather provides such fascinating information and amazing insight. I was taking notes during the entire interview! I hope you find it as helpful. You can find more information on Heather Hansen's blog, podcast, books, and coaching services at heatherhansenpresents.com The Elegant Warrior: How to Win Life's Trials Without Losing Yourself Find Heather on Instagram @imheatherhansen ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit podcast. Today I want to talk to you about anger. I have talked about anger before, but this time is a little bit different. I want to tell you why anger is your friend. When I say that to people, they usually have a reaction and they say “No, it’s not. Anger is horrible. Anger makes me uncomfortable.” I think we have anger all wrong because society tells us it’s wrong. We are told “You are not allowed to be angry. It is disrespectful to be angry. You’re overreacting. You are so insecure.” Those are the messages we so often receive about anger and they only direct us away from listening to our anger. Let’s first discuss, what is anger? Anger is an emotion that you feel and it is usually a reaction to some kind of injustice or some kind of threat. If you have been wronged, you feel angry about it. If you feel like you are physically or emotionally in danger, anger is usually the emotion that arises. Anger is just one emotion in our toolkit and it is so important.  The cool thing about anger is that anger propels us forward. While anxiety pulls us backward, anger pushes us forward into either protection or problem solving mode. Anger is your friend because it shows up with a message that we should listen to. If you feel anger, the trick is to see that underneath the anger is an emotion that has a lot of knowledge and something to tell you. Anger is your friend because it will help lead you to where you work is, whether that is fear, shame, guilt or any other underlying emotion.   When you feel anger arise, the first thing I am going to encourage you to do is to just validate the feeling. You can say “I feel angry and that is OK or I am noticing anger in my body right now.” Next I want you to meet yourself with compassion. Something has been activated, some kind of pain and all pain, no matter the source, deserves and requires compassion. Finally, once you’ve validated and practiced self-compassion, the next step is to ask yourself what is underneath this anger?  What is it trying to tell me? So in this moment just get really quiet and listen. Are you angry because you are afraid? Are you angry because you feel shame? Are you angry because someone brought up a fault that you didn’t really want to address? These are some reasons we all feel anger so remember you are not alone.  Since anger is your friend you can use it to propel you forward into solutions. If you listen to the anger, validate it and ask it what it needs, it will usually led you to your suffering so that you can either tend to it or solve it. It is really THAT powerful! ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. Today I want to share with you one of my favorite topics of all time: how to access your compassionate voice. You may be thinking what exactly does that mean?  Well it means helping you to get in touch with the compassion that lives inside each of you. So often my clients and patients say to me “I don’t know how to access compassion” or “I don’t know what that even feels like.” Here is the thing. Your compassionate voice has always been inside of you, but sometimes other messages are simply louder. If you learn to listen deeply for it than it becomes so much easier to pick up. That little voice inside of you is ready to speak up and it is ready to fill you with a loving sense of self-compassion. During this episode, I walk you through how to begin to access your compassionate voice. You start by closing your eyes, following your breath and asking yourself some questions. These questions help you to tap into your compassionate voice and to start to become familiar with it. First, what does your compassionate voice sound like?  What tone does your compassionate voice speak in? How would you like your compassionate voice to show up for you? How do you relate to your compassionate voice? Finally, what do you need from your compassionate voice?  I really hope you will be open and experiment with this practice. It is such a beautiful exercise and the more you do it, the more you will hear and feel your compassionate voice. Even if it seems unnatural at first, I hope you will still give it a try because it can be really helpful for your mental health. Try viewing it as a type of emotional training. You are giving yourself a tool that one day you may need and then you will have it with you and know how to use it. Remember compassion is not about making the pain go away; rather, it is about meeting your suffering with safety. It is about showing up for yourself during the hard times.  ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. Today I want to talk with you about self-compassion and to give you a compassion tool to try if you are struggling with feeling worthy, deserving, or comfortable with self-compassion. In order to understand this tool, I want you to imagine a scenario. Let’s imagine you are having a moment of fear. In that moment, you may naturally engage in a safety behavior, something that protects you from the fear. Safety behaviors are natural. We as humans have learned to protect ourselves by getting away from danger. However, a problem that often comes with safety behaviors is the unintended consequence. If you have social anxiety and your safety behavior is to avoid social interactions then the unintended consequence may be that you feel lonely. So if you have a fear and you engage in a safety behavior that leads to unintended consequences, you may then judge yourself for how poorly you handled a situation. Here is where the compassion tool comes in. Before you start judging, I want you to try and catch yourself. This takes a lot of mindfulness.  Try and recognize that these safety behaviors are part of the human experience. Try telling yourself “all humans engage in safety behaviors because all humans have felt fear, sadness, guilt or shame. I am going to show myself some compassion.”  Another point to remember is that when we have an emotion whether it is fear or sadness or shame and we engage in a safety behavior another unintended consequence is that we are actually making that emotion feel much bigger. The more you don’t want to feel fear, the stronger and scarier it actually feels. Again, I want you try meeting those emotions with compassion. When you notice fear you may try saying “OK I am having feelings of fear. All humans feel fear. This is a normal experience.” Instead of engaging in a safety behavior you might say “Wow fear, thank you for showing up. Thank you for trying to protect me. I am going to send you well wishes because I want to create a relationship with fear that is positive instead of negative." I truly hope this compassion tool will be of help to you in those moments of struggle. I hope you will show yourself compassion for all of those emotions and feelings that are part of the human experience. ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com Did you know that we were listed in the top 10 OCD podcasts to follow in 2020? https://blog.feedspot.com/ocd_podcasts/

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today I want to share with you the five thoughts you need to watch out for during COVID-19. I know we are in a stage right now where we are all trying to adapt to our new normal. Over the past week, I have noticed a few thoughts that have come up with clients about our current situation that I want to share with you.  Here we go. These are the 5 thoughts you need to watch out for during COVID-19. 1. “I cannot handle this.”  This is really important because if you are telling yourself that you cannot handle it then chances are you probably won’t. What I would love for you to say instead is, "I can do hard things.” You don't have to do it perfectly, but you absolutely can handle it. 2. “I am going crazy indoors." It is easy to start feeling claustrophobic if you are constantly reminding yourself that you are indoors or cooped up. Instead try switching this statement to “It’s hard for me to be indoors.” I also think it is really important if you are in a place where it is safe and you are able to try and get outdoors every day. Even if it means just standing outside your front door. Getting outdoors at least once a day is so important for our mental health. 3. “When will it end?” This one is really, really hard. If you are spending a lot of time trying to answer this question then you are probably going to end up frustrated, disappointed and more anxious because nobody has the answer. Instead, I would encourage you to try and stay in the present moment. Try focusing on the present day only, not what might happen next week or next month. 4. “Life will never be the same.” Another one that is really hard because there is a lot of grieving happening right now. You may be grieving that your life looks and feels so different. If we keep telling ourselves that life will never be the same, we end up creating a lot more anxiety and ultimately a lot more grief. I think it is so important to give yourself a lot of compassion if this thought is coming up for you.  5. “I should” statements. These look like “I should be handling this better. I should be cleaning my house. I should be learning a new language.” No, we are in the midst of a pandemic. You may not have the energy, bandwidth or mental space to be doing any of those things and that is absolutely OK. I would encourage you to shift your language from “I should” to “I could.” Instead of saying “I should be handling this better.” say “I could be handling this better, but I am doing the best I can with what I have.”   So these are the five thoughts I want you to watch out for during COVID-19. Some of them you may be thinking a lot, some not at all, but I really felt it was important to address these five because it can be so easy to fall into some of these traps! ERP School, BFRB School, and Mindfulness School for OCD are all now open for purchase. If you feel you would benefit, please go to cbtschool.com Please join the IOCDF for a live Townhall discussion on COVID-19 & OCD Saturday April 18 at 2 PM EST. There will be a live Q&A session. Please click here for more information. Did you know that we were listed in the top 10 OCD podcasts to follow in 2020? https://blog.feedspot.com/ocd_podcasts/