Your Anxiety Toolkit - Practical Skills for Anxiety, Panic & Depression – Details, episodes & analysis

This episode unpacks how OCD shows up from conception through postpartum—and shares compassionate, evidence-based tools (especially ERP) to help you move from fear to values-based parenting.

In this episode, Kimberley Quinlan shares compassionate, practical tools to help you manage anxiety around "toxic" or triggering people—without losing your peace, your confidence, or your values. 

Discover 12 science-backed statements to stop self-blame, ease anxiety, and build self-compassion for lasting recovery.

If you want to know how to be uncomfortable without making it worse, you're in the right place. Today, we're talking all about being uncomfortable and learning how to be uncomfortable in the most skillful, compassionate, respectful, and effective way. This applies to any type of discomfort, whether it be your thoughts, your feelings, any physical sensations, or the pain that you're feeling. Anything that you're experiencing as discomfort, we're here to talk about it today. Let's do it. 

Welcome back, everybody. For those of you who are new, welcome. My name is Kimberley Quinlan. I'm a marriage and family therapist in the state of California. I'm an anxiety specialist, and I love to talk about being uncomfortable. It's true, I don't like being uncomfortable, but I love to talk about being uncomfortable, and I love talking about skillful ways to manage that. 

Now, before we get started, let's first talk about what we mean by being uncomfortable. There are different forms of discomfort. One may be feelings or emotions that you're having—shame, guilt, anxiety, sadness, anger. Whatever it is that you experience as a feeling can be interpreted and experienced as uncomfortable. 

Another one is sensations. Physical sensations of anxiety, physical sensations of shame, and physical sensations of physical pain. I myself have a chronic illness. Physical sensations can be a great deal of discomfort for us as human beings. We're also talking about that as well. 

We're also talking about intrusive thoughts, because thoughts can be uncomfortable too. We can have some pretty horrific, scary, mean, and demanding thoughts, and these thoughts can create a lot of discomfort within us. 

What we want to do here is we want to first acknowledge that discomfort is a normal, natural part of life. It truly is. I know on social media, and I know in life, on TV, and in movies, it's painted that there are a certain amount of things you can do, and if you were to attain those, well, then you would have a lot less discomfort. But as someone who is a therapist who has treated the widest range of people, I've learned that even when they reach fame, a lot of money, or a degree of success, we can see that they have some improved wellness. They do have some decrease in discomfort, but over time, they're still going to have uncomfortable thoughts. Sometimes having those things creates more uncomfortable thoughts. They're still going to have physical pain, and they're still going to have emotions that cause them pain, particularly when they're not skillful. 

What I've really learned as a human being as well is we can have a list of all the things that we think we need in these circumstances to be happy. But if our thoughts and our feelings and our reactions to them aren't skillful, compassionate, wise, and respectful, we often create more suffering, and we're right back where we started. 

Now, I don't want it to be all doom and gloom, because the truth is, I'm bringing you some solutions here today—things that you can apply right away and put into practice, hopefully, as soon as you've listened to this podcast. Let's get to it. 

First, I'm wondering whether we can first discuss what it means to make it worse because a lot of you go, "What? Make it worse? Are you telling me I'm to blame?" And that's not what I'm doing here. But I do think that we can do some kind of inquiry, nonjudgmental inquiry into how we respond to our suffering. 

LIFE IS 50/50

Think of it this way: I am a huge proponent of some Buddhist philosophy here, which is that suffering is a part of life. Discomfort is a part of life. I believe that life is 50/50. There is 50% wonderful, but you're still going to have 50% hard. Sometimes that percentage will be different, but I think it creates a lot of acceptance when we can come to the fact that there's going to be good seasons, but there's also going to be some really hard seasons in our lives. It doesn't have to be that it's 50/50 all the time. Sometimes you might be in a really wonderful season. Maybe you're in a really tough season right now. I'm guessing that's the case because you're listening to this episode. I recently went through a really tough season, which inspired me to make this episode for you. But in life, there is suffering. But what we know about that is how we respond to that suffering can actually determine whether we create more and more suffering. 

WE RESIST IT

One way that we make it worse is, when we are experiencing discomfort, we resist it. We try to get rid of it. We clench up around it. We try to push it away. What often happens there is, what you resist persists. That's a common saying we use in psychotherapy. Another thing to consider here is, the more you try to push it down, the more it's going to bubble up anyway, but in ways that make you feel completely out of control, completely lost in this experience, and maybe overwhelmed with this experience. Another thing is, the more you resist it, the more you're feeding your brain a story that it's important and scary, which often means that it's going to send out more anxiety hormones when you have that situation come up again. That's one way we make it worse. 

WE JUDGE IT 

Another way we make it worse is, we judge it. When we have discomfort, we judge it by going, "This is wrong. This is bad. You're a bad person for having this discomfort. What's wrong with you for having this discomfort? It shouldn't be here." 

WE THROW "TANTRUMS" 

I've done a whole episode about this, and this is something that is my toxic trait, which is I go into this emotional tantrum in my head where I'm like, "This is bad. This is wrong. It shouldn't be happening. It shouldn't be this way. It should be this other way. It's not fair. I can't believe it's this way." I totally can catch myself going down a rabbit hole of judging the situation, the circumstance, and myself and my discomfort, which only creates more discomfort for myself. 

WE RUMINATE

Another way we make things worse is rumination, which is similar to what I was just talking about. But rumination is, we try and solve things, we loop on them. Again, it could be a looping on, "Why is this happening? It shouldn't be happening," like I just explained. Or maybe it's trying to figure it out. Often, we ruminate on things that actually don't have a solution in the long run anyway. 

Maybe you have chronic pain. Let's say you do, and you're ruminating, "What could it be? Why is it there?" I mean, the truth is, we don't usually have a medical degree. Our rumination, it might feel productive, but we don't actually have the details to know the answer. 

Let's say something went wrong at work and you made a big mistake, and we ruminate about what we did, how bad it was, and how humiliating it was. But in that situation, we're trying to solve something that's already happened that we have no control over anymore. 

For people who have anxiety, maybe they're trying to ruminate, trying to solve whether bad things will happen in the future, but we all know we can't solve what's going to happen in the future. That's a dead end. That's a dead-end road, and it again creates more suffering on our part.

WE PUNISH OURSELVES 

The next piece here is, we punish ourselves. We punish ourselves for having discomfort. We might withhold pleasure. We might treat ourselves poorly. We might not show up in ways that really honor our mental health and our self-care because we've made a mistake, we are going through a hard time, or we're having this uncomfortable experience. These things, while in the moment they feel warranted and they feel productive and effective, they're actually not. All they're doing is adding to the suffering you're already experiencing. 

For those of you who say, "Yeah, no, but I deserve to suffer more," that's actually not true either. We have to really catch that because punishing someone with this sort of very corporal punishment kind of method—or we need to beat you up—actually, we've got so much research to show it doesn't make you better. It doesn't prevent uncomfortable things from happening. It doesn't make it so that you don't make a mistake. You're a human being. We're all struggling. We're all doing the best we can, and we're not going to do it perfectly. 

What can you do differently? Let's now talk about how we can be uncomfortable in an effective, productive,  compassionate, and respectful way. For me, one of the first things that helps me is to really double down on my mindfulness practice. Sometimes the best thing you can do with mindfulness is to become aware that you're engaging in these behaviors, to catch them, and to label them when you are. It might be as simple as labeling it as "I'm in resistance." You might just say 'resistance' or 'rumination.' You're bringing to your mind and you're bringing to your attention that you're engaging in something that you've identified as not helpful. That in and of itself can be so helpful.

Now, for those of you who are new to me, I have two episodes that I've done on this type of situation in the past. Number one was Episode 188, where I talked about how to tolerate uncomfortable sensations specifically. The other one is Episode 113, which is where we talk about specifically how to manage intrusive thoughts. You can go on there after you've listened to this, but stay with me here because I'm going to give you a little step-by-step process. 

MINDFULESS

Number one, with mindfulness, we're going to identify and become aware that we're in resistance, that we're ruminating, that we're beating ourselves up, and we're also going to practice non-judgment as best as we can. Think of this like a muscle in your brain. You're going to practice strengthening that muscle. But once we are aware of it and once we've acknowledged that we're judging, we're then going to be aware of or bring our attention to where we are in resistance to allowing it to be there because that's ultimately a part of our work. 

Discomfort rises and falls so much faster when you do nothing about it. What I want to offer you is, the solution, in some way, can be quite simple, which is to do nothing about the discomfort except love it. Be careful and gentle with yourself. Do nothing at all about trying to make it go away. Do nothing at all about punishing yourself. 

NON-JUDGMENT

The non-judgment piece is where we allow it to be there without making a meaning about it. Here's an example. You've had an intrusive thought that was really, really scary, and you wish you didn't have it. You actually are concerned about it. It alarmed you. What you can do is, in that moment, acknowledge that thoughts are thoughts. They're not facts. They don't mean anything. They're just sentences that our brains come up with. What we often do is, when we have it, we think, "What does that mean about me? Why am I having this thought? Why am I having this sensation? Why am I having this anxiety? Why am I having this anger? Why am I having this shame? Why am I anxious in this social situation? Why is this hard?"

NOT OVER-IDENTIFYING

What we want to come back to is not making meaning of it, not over-identifying with it and just acknowledging that this is a normal part of human life. This is a normal part of being a human. We all have intrusive thoughts. We all have strong emotions, some more than others. But if you're someone who has strong emotions more than you maybe think others are, there's a couple of things I want you to remember. Number one, we actually don't know how other people are doing, so you can't actually say that they're not having these emotions. Maybe they are. 

Often, people will say to me, "You always seem so calm." I'm like, "Oh, you have no idea." Like, yeah, I am calm in many situations, but it doesn't mean I don't have anxiety about certain things or big, big, big emotions about certain things. You just don't see it. You don't see it on the camera; you don't see it in the podcast. You don't see it in my daily life. It's at home in my mind when I'm experiencing it as I'm regulating. But we want to work at not over-identifying with "What does it mean about me" and that "I'm bad for having these experiences."

One thing you must take away, and I say it quite often, is there is no thought, feeling, sensation, urge, or image that makes you bad. The meditation vault, which we just launched, is an online vault, a collection of meditations for people with sticky thoughts, intrusive thoughts, anxiety, and so forth. They're very, very specific in almost every single one. I work at getting them to not overidentify with the experience they're having. 

Oh, you're having an intrusive thought. Let's not make meaning of what that means about you. 

Oh, you're having shame. Your shame is telling you that you're bad. Let's not agree with it. Let's acknowledge that it is a thought and a feeling, but it's not a fact about you. 

You've made a mistake; you failed. Okay, we can acknowledge that, but that doesn't make you a failure. We want to catch over-identifying with what our discomfort is experiencing and how we're experiencing that discomfort. The over-identification, the labeling, and the making meaning often is what contribute to us feeling double the discomfort. 

MAKE SPACE FOR THE DISCOMFORT

The next thing you want to do is make space for the discomfort. My clients roll their eyes because they know I'm going to say it. I'm going to say, "Why can't we make some space for this emotion," or "Would you be willing to make some space for this emotion as it rises and falls?" If we make space for it to be here while we go about our day, while you interact with your child or your loved one, or your client, or your employer or your employee—if we can just make space for it to be there, nonjudgmentally, it tends to be less loud. 

BE WILLING TO BE UNCOMFORTABLE

The whole point of the work that I do here with my patients and with you is to nurture a sense of you having any emotion, any feeling, or any discomfort in a safe way, in a way where you make space for it. I often will say, we want to work towards you being able to have any thought, feeling, sensation, urge, or image so that you know that there's nothing you can't handle. If you're really willing to feel it all, if you're really willing and have practiced giving yourself permission to feel all the discomfort, there's very little that can be painful for you. There's very little that can stump you. There's very little that can hold you back. 

Often, when people ask me, "How do you do what you do? You spend all day with clients who are suffering, and you're in the suffering with them. And then you get online and do these videos, or you do social media. How do you do all that?" The only reason, there's nothing special about me, truly. The only thing about me is I'm willing to feel a lot of discomfort. I really am. The more I practice having it, the more I feel empowered that I can handle anything. 

Confidence to do things isn't something you just learn and have; you get it by feeling feelings. Having them willingly and making space for them—truly, this is the work. If there's really anything I've learned, it's that—we have to be better at making space and feeling our feelings and having the discomfort and saying, "Great, this is a wonderful opportunity for me to practice being uncomfortable." If something gets thrown out of whack this week for you, I urge you to say, "Okay, good. This is another great opportunity for me to practice being uncomfortable. Where do I notice my resistance to being uncomfortable? Where do I notice the judgment? Where do I notice that I overidentify with it? Where do I notice that I'm punishing myself for it?" Okay, good. Now that we know, we're aware, and we're non-judgmental, let's use this as an opportunity to be able to feel any experience that comes up. Things get a whole lot less scary if you've already practiced feeling your feelings. 

FEEL YOUR FEELINGS

I actually did a whole podcast on that as well. It's Episode 65, where I talk about how your feelings are meant for feelings. That's another resource if you want to jump into that kind of topic as well. But then once you've done all that—we've done this zooming in and now we zoom out—then you move on with your day. You don't just sit there and feel your feelings and sit on the couch and stare at the floor going, "I'm feeling my feelings. I'm feeling my feelings. Here they are." That's fine if that's what you feel right about. But ideally, you would take the feelings with you and go mow the lawn or do the things you love or do the things that you need to get done today, your chores or whatever that might be. 

But take this practice with you, because if you can get good at feeling discomfort, then you can marry that skill. It's a skill. It's not something that you were born with; it's something that you can learn to do. But once you get good at that, then you can marry it with, "Now I'm going to go live my life while I use that skill." And then you 10x your life, truly, 10x your ability. You're still going to be uncomfortable. You're still going to have hard days. You're still going to have some discomfort, but your experience of it will not be one of, "Oh no, geez, I hope it goes away. I hope it's not strong today. I hope it doesn't stay all day because it really messes me up." It won't be like that. You'll be like, "It doesn't matter. I know it's here, and I'm going to be here with it, and I'm going to make space for it. I'm going to be kind. I'm going to be non-judgmental about it. But it can come. I've done it as much."

One thing I did learn, and I'll use this as an example, is I used to have the most excruciating sleep anxiety. I used to worry about not sleeping. Because if I didn't sleep, I'd have massive anxiety. The next day, I'd be teary. I just couldn't function well. As I got pregnant and went to have my first child, I was so worried about how my mental health would go. 

Don't get me wrong; not having sleep did impact my mental health for sure. But getting less sleep and having to get up and take care of a baby, and then having to get up and go to work once I'm done with maternity leave, and learning that I can actually get through a day, using my skills, seeing my patients, and managing my emotions, a lot of my sleep anxiety went away because all I could think of was that I've done worse. I've literally gone a night where I slept for 25 minutes and I still was able to cope. Even if I can't fall asleep tonight, I know I can handle it. That empowerment is gold. That change in perspective. That attitude shift about discomfort is a game changer. 

Now, of course, you know what I'm going to say. This has to be done with an immense degree of compassion. This has to be done in small, baby steps. I'm not here to tell you to throw yourself into 10 out of 10 discomfort, but if you have to, I still trust and believe wholeheartedly that you can still handle it. I always say to my patients, no one has ever died from discomfort itself. It won't kill you. It's just going to be really hard. We can practice holding ourselves kindly as best as we can as we ride that wave. That's the work. 

To recap, what makes it worse? Discomfort and uncomfortability get worse when we do anything to try and make it go away. We won't resist it with this urgency to get it go away. But the solution is acceptance, willingness, non-judgment, compassion, making space for it, and then engaging with your life. Again, I'll say it again. The solution is accepting the discomfort. Willingness is the willingness to be uncomfortable. The non-judgment of being uncomfortable. It's neither good nor bad; it's neutral. It is still uncomfortable, but it doesn't mean you are bad or it's bad. We're going to be self-compassionate as we feel this uncomfortable feeling. And then we're going to keep making space and moving back into our lives, doing maybe baby steps at a time. Even if you do this for 10 seconds, I applaud you. Let's celebrate you. If you do it for 30 seconds and you're able to do that multiple times a day, you are on the right track. If you can be uncomfortable for three minutes at a time, you're basically winning at life. I want to encourage you, this is huge. 

Sometimes, when things are really hard at the Quinlan household and I want to scream, yell, or totally do something that I know I will regret, stopping and saying, "Okay, this is discomfort. Can you stay with it? Can you make space for this for three minutes or 30 seconds," has given me an opportunity to not say things I don't mean, to not react in ways that will end up causing me more suffering that keep me in line with my values. This ability to be uncomfortable has saved me from making some big mistakes in my life. Not all of them. I've still made mistakes, of course, but relationally, huge mistakes I could have made had I not slowed down and made a little space for the fact that I'm angry. "Okay, I'm going to make space for this anger," or that I'm hurt, or that I'm really anxious.

There's been times where I've wanted to run away from my anxiety, but my ability to, for 30 seconds at a time or 10 minutes at a time, make space for the anxiety, not judge it, allow it, and bring it on has meant that I've been able to face some really scary things, and that's what I want for you.

That's how you're uncomfortable. Is it easy? No way is not easy. Is it doable? Absolutely. I want to remind you, this is a practice in which you can grow. Before you know it, there will be these moments of empowerment that will shock you, and you can't believe that you've made these changes out of nowhere. I fully and wholeheartedly believe that. I've heard it from so many patients and so many students. A lot of you have also shared how helpful it's been. That is why I say it's a beautiful day to do hard things, because when we do hard things in a very skilled way, they actually make us feel really empowered, and we have a sense of "I can handle things now."

All right. It's a beautiful day to do hard things. Again, please go to CBT School if you're interested in any of our online courses. They talk about all these kinds of things. We have courses for OCD, anxiety, depression, BFRBs, meditation, mindfulness, time management—the whole deal. My hope is that this type of message can be taken in any area of your life, and hopefully, it makes it so much better. 

Have a great day. 

In today's episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit podcast, you will learn how to meditate to reduce anxiety. You'll also learn which meditation is best for anxiety and how to find a meditation practice that suits your lifestyle and your recovery needs.

With the pressure of today's society and the news being so scary, people are rapidly turning to meditation as a powerful tool to calm their minds and ease their anxiety. My name is Kimberley Quinlan. I am a licensed therapist and anxiety specialist, and my hope today is to teach you how you can use meditation to help manage and reduce your anxiety.

Now, what is meditation? Meditation is a training in awareness, and the goal is to help you get a healthy awareness and understanding of what is going on in your mind. So often, our minds are like a puppy. They are just going all over the place, jumping, skipping, yelling, screaming, and going in all different directions. If we aren't skilled, and if we aren't intentional with that, we can be off with that, off down the track in negative thinking, scary thinking, and depressive thinking. 

There are many benefits of meditation for anxiety relief. Meditation helps train your brain. Now, there are so many benefits to meditation for anxiety relief, and I want to share with you some of those benefits.

The first one is, it rewires your brain. It reduces the activity in the amygdala, which is the part of the brain that is responsible for the fear response. Meditation can also lower stress hormones such as cortisol. It can increase the production of those feel-good neurotransmitters like serotonin and dopamine. This is really important, particularly if you struggle with depression. 

It can also shift the brain chemistry and lead to improved mood, reduced anxiety, and an overall sense of well-being. We could also argue that this would be helpful for anybody, even if they don't have anxiety. 

We also know that meditation cultivates mindfulness, which we talk a lot about here on Your Anxiety Toolkit, which is the practice of being fully present and nonjudgmental in the moment.

Meditation increases self-compassion and acceptance, which I think we all agree can help us with our mental health, and it helps reduce negative thinking patterns and also reduces self-criticism. 

Now, there are a couple of problems here, though, with meditation. Often, when people come to me, they'll say, "I don't know about this whole meditation thing. It sounds a bit like a cult or a bit like a scam or a fad, a psychology fad." Often, that's because people have a misled idea about what meditation is and how it works. 

One of the main problems that I hear is that people expect that meditation will, poof, make their anxiety go right away. As they're practicing meditation—and it is a meditation practice—as they're starting to practice this meditation, they're getting frustrated because they're thinking, "This isn't working. It's not making my anxiety go away." 

We want to first challenge the idea that meditation is not a quick fix. It's not something that's going to, poof, make your anxiety go away, but there are so many benefits that I will talk to you about here in just a second. 

Another problem that people have with meditation is they get frustrated with the practice. They have these expectations that they should be able to do it. Well, simply because it's often sitting or very stationary, they assume, "I must be really good at this. It's such a basic task." But the truth is, it's not. We have to remove those expectations that we will be excellent at it, that it should be easy, or that discomfort won't arise. 

Another problem people have is that they do experience anxiety while they're meditating, and they'll say, "I'm here to get away from my anxiety, but when I'm meditating, everything is still, and I actually feel more anxious." We'll talk about that here in just a second. 

People also don't like meditation because they have been told that the solution to anxiety is to make it go away. And so, what would this mindfulness meditation practice really do if we're actually just sitting there thinking? What a waste of time, actually putting more focus on the actual problem of anxiety. Again, not true, but these are the common problems people have. 

The last one is, people say, "I don't have time for meditation." I always laugh because I do know that the Dalai Lama said, "For those who don't have time to meditate, they're the ones who need to meditate twice as long." That always made me laugh because there's been many times where I've said, "Oh, I don't have time today," and I laughed thinking, okay, even more important that these are the days that I focus on meditation. 

Let's talk about which meditation is best for anxiety, because I know you're here to talk about how meditation can help with your anxiety. Now, there are many types of meditation. No one really agrees what the best one is, and no one really even agrees on the specific types because there are so many and so many modifications. But here are some options—we will also talk about later how to apply these to your anxiety disorder—that you may want to consider. 

• VIPASSANA MEDITATION

The first one is mindfulness, or what we call Vipassana meditation. Now, this is a meditation that really helps you become skillful in how you respond to your intrusive thoughts, your feelings, and your sensations.

• BODY SCAN MEDITATION

Another type of meditation is body scan meditation. This is very body- and somatic-centered in that we're focusing on different parts of the body, often with some kind of relaxation technique to slowly move down the body and move us into a place of relaxation. 

Now, there are pros and cons to this meditation. Some people find it very relaxing, especially when we're looking at getting sleep. Others find that, again, their expectations are very high, and then they get quite frustrated when they're unable to get relaxed, because the truth is, when we're anxious, when that amygdala is firing in our brain, it is really hard to relax. Sometimes meditation in and of itself is not going to fix that. But a body scan meditation is a really effective one, particularly if you're trying to slow down the nervous system. Maybe look at trying to get some sleep, a nap, or some rest. 

• VISUALIZATION MEDITATION

Another type of meditation is visualization meditation. This is where you actually visualize something happening to you. Maybe you're walking along a path or along a beach. You're in a relaxed setting. Let's say you're an athlete. It might be visualizing you doing the activity, the exercise, or the skill that you're practicing—a layup for basketball, running a marathon, or so forth. The visualization can help with empowerment. It can help promote creativity. It can help create a sense of mastery over something that you haven't yet mastered. 

• WALKING MEDITATION

Another type of meditation is walking meditation. This is a great one, particularly if you're someone who is very sedentary during your work. I am one of those people. I sit a lot during my day. Walking meditation is similar to mindfulness meditation in that you're very aware of the present moment, what it feels like for your feet to touch the ground, for the balls of your feet to touch the ground compared to the heel of your feet, what it feels like for the wind to blow on your face, or what it feels like for the weight balance, going from left foot to right foot, and so forth.

• SELF-INQUIRY MEDITATION

Another type of meditation practice is self-inquiry meditation. This often involves inquiry or curiosity to who I am in this moment. It might be, who am I as I hear these sounds? Who am I when I have these thoughts? There are some pros and cons to this for those with anxiety. Sometimes, when we have anxiety, we already spend a lot of time doing a lot of self-inquiry or self-rumination about who we are. What's our identity? Are we good? Are we bad? This type of meditation can be beneficial for some, but for many people with anxiety, they may find it not helpful at all unless they're with someone who can very much direct them and keep them on track with the active inquiry instead of going into rumination.

• MANTRA MEDITATION

Another type of meditation is mantra meditation. This is where you repeat a mantra, a phrase, or a sound over and over again. It's about the training of the mind and the training of discipline for one specific sound, tone, or word. It can be very helpful, again, if there's a particular intention you're trying to go towards. But again, for those folks with anxiety, this can be very frustrating because, again, there's sort of this attachment and expectation and clinging to a certain outcome. For those of us who have anxiety, that can actually create a lot of distress in our bodies. Not to say that any of these are bad or good; it's just dependent on your specific set of situations.

• LOVING KINDNESS MEDITATION

One that I always love and talk about all the time is loving-kindness meditation. This is an act of compassion where you send yourself others and all sentient beings loving kindness and care. It is a way of generating, practicing, and nurturing self-compassion. It is a beautiful way to be in connection with people out in the world that maybe we don't have a connection with, particularly if we're lonely or feeling isolated and alone. Loving-kindness meditation can be so beneficial to people with anxiety or depression, OCD, health anxiety, and so forth if they're feeling so alone and they're really very hard on themselves. Loving kindness is absolutely a beautiful meditation for people with anxiety. 

• ZAZEN MEDITATION

Another type of meditation is zazen meditation, which is a specific zen meditation where the goal is to be focused on a direct experience of this present moment. The main goal is non-attachment. The goal is to allow everything to be just as it is. It's a very disciplined practice, but can be very beneficial to people who have anxiety. 

• BREATHE MEDITATION

The last two: number one, breath meditation where you focus on the breath and you have that as your focal point. This is very beneficial for people with anxiety. The only thing I would say is, for those who have somatic obsessions of a specific type of OCD, if your somatic obsession is already focused on the breath, we actually then wouldn't practice this because it would actually add to their hyper-awareness. But overall, breath meditation is a very beneficial practice for people with anxiety. 

• SOUND MEDITATION

And the last one is a sound meditation. This is where your focal point is on sound. Very beneficial for those with somatic obsession and very beneficial for people who really like the vibration of sound and really love music, and music is something that grounds them, lifts them up, motivates them, and so forth. 

There are different types of meditations and some pros and cons, but there are some specific things I want you to know and remember as you start a meditation practice and while meditating, because so many people have come to me to say, "I don't like meditating. It doesn't help me. Therefore, I'm not going to do it." I feel that that is such a shame because meditation can be such a powerful mental health practice. It can be such powerful training for the brain. 

I often say to my clients, when you start to notice some tightness in your knee or some shoulder pain, you don't just ignore it. You think, okay, I have an opportunity to strengthen that muscle around the knee or stretch out that shoulder. We usually move in and do some work, exercises, and practices to create an environment where that pain can go away. I think of meditation as being exactly that. It's like physical therapy for the brain, and it can help. Like I talked about, there are so many benefits to meditation, but it does require that we do it specifically in a way that doesn't make more anxiety.

Now I have a really exciting thing I want to mention to you before I get into all the things I want you to remember as you move into your meditation practice. Because so many people have come to me and said that they've listened to meditations online, they've gone to meditation trainings, and they actually found it to be not helpful for their anxiety, for their intrusive thoughts, or for their depression. 

I have created an online meditation vault specifically for those who have anxiety and repetitive intrusive thoughts. My goal with this meditation vault is to make it very informative for the person who struggles with high expectations and rapid, repetitive intrusive thoughts, and I try to bring that concept into the meditations so they're specific for people with anxiety. 

There are over 28 meditations. There are specific meditations for people with OCD, health anxiety, social anxiety, panic, generalized anxiety, and depression. There are meditations on sleep, meditations on compassion, meditations on mindfulness, and meditations on strong emotions like guilt and shame. I did my best to pack them all into one specific place so that you have a wide range of guided meditations specifically for whatever it is that you need. There's even a meditation for people who don't want to meditate. I felt that that was really, really important. 

You can click the link in the show notes below if you're interested. You can also go to CBTSchool.com to get information about the vault. It is very low-cost. I want it to be low-cost so everyone can access it, and I'm so excited for you guys to check that out.

If you are wondering how to meditate to reduce anxiety, there are things you need to remember as you practice meditation. 

Do not expect anxiety to magically disappear. Number one, if that were to happen, it probably wouldn't be for very long anyway. 

I want you to imagine this practice as the slow and steady growth of a muscle. If you were going to train at the gym, you wouldn't go straight in and pick up a hundred pounds right away. You would start low; 10, 15, maybe 10 to 12 and a half, then to 15, and you would slowly work your way up. You wouldn't have these expectations that your body would be able to pick up a hundred pounds at a time without pain afterwards. You would go in knowing that the cost of this is going to be that I may get pain if I overdo it, and I want you to think about that with your meditation practice as well. Not that you'll have pain, but that it's healthy to take baby steps and do it slowly and steadily.

Another thing I want you to think about is, again, to think of this as an opportunity to change the way your brain responds to anxiety. Think of this as an opportunity to change how you respond to discomfort, how you act in your daily life, and how you can change your habits to benefit your mental health.

Often, people will ask: how long does it take for meditation to reduce anxiety and stress? The answer here is very simple, which is, let's not put pressure on that to be the outcome. I know you came here to learn that exact answer, but the thing to remember here is, the more we resist anxiety, the more we want it to go away, the more we try and avoid it, the more we're feeding to our brain that it's dangerous and scary, and it will make our brain send out more stress hormones.

We want to use meditation as an opportunity to train our brains that we are no longer going to run away from anxiety and stress. Instead, we're going to open up a space for anxiety and stress and have it be a safe place. Have our bodies and our minds be a safe place for anxiety to rise and fall. It's important that we understand that this, again, is an opportunity for you to change your specific emotional reaction to having anxiety and stress.

Now that being said, I will still answer the question, which is, I think within time, you will probably see a very significant improvement. Most research shows that a short meditation practice of four to six weeks will significantly reduce people's stress and significantly improve people's relationship with their anxiety.

I often say to my patients, give it 30 days. Go in with a solid commitment to practicing as often as you can for 30 days. Track your anxiety; maybe even put it on a scale from 1 to 10. If you're able to do it in this way, where you're not trying to get rid of anxiety but instead trying to make it a place where you can have anxiety and not respond with judgment, criticism, and resistance, you'll probably find that you'll have significantly reduced levels of anxiety and stress after 30 days. 

Now, again, I want to emphasize that there is significant research to show that meditation for stress is very beneficial. In fact, we've found that practicing meditation again downregulates your stress response. It reduces your nervous system's activity and reactivity to stressful events in your life and can greatly benefit your overall well-being. Definitely, if you're someone who's struggling with a very stressful time, and I think we all are given that the news is so, so painful right now, I think it's a beautiful opportunity for us to start a meditation practice. 

Another thing I want you to remember here is that by practicing meditation, you widen your window of tolerance. Now, what does this mean? I've talked about it on the podcast before. If your window of tolerance is very narrow, it means, as soon as you have any kind of strong emotion, strong experience, sensation, or pain in your body because you haven't practiced being able to tolerate that, you are very much more likely to rely on unhelpful safety behaviors to cope with that distress. 

In discomfort, as I mentioned, we actually widen our window of tolerance. The wider we can have this window of tolerance, the more likely we are to be regulated when we have a lot of emotions. We can be steady and really intentional in how we respond. We are more likely to act according to our values than according to our fears. So we want to practice widening that window of tolerance. There is so much benefit to doing that. 

Another thing to remember, and I've mentioned this already, but I think it's really important as we finish up, is to not put pressure on yourself to get this right. I will often say to clients, and I say it all the time in the meditation vault over and over again, expect anxiety to show up over and over again. Expect your mind to go off track and go off and think about the grocery list. Your job is to bring it back to the present moment. 

Don't be upset with your brain for going off track. That's its job. Its job is to be highly functioning and thinking about all the things. But the training and the benefit is that discipline to bring you back to the focal point that you're on right now, depending on the type of meditation that you're doing. 

I hope that you can practice letting meditation be messy, because it is. Even very, very skilled monks who practice meditation for hours a day still report that there are days when meditation is messy. There are days when your brain will be all over the place like that puppy dog, but with practice, you will start to see an improvement in your ability to be disciplined and intentional with where you put your attention, which again, as I mentioned, reduces the chances of you engaging in safety behaviors that aren't helpful, reduces the chances of you engaging in compulsions, and reduces your chances of going back down into those negative thought processes. There are so many benefits.

The last thing I want you to remember is, as you begin this practice, be curious. Be open. Instead of being judgmental and rigid about what you think will happen, be curious about what might come from inquiring and moving into this practice. 

Meditation has changed my life. It has calmed me in the darkest hour. It has been there for me when I needed support, and I hadn't had anybody else to lean on. Meditation, as I mentioned, is a practice where you teach yourself to be a safe place for you to experience any emotion at all, and you know that it's there; you can take it with you wherever you're at. It costs nothing to practice meditation in the moment, and I hope that it's something that will bring you as much joy and as much wellness as it has for me. 

Have a wonderful day, everybody. As always, it is a beautiful day to do hard things. Again, if you're interested in the mindfulness meditation vault, you can click the link in the show notes.

Have a wonderful day.

If you are scared to take medication, you are in the right place. Today, we are going to take a deep dive into a very common fear that impacts many people and their recovery, and that is the fear of taking medication. If you're someone who needs help with this, I think this is going to be really helpful for you. 

Hello, my name is Kimberley Quinlan. I am an anxiety specialist, and I help people with anxiety. My hope is to make it an easy and a kind recovery for you. 

Now, today we're talking about the fear of taking medication, and a lot of what I do with my patients in my private practice, which is in California, is really helping them work through that fear. In addition, on my online platform called CBT School, I often get a lot of questions about this, such as whether or not people can take meds, should they take meds, and so forth. But before we get into all that, what I want to share with you first are a few housekeeping points that will keep us on point and in the right direction today. 

If you're someone who is scared to take meds, we first have to acknowledge that this episode is not going to cover whether you should take meds or not. I am not a medical doctor. I am not a medical professional. I am a mental health professional, and I do not prescribe medication. I am not licensed to do that. But I am here to help you manage the fear around it. If you are someone who wants to take medication but is afraid of it because of the side effects, or maybe because of the shame, the guilt, and the stigma around it, my hope today is that we can work on managing that fear and getting you the information and skills you need so that you can speak with your medical professionals and make a decision based on what is best for you. 

It is important to remember that every person is different, and it's important that you make these decisions with your medical doctor so that we're making a decision based on your medical history, where you're at in your mental health recovery, your genetics—all of the things that you need to discuss with your medical doctor. But today, let's get going. We're talking about managing medication anxiety. 

Where did this episode come from? I actually made a post about this on Instagram not long ago, and the response was overwhelming, with people saying, number one, "I'm too afraid to do it. Help me," and number two, a lot of people said, "I had a lot of anxiety around taking medication. I got the help I needed and I managed it, and now I'm so relieved that I did." I wanted to spend some time today talking about the reasons people are scared to take an antidepressant or other psychiatric medications or even medications in general. 

There are multiple reasons patients do not take their medications, due to fear. In this episode, we are coming the core reasons fears stops people from taking their antidepressants or other medicines. 

1. FEAR THAT MEDICATION WILL CAUSE SIDE EFFECTS

The number one reason that people reported being scared to take medication is the fear that medication will cause side effects. This is a very common fear around taking medication, and it is true. We will talk about the side effects here later in this episode, but that is a valid concern. But often, people are afraid of the side effects, even though they are not afraid of it being a catastrophic side effect. They're often afraid of just change, or they're afraid of what is uncertain and unknown, and that is a big thing for them. 

1. OCD FEAR OF TAKING MEDICATION

Another reason that people are afraid to take any kind of medication is an OCD fear of taking medication. The reason I say it like that is, it's beyond just a generalized fear of the side effects. It's often around a belief of what this medication will do to you. 

One example I've had in my private practice has been the subtype of OCD called emotional contamination. They're afraid that by taking the medication, it will dramatically change their personality or that they'll turn into a different person. There's a lot of compulsions around that, rumination around that, and avoidance around that. They're also doing this kind of avoidant compulsions in other areas of their lives as well. 

1. HEALTH ANXIETY: WHAT IF MEDICATION CAUSES AN ILLNESS

Another OCD fear of taking medication is under the umbrella of health anxiety. A lot of people are afraid that the side effects will be catastrophic, that it will give them some catastrophic medical condition if they were to take this psychiatric drug or any medication in general. 

1. PHARMACOPHOBIA (PHOBIA OF DRUGS AND ALCOHOL)

Now, in addition to that, there is actually a specific medication phobia called pharmacophobia, which is a phobia of drugs and alcohol. This is a specific phobia where people are afraid of any and all drugs. Often, in this case, they're afraid to take headache medication or allergy medication. They're even afraid to look at pills for reasons that could be plentiful. It could be a learned behavior around medication, particularly if they've heard stories of people who have misused drugs and bad things that have happened. That is another reason why people are often scared to take meds. 

1. FEAR OF MEDICATION SEXUAL SIDE EFFECTS

Another common fear, as we've already discussed, is fear of medication's sexual side effects. Now, for those of you who have a specific fear around the side effects, you have a valid concern. There are some medications that do cause sexual side effects, and we did an entire episode on Your Anxiety Toolkit talking specifically about the sexual side effects of anxiety medications. We had a psychiatrist come on and speak about this. It's episode 332, and I will link to it in the show notes if your interest is specifically more in-depth information about that. But I will also give some tips and tools to use around that later on here in this episode. 

1. I AM ASHAMED TO NEED MEDICATION (MEDICATION STIGMA)

Another fear around taking medication includes the fear of being ashamed or the fear that you're weak or that you're stigmatized for taking medication. This is a really, really big one. A lot of people feel that they are weak, faulty, or wrong for needing medication. Now, this is where I slow down and get very transparent. I am very comfortable sharing that I take medication for anxiety. I have, through different stages of my life, needed to take medication for this, and I'm an anxiety specialist, guys. I want to tell you that, not because I want to make this about me, but because I want to share with you that you can have all the tools and skills, and they really do work. 

Research does show that if you were to compare medication and CBT, especially for anxiety disorders, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is actually the number one way to get recovery from these anxiety disorders. But even better than that, the research shows that combining medication and cognitive behavioral therapy is the gold standard. And so, if you're really struggling, by combining these, this is where you can get massive help with your mental health struggle. 

Again, I want to really share with you that even though I have the skills and the tools, I take medication. There's no shame in that. A lot of times, we often will compare that you wouldn't feel ashamed for taking diabetic medication. You wouldn't feel ashamed if you needed medication for another medical condition. There is no shame, no guilt, and no stigma that I want you to take away from this episode from taking medication. 

Now, I want to also validate, yes, there is still a stigma. There will be some people out there who may even respond to this episode by saying, "You shouldn't take meds, and you should try this other treatment," and so forth. That's still going to be there. But I want to offer you a degree of compassion and a degree of education that there is absolutely nothing wrong with you if you want to take medication or need to take medication. 

1. FEAR THAT I WILL BECOME ADDICTED TO MEDICATION

Last, the fear about taking drugs is the concern that the medication will be addictive or that the person will become reliant on the medication. We'll talk about that here in just a little bit, but the one thing I want to mention here is, if you are in contact with your doctor—you're being constantly followed by your doctor and checked in by your doctor—you can bring up these concerns with them, and they can help determine that. Again, each of the questions you have, you should go to your doctor and bring it up because if you do have a history or if, in generations above you, you have a history of addiction, then absolutely bring that up to your doctor and they can help make decisions around different medications that can help prevent that for you.

MANAGING MEDICATION ANXIETY (SKILLS & STRATEGIES) 

Now let's go into managing medication anxiety. This is where the good stuff comes in. Number one is, I want you to prioritize finding a skilled and trustworthy psychiatrist or medical professional. It doesn't have to be a psychiatrist. In fact, there are other people who can help prescribe your medication, whether it be your pediatrician, your medical doctor, or your intern. It could be a nurse. There are psychiatric nurses who can prescribe medication. You want to find somebody who's going to slow down, take their time with you, not just push you through really fast, and answer your specific questions. 

Now, when it comes to managing anxiety, OCD, or health anxiety, we usually discourage asking compulsive questions, repetitive questions, or going overboard with the questions. But I do think that it's important that you give yourself permission and honor your need to ask the questions that you have about the medications you want to go on. That will help you understand the medication, understand the side effects, and understand the pros and cons so you can make an informed decision.

As we've said before, we want to understand questions about side effects, sexual side effects, addiction, how long you should be on medications, and what specific side effects you should be looking out for. We want to understand this. We want to know what the norm is for these medications on what it would look like, how fast you can see results, and what this process is going to look like. Don't be afraid to ask lots of questions. 

Now, if you have OCD fear of taking medication or pharmacophobia, a thing you might want to consider is finding an ERP therapist. I've had a lot of clients come to me who have consulted with their doctor, and they've agreed that medication would be helpful for their recovery and that they required some mental health advice in moving in that direction. What we did is either start by just looking at pictures of medication or we might fill the prescription of the med that they need to take and just have it with them, hold the medication, put it in their hand, smell the medication, and take one with the care and following of a medical professional. Start that process by slowly exposing them and practicing being around that medication to start with. 

If you are someone who's struggling in that area, absolutely consider seeking out an ERP therapist (exposure and response prevention) who can help manage all of that as we go and help with the response prevention piece. Because remember, exposure is not the main work; it's also catching any compulsions that you're doing around the medication. Maybe you're doing a lot of compulsive checking with the medication and so forth. 

Another thing I want you to think about is being able to challenge your faulty thoughts and beliefs about the medication. As we talked about before, with those reasons that people are afraid, there is often a lot of faulty, catastrophic thinking around medication. Ones that are common that I see with my patients are, "I won't be able to handle the side effects." Let's say a common side effect for a medication might be some nausea. Then we will say, "Okay, let's talk about your ability to handle nausea. Have you handled nausea in the past?" Let's say it's headaches. "Okay, what could you do if those headaches were to appear? How might you speak with your doctor about those? How might you be able to plan for that?" Maybe it's like, "What if I have a panic attack if I take the medication?" "Okay, let's talk about some skills and talk about challenging your ability to manage the anxiety that you feel." 

A lot of people say, "I already have a lot of anxiety. I don't want to do things that create more anxiety." Again, we'll say, "Are you willing to tolerate that anxiety? What are you telling yourself about your own mastery of riding waves of discomfort and so forth?" If you have, let's say, emetophobia, the fear of nausea and vomiting, "What do we believe about vomit? Do you believe that you can't handle that?" And again, you may need to defer to an ERP therapist to help you if you have emetophobia, the fear of vomiting and nausea, to help you manage that so that you can take the medications if that's something you're wanting to do. We do want to challenge faulty thoughts, and we want to challenge faulty beliefs about medication. 

Again, here is where I get really, really passionate about saying: There is absolutely no shame in taking medication. Taking medication does not mean you're weak, does not mean you're lazy. It doesn't mean you're doing anything wrong. It doesn't mean that you're never going to get better, and it doesn't mean you need to be on it forever. Again, we're here to encourage you to consult with your medical doctor and be flexible with your recovery. 

Now, being flexible is so important here. So often, patients of mine will say, "But what if I don't like the medication? What if I get on it and I really don't like it, or it makes me feel terrible and I can't function?" Well, okay, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. We're going to be flexible with this. We don't have to stay on it forever. Once you get on it, if then there is an issue, we will address that issue. Then we're not going to spend time before taking the medication trying to troubleshoot all the possible catastrophes and scenarios. We're only going to take one day at a time, and with each day, we're going to make measured, skillful, and wise decisions based on the actual events of that day, not on the possible scenarios that may happen, that may be catastrophic that haven't happened yet. 

So often, people who have a fear of medication are responding to things that haven't even happened yet. I know when I got POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome), I was not functioning, my anxiety was through the roof, I was depressed, and the doctors strongly advised me to take medication. A big part of me was absolutely like, "What if this makes it worse?" and all these things. I had to just say, "Kimberley, be present. Stay with what's happening today, and we will address that as it goes. We'll cross that bridge when that happens. If that does happen, we will speak with a medical professional. We will take one step at a time and we will do what we need to do." We want to catch that anticipatory anxiety about medications and the anticipatory anxiety about the side effects. It's very, very important that we catch and manage that as we go. 

Another thing to remember here is, you have to be willing to have side effects. As you go on medication, you have to be willing to feel some feelings that may be uncomfortable. As I mentioned, common side effects: headaches, nausea, tiredness, maybe a little jittery, and so forth. Again, I want to keep prefacing: please speak to your medical professional about the side effects because each medication is different. But be willing to have side effects. Again, being flexible, knowing that if this medication doesn't work for me, we can try something else. I know for me personally, I had to try five medications before I found one that fit me. Five. It took a long time. I had to taper up and then I had to taper down, and I had to try another one, which brings me to the next skill I want you to practice, which is patience. 

I just kept honoring my own needs and said, "I'm going to be patient with this process." A lot of my patients have found one medication that was prescribed by their medical professional and found that it was great. It's worked for them straight away. But we want to be patient, and we want to be willing to have a lot of different sensations. I'm not saying you will, but we want to be willing. I actually have a whole other episode on Your Anxiety Toolkit called How to Have Uncomfortable Sensations. If you're struggling with that, that may be a good resource for you to use as you go through this process as well. 

Now, if you have, or if you're afraid of sexual side effects, again, I talked about listening to that episode, but I will also say one thing that they did say in that episode: It is okay to seek out a sex therapist or try other skills, such as a skill called sensate focus, or speak to your medical professional about that. 

Now, there are a lot of meds that do not have sexual side effects. If that's something that is a concern for you, please mention that when you're seeing your psychiatrist or your medical professionals so that they can pick a medication that will reduce the likelihood of that. Again, we don't want to catastrophize about potential problems that haven't happened, but it is okay to bring that up if that's important to you. 

Now, of all the things and skills I'm going to give you today, the one thing I really want to emphasize is, please give yourself lots of space and lots of permission to rest during this process as you begin medication. I remember when I first went on medications, my mom actually said to me, "Hun, why don't you just use this time? Thin out your schedule and give yourself lots of time to rest. If you do have side effects, then you won't be overwhelmed with trying to work and push through." 

Any way you can during this process, take as much help as you can, whether that be neighbors helping you pick up the kids, grocery delivery, whether it be you don't clean the house this week and you just let things sort of slide a little. You let your colleagues, your teacher, or your coworkers know that you've started a medication and that you might be feeling well. 

Take as much space and take as much care as you can as you start this process. It is scary. It is anxiety-provoking. I'm not here to tell you that it won't be, but what I am here to say is we can do hard things. How can we support you as you make this value-based decision? How can you find help, support, and care as you lead forward with your values? You're not letting fear stop you anymore. You're doing the hard thing. You're taking the step for your long-term recovery, even though it's the hard one. How can we be very kind, compassionate, and effective moving forward as you move through this process? 

The next tool I want you to think about is being mindful around the side effects. What I mean by that is, when we do have side effects, we can be non-judgmental, we can stay present, and we can stay in non-resistance to that side effect if you have any. What we know here is, research does show that mindfulness practice does reduce people's experience of suffering. What we mean by that is, if you're suffering, your experience of it could be, "This is very, very bad," or your experience could be, "This is tolerable and doable, and I can handle it." 

How can you take the judgment out of the side effects? When you're having them, are you catastrophizing, saying, "This is terrible, this is bad, I can't handle this," or are you saying, "This is neutral and tolerable, and I can manage this"? If you're having a side effect, are you resisting it, pushing it, and fighting it, or are you giving yourself permission to be uncomfortable, and are you willing to allow those sensations to rise and fall? 

As I've already discussed, one of the points I had here in my notes is to remind you to always put your values first. If you believe that medication is the right choice for you, lead with that value. Do not let fear interfere with your decision here. That was a lot of rhyming words, but we're going to go with it. 

The next thing I want you to think about is to talk with your doctor about whether it would be helpful for you to log any changes. I find that it's very beneficial to log your symptoms. The day you start taking your meds and how many days you take that meds, you probably will need to taper up maybe, depending on what your doctor has told you to do. Take note of when you change any medications. Are there any changes in your anxiety? Is there any change in your mood? What side effects are you experiencing? And that will be there to help when you talk with your doctor next about how it's going and whether it's actually the medication. 

I know a lot from my patients, they'll say, "The medication is definitely causing this problem for me. I'm tired all the time." But actually, if they've logged, we can see, "Actually, around that same time, you started getting less sleep for reasons like around school, or maybe you had a lot of travel, or it was the holidays. Could that be what's actually causing your symptoms?" Take that log to your medical professional and let them help you decipher whether it is in fact the medication or if this is actually a lifestyle change that has happened in your life.

Again, let's challenge the stigma here. My main hope here with this whole episode is to take the stigma out of it. There is absolutely no reason for you to feel ashamed for taking medication. There is no reason to believe that you are weak for needing medication. I personally am proud of myself for saying and honoring that I matter. My wellness matters. I will do nothing but put my wellness, my mental health, and my medical health as number one, and I will do that proudly. If that means taking medication, so be it. If other people want to judge me, that's fine. I don't really mind if they judge me. Yes, it hurts my feelings sometimes, but they can have their opinion. I'm still going to do what's best for me. 

I hope that that empowers you to, again, learn from your medical professional what's best for you. Decide for yourself whether this is a value-based decision. Decide whether you're going to let fear stop you, and take baby steps. I cannot emphasize how important it is to take baby steps and to stay present. Only deal with problems as they arise. Do not make decisions based on potential problems that may show up in the future. Because if that's the case, you'll never move forward with your values. You'll always move forward with fear. We recently did a whole episode about how to act according to your values, not fear. This is another very important step for your recovery. 

The last thing I'm going to say is, it's a beautiful day to do hard things, and you can do hard things too. If you have a fear of taking medication, if you're scared to take medication and it's impacting your recovery, I hope that this has helped you to manage medication anxiety, to give you a little bit of empowerment, a lot of hope, and hopefully help you to manage your anxiety as you move forward. 

Have a wonderful day, everybody. It has been a pleasure being with you again. I know your time is incredibly valuable, and I'm so honored that you chose to spend your time with me today. I'll see you next week.

If you are wondering if you have (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) GAD vs. OCD (Obsessive Compulsive Disorder) and how to tell the difference, this episode is going to be exactly what you need. 

My name is Kimberley Quinlan. I'm a cognitive behavioral therapist. I specialize in all anxiety disorders, and I help people overcome their anxiety in the kindest way possible. Now, I have treated generalized anxiety disorder and OCD for over 15 years, and I want to share with you that it is true—there is a massive overlap between OCD and GAD. They do look very similar. So I'm going to break it down and address the GAD and OCD overlap. Let's go.

GAD versus OCD. You might know this, but in the world of anxiety disorders, this is actually a very controversial topic right now. I've been to conferences and master classes where clinicians will very much disagree on how we differentiate between the two. In fact, some people believe that they are so similar that they should be labeled as the same thing. We don't all agree, and the reason for that, as I said, is that they do look similar. They do follow a very similar cycle. 

My hope is that in order to understand what GAD is and what OCD is, we need to actually go through the diagnostic criteria. And that's what we're going to do for you today so that you too can understand the difference between GAD and OCD and determine for yourself what you think will help move you in the right direction. Let's talk about it. 

As I mentioned, in order to get a GAD diagnosis, you do have to have a specific set of symptoms, and we're going to go through them. 

Number one, if you have GAD, the first symptom you need to have is anxiety and worry, and that's usually focused on everyday events like work, school, relationships, money, and so on. Now, the frequency of GAD needs to occur more days than not for at least six months. The person needs to find it difficult to control this worry and anxiety, and it focuses on areas that are not consistent with other mental health struggles. 

What we mean by that is, let's say the focus was on being judged by other people. Well, that's better understood as social anxiety. Or if the focus of your worry was on your health, then we would actually be better diagnosing you or understanding your symptoms as health anxiety. If it was focused on a specific thing, like planes, needles, or vomit, we would better understand that as a specific phobia. In order to have the diagnosis of GAD, it needs to not be under the umbrella of a different diagnosis. Other things that we would rule out when we're thinking about GAD are things like panic disorder, body image, or even a previous trauma. 

Now, the fifth symptom is it needs to cause distress and impairment. That's very, very important here because, again, we're talking about a disorder. What that means is a lack of order, no order. So what we want to see here is that it's highly impacting their daily lives, highly impacting their ability to function. 

And then the sixth criteria is it has to be ruled out that these symptoms could be from a medical condition or substance abuse. An example of that might be even me with POTS. I have postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome. A lot of the symptoms of POTS can actually look a little bit like generalized anxiety. 

The seventh criteria are the specific symptoms, and this is important to recognize because this might be true of a lot of different situations, symptoms, diagnoses, medical and mental. You need to have symptoms such as restlessness or being on edge. You need to be either easily fatigued, have difficulty concentrating, or have what we call a blank mind. You might have irritability, you might have muscle tension, and you could also have sleep disturbances. 

That is the breakdown for GAD. As I said, it's very easy to mix it up with other mental health disorders, such as OCD, because they can look very, very similar. 

Let's talk about OCD now. What is OCD? Now, in order to understand what OCD is, we need to again address the specific criteria to get a diagnosis of OCD. The symptoms of OCD include the presence of obsessions and compulsions or one. Sometimes, again, you might have obsessions without the compulsions, but usually, at the onset of the disorder, you will have both. You'll also have intrusive, unwanted, repetitive thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges, or images, and these cause a very high degree of distress and anxiety, as we mentioned with GAD. The individual with OCD will often attempt to avoid or suppress these thoughts, feelings, sensations, or urges, and they will try to neutralize them using what we call compulsions. 

Now there are five different types of compulsionS. A lot of you who have followed Your Anxiety Toolkit will know about these compulsions. We've talked about them. We actually go over them extensively in our online course for OCD called ERP School. If you're interested to learn more about that, you can go to CBTSchool.com. We have a whole array of courses there to help you work through this and get help if you don't have access to treatment of your own. 

We do have five different types of compulsions. The first one is avoidance. The second one is mental compulsions. The third one is reassurance-seeking, whether it be from Google or a loved one. The fourth one is physical compulsions, like checking or jumping over cracks or washing your hands, just to give a few examples. The last one is self-punishment. So there are five types of compulsions. 

Now, these compulsions are not connected in a realistic way and the way that they're designed to neutralize or prevent. They're usually clearly excessive behaviors done repetitively and done usually from a place of not wanting to do them, but more that the person with OCD feels like they have to do them to reduce or remove their obsessions. 

Now, obsessions or compulsions are time-consuming. The frequency here is that they need to take up more than one hour per day or cause a significant degree of distress and impairment in their social, occupational, or other areas of functioning in their lives.

The next criteria is that the obsessive-compulsive symptoms are not attributable to physiological symptoms, substance abuse, or a medical condition. Similar to GAD, again, we want to always check for medical and substance abuse issues before we go ahead and get a diagnosis of either GAD or OCD. 

And then, last of all, the disturbance is not better explained by another mental health condition. Again, if the worry or the obsession is around needles, like we talked about before, or being judged by somebody else or health conditions—if that were the case, we would give them a different diagnosis. Now, this is also true for trauma. Again, I want to make sure we understand that. Often, this same cycle will play out in different anxiety disorders—PTSD, BFRBs, phobias, health anxiety, BDD (body dysmorphic disorder). Once we have ruled those out, we can then move forward and acknowledge that this might be OCD or it might be GAD. 

Now that we've gone through all that, we can actually slow down a little and really take a look and talk about OCD versus GAD and how to tell the difference. Let's break it down. 

Both GAD and OCD have intrusive thoughts or what we call obsessions. A repetitive thought. Now, both have the presence of rumination compulsions and reassurance-seeking compulsions. That is true for both conditions. 

OCD tends to be more on irrational topics and subjects, whereas GAD tends to be more focused on daily stresses and rational actual events in the person's life, but not always. Again, sometimes the person with GAD may engage in a lot of catastrophic thinking or irrational thinking that can actually make this disproportionate to their daily life stresses. 

Questions that you might want to ask yourself when you're considering how to tell the difference between GAD and OCD are questions like, are your worries related to a daily stressor, or are your fears intrusive and repetitive? 

People with OCD tend to identify that their thoughts are very intrusive, that they can't stop them, they're relentless, they're repeating themselves over and over, whereas people with GAD tend to find that these are more preoccupations with problems in their lives, and they're trying to solve them. 

Another question to ask is, are my fears realistic or are they irrational and distorted? That question too can help us differentiate whether your symptoms are more related to OCD or GAD.

Another question to ask is, does anyone in your family have GAD or OCD? We know that these conditions are very, very genetic. If you've got someone with OCD in your family, it might actually help us to determine, is this something that's going on for you? Are you better understood as having symptoms of OCD than you are GAD? 

Another question or thing you might want to do is, you can take a GAD test or an OCD test. We have specific diagnostic tests that can help determine these. I strongly encourage, if you're still having a hard time differentiating after you've listened to this episode, please do go and speak to a mental health professional who can help you determine and do those tests so that you can really be clear on what you've got and help you get the correct treatment.

Let's answer some questions about this topic that commonly come up, which hopefully will help you get even more clarity on this topic. One of the most common questions we get asked in this area is, can you have OCD and GAD? Often, some of you are looking at these criteria going like, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes." And the truth here is, yes, commonly, people do have OCD and GAD. There is a very strong GAD-OCD overlap here. So it could be that you have both. 

The good news here, if that is the case, is that the treatment for GAD and the treatment for OCD are very, very similar. In fact, again, like I said, it's very controversial. Some clinicians say it doesn't even matter. We don't have to differentiate between OCD and GAD because the treatment is going to be so, so similar. 

We're going to use a combination of cognitive behavioral therapy and exposure and response prevention. We call cognitive behavioral therapy CBT, and we call exposure and response prevention ERP for short. Those treatments are focused on reducing those safety behaviors or compulsions, such as rumination, avoidance, reassurance-seeking, physical compulsions, and self-punishment, and also encourage you to identify your fears and learn to face them as much as you can. Learn to navigate those fears by experiencing them, tolerating them, being kind to yourself as you ride the wave of distress, and practice mastering your ability to be uncomfortable. That's a huge piece of this. Also, master your ability to be uncertain, because in both conditions, they often require you to spend a lot of time trying to seek certainty, to get clarity, to solve the fear, and to prevent the fear. And we actually instead work at reducing that by increasing our willingness to be uncertain. 

We also have an online course called Overcoming Anxiety and Panic, and we go through the same steps with that. They're two separate courses because we want to make sure the person feels very understood and feels like they have a really good plan. Again, if you're interested in that, you can go to CBTSchool.com. We have two courses for specific diagnoses, and that will help you make a plan for yourself. They are there specifically for people who do not have access to or do not have the means to access mental health services. These are self-led, on-demand courses. You can take them as many times as you want to put a plan together for you. 

Let's get back to the questions. What about other anxiety disorders vs OCD? Well, what we've talked about already—hopefully, we'll clear that up—is the real way to determine what your specific problem or struggle is, what is the focus of your intrusive, repetitive thoughts? Again, if it's on your body and your body image, we would look at an anxiety disorder, an eating disorder, or maybe even BDD. If the focus is on your health, we're going to look towards health anxiety or hypochondria. If your fear is around being judged, we're going to look towards social anxiety. If your fear is in response to an actual trauma you've been through, we're going to look at PTSD and other trauma symptoms that you might be having. It's important to identify the core fear, and that can actually help determine what specific struggle and diagnosis you have. 

Another important question that people ask is, can GAD lead to OCD? We don't actually have a lot of research on this, so it's important that we recognize that yes, they can overlap, that yes, you can have GAD, and then you can proceed into having OCD. But I wouldn't actually say that GAD leads to it or causes it. Usually, again, we don't really have a lot of clarity on what causes OCD, but we do know that there is a genetic component and an environmental component that are contributing to having OCD.

Lastly, what's the difference between having OCD and general anxiety or just anxiety in and of itself? Often, again, we're going to look at that core fear.

Now the thing to remember here is, everybody has anxiety. Everybody experiences anxiety. It is a normal part of being a human. But if that anxiety is starting to impact the functioning and quality of your life, if it's starting to take up a lot of time, if it's starting to stop you from being able to do the things you want to do, that's usually when anxiety becomes what we call an anxiety disorder. When that happens, I'm going to urge you to seek help. There are treatments, there are solutions, and there are practices that can help you overcome this anxiety and get you back to living the life you want to live. You don't have to live a life where we just accept anxiety at this rapid rate without getting help, skills, and tools to help you move forward.

The whole reason I created Your Anxiety Toolkit is because there are tools that can help you navigate anxiety in the most effective, wise, and kind way. So my hope here is that today, as we've learned to differentiate the difference between GAD and OCD and even other anxiety disorders, you can then go to get resources to help you overcome those specific struggles and challenges. 

Again, if you're interested, please go to CBTSchool.com. We are also here on Your Anxiety Toolkit, where we have over 350 free episodes to help you navigate these conditions. It is an honor and pleasure to help you with these struggles in your life, and I'm so grateful to be able to do that. I hope that's been helpful. Have a wonderful, wonderful day, and I'll talk to you soon.

Perfectionism anxiety almost destroyed my life. If you are someone who suffers from perfectionism, you know exactly what it's like to be stuck in the perfectionistic trap. It's hell, quite frankly. We're here today to talk about how to overcome perfectionism and how to create a life where you can still succeed. You can still do the things you want just without being constantly anxious and depressed and never feeling like you're enough. 

Hello, my name is Kimberley Quinlan. I'm a marriage and family therapist. I'm an anxiety specialist, and I personally have walked the walk of perfectionism and have had to overcome it as it was starting to severely impact my life. I am so excited to be here with you today to talk all about perfectionism and perfectionism anxiety. 

Now I am 15 years recovered from an eating disorder. I was personally completely overwhelmed with perfectionism anxiety, and I was in a perfectionism trap. So, let's talk about it.

First, let me give you a little bit of a personal update or a background. When I went off to college, I was really naive. I was wise and smart, but I had no idea what I was getting myself into. I had lived at home with my family on a rural farm, on a ranch, if you live in America, for my entire life. And then I went off to what was considered the big city for college, and I felt like I had to be perfect. 

I had this belief as soon as I left my family that if I could be perfect, I would be safe. I would be emotionally safe. I would be physically safe, and as long as I could keep everything perfect, nothing bad would happen. 

I also believe that if I could be perfect, people would not abandon me, disprove of me, or judge me. And so, I went out of my way to make sure everything was as perfect as I could make it, even though I understood that I wasn't perfect. I was on a mission to try and get to the top of that hill and stay at the top of that hill. It was a protective measure, a safety behavior I engaged in to manage the anxiety and overwhelm I felt going off to college. 

I also believe that if I could stay perfect, it would protect me from really uncomfortable emotions like shame and guilt, and it would help me feel like I'm in control. I would try to give myself a false sense of control in a world where I felt very out of control.

Now, a big part of this was me understanding what we call the 'perfectionism trap.' The perfectionism trap is, yes, when you start perfecting yourself and perfecting your life, you start to get praised from people around you. You start to get rewarded for your perfectionistic behaviors. My grades started to improve because I was being perfectionistic. My bosses gave me extra shifts because I was so good at my job. 

But the problem with that is, as I was getting better and trying to perfect everything in my life and please all of the people, I started to feel overwhelmed with all that I had taken on. In addition to that, once I had gotten to this 'perfect place,' which again, I totally understood that I wasn't perfect, but as I started to climb that mountain and get to the peak and start to have the relief of anxiety that I made it, I'm at the top, I'm doing really well, then I started to have the influx of anxiety. "What if I can't maintain this? What happens if I make a mistake and fall off this perfectionism mountain that I have climbed?" And then I was constantly anxious and constantly feeling hopeless about the fact that I can't maintain staying at this high level for as long as I was. 

This is the perfectionistic trap. The more you try to become perfect, the more pressure, stress, and anxiety you feel. The more hopeless you feel about being able to maintain that, the more depressed you feel that you're stuck in this cycle, and all of a sudden, nothing is worth it. Often, people completely fall down. They can't go on in this way. They burn out, they get sick, which happened to me, or they become so paralyzed with anxiety that they have to avoid things and start telling little white lies just to get through the day because they've built up this idea of being perfect on the people around them.

If you're experiencing this, you're not alone. Please do not feel bad about this. This is a common experience, particularly if you're someone who's set up for anxiety. 

Let's go through some additional perfectionism anxiety symptoms or signs. The first one is, people with perfectionism have a severe fear of failure. They're overwhelmed by the idea that they might mess up, they might make a mistake, and when they do make a mistake, they see it as a failure. Not a blip on the road, not a challenge that they will learn from, but it's that they are a failure, that their mistake and their failure mean that that person is. In fact, their identity is a failure, and that can be incredibly emotionally painful.

Another perfectionism anxiety symptom is shame and vulnerability. There is so much shame around making mistakes or being seen as vulnerable, weak, not perfect, or not keeping up with the Joneses. And that can be so emotionally painful that that's what propels them into continuing perfectionistic behaviors, pushing themselves harder than they can maintain, putting them or raising their hands in situations that they really honestly shouldn't be saying yes to. They don't even have the capacity for what they've already signed up for. You may know the quote that says, "If you want something done, find the busiest person." That's commonly the perfectionist because they're the ones who can get jobs done and they're willing to put their own mental and physical wellness aside to get the job done.

Another sign of perfectionism often shows up at work. When you have perfectionism anxiety, work can become very frustrating or depressing, and this is often, again, because of the expectations you've put on yourself. You associate work with being an incredibly stressful environment because, as you walk into work, you're bringing in these expectations. You're bringing this goal of being perfect and not making mistakes. And that can create an incredible amount of anxiety and distress. 

It also creates, as I said, a lot of depression, hopelessness, or helplessness because often people with perfectionism are suffering in silence. They don't feel like they can share with other people how much they're suffering or how they're succeeding. They make it look maybe even so easy, but underneath they're really struggling, and they don't want people to find out. They feel like that would be letting other people in on the lie that you're actually not the person that you're perceived to be.

Another really important sign is this ongoing fear or belief that I'll never be good enough. This deep-down belief that you don't have the worth of just being who you are, that you have to show up being more and more and more in order to be respected, to be loved, to be accepted by people. And that can be incredibly stressful.

A big overlap is between perfectionism and procrastination. Again, as I said, when you raise the bar so high, often the only thing that people can do is to avoid the thing because they're overwhelmed at the prospect of making a mistake. They're overwhelmed by the expectations they've put for themselves. They go into a freeze mode where they can't even move forward. It's too overwhelming. Their nervous system is shutting down. They're having an increased heart rate, tightness in their chest, nausea, stomach issues, muscle aches, headaches, and migraines. And so, because of that, they just procrastinate and keep pushing, pushing, pushing the deadline away.

Often, when I see someone, they have been told they're not perfectionistic because they've procrastinated and avoided so long. A professional or a doctor has said no, that you can't be perfectionistic because you're not getting anything done. But often, those who are avoiding are more perfectionistic than the people who they know are succeeding. It's the heavy layer of expectation that causes them to stall and avoid moving forward in any way. 

Now, when you suffer from perfectionist anxiety, relationships can also become really strained. Really common imperfectionism is people pleasing, or the fear that you have let people down. You spend a lot of time worrying about what they think of you. In addition to that, it's not just worrying about what they think of you. Often, people with perfectionism become highly judgmental of their loved ones, their friends, their children, or their partner. They may also become easily annoyed when other people can't maintain that perfectionism.

Often in relationships, if there's a person with perfectionism and their partner is struggling, the person with perfectionism gets quite frustrated because, in their mind, they're like, "Just be perfect. Get it fixed. Fix it. I'm doing all the perfectionistic behaviors; why can't you?" And that can cause an incredible amount of strain on the relationship.

They also might experience a degree of anger, frustration, and irritability. And that's not because they're horrible people; it's because they've raised the bar and the expectations so high to be perfect that even if their loved ones are struggling by association, they feel like that's jeopardizing their perfectionism. And this is a really common thing that comes into couples counseling. Once they get there, the relationship has been so strained without identifying that perfectionism could be a massive driver behind their relationship issues. 

Now there is something to note here. There is no such thing as a perfectionism anxiety disorder. A lot of people are searching for those terms to see if this is, in fact, a disorder. But there are common disorders such as eating disorders, generalized anxiety disorder, and OCD that do co-occur with perfectionism. 

Now, there are specific types of OCD, one of them being perfectionism OCD. That is a specific subtype of OCD where the underlying force towards the compulsion is perfectionism, and it's often coming from a place of anxiety and uncertainty. Usually, people with perfectionism OCD, they're not doing their compulsions or safety behaviors from a place of wanting to; they usually feel like they can't stop doing them. They feel like they're stuck in a loop of doing these behaviors even though they don't want to. This is very common alongside other subtypes, like just right OCD, symmetry OCD, and moral and religious OCD as well. 

Now, often people do ask. Let's weigh it out. Perfectionism versus perfectionism OCD, how do we know the difference? Well, a thing to remember here is that often perfectionism is what we call 'ego-syntonic,' meaning it's in line with their values. They want to be perfect. It's a driving force to be perfect. It actually reduces their discomfort by moving in that direction. 

For those with perfectionism OCD, it's actually ego-dystonic, which means they don't want this obsession. It's intrusive. It's repetitive. They really don't believe in the point of perfectionism, but they feel compelled to engage in this behavior, and they feel like they can't stop engaging in this behavior. 

Now I want to really slow down here because that's not always true for everybody. I've often seen where clients will have a combination of the two, or maybe on a spectrum, they might be closer to the perfectionism OCD end, but they do still have some ego syntonic perfectionism that's showing up. So, I want to make sure that if you are having these perfectionism symptoms, go to a mental health professional so you can work out specifically what's true for you.

So that's an important point to make here. Please don't misdiagnose yourself here. This perfectionism can also show up in PTSD. It can show up in depression. It can show up in other disorders as well. I want us to use this as information, but please do not use this as a way to diagnose yourself.

Now if you do have perfectionism OCD, there is a specific OCD treatment that is helpful for that. For those of you with perfectionism, I'm actually going to go through that right here in a second. But first, let's just address that OCD treatment usually will involve a type of cognitive behavioral therapy called ERP (exposure and response prevention). 

Now, in this case, we actually expose you to being imperfect on purpose. We have you practice reducing your safety behaviors and compulsions around perfectionism so that you can practice riding the wave of discomfort, uncertainty, or anxiety, and learn that by riding that wave, you can actually tolerate that discomfort and move on without engaging in behaviors that make your life more stressful. It often involves saying no. It often involves slowing down. It often involves, again, being imperfect on purpose. 

But now let's move over to how you can stop being a perfectionist and how you can overcome perfectionism if that is in fact what you're dealing with. 

I again want to share with you, I get how painful this is. I worked through this for close to a decade, and I still see it come up. I still see it show up in my life where I have to catch it. It shows up in a way that's sneaky and it feels, in my experience, as it's a powerful feeling when you're engaging in perfectionism, but I also notice that when I'm starting to feel really burnt out and really overwhelmed and my anxiety and depression are going up, it's usually because I've allowed that sneaky perfectionism to get into my life more than I would've wanted to.

So when we're talking about overcoming perfectionism, here are a few things that were really helpful for me. 

1. Identify how perfectionism keeps you trapped
   Number one is, identify the ways that perfectionism is keeping me trapped. For me, when I had an eating disorder and a lot of perfectionism, I actually had to do a deep study on how it was impacting my life because, as my therapist was trying to get me to change these behaviors, I was showing up with a lot of restriction and a lot of resistance. I did not want to stop. I said to her, "I'm not ready to get rid of these behaviors. They keep me safe. They keep me feeling like I'm in control. I don't want to feel out of control. I don't want to feel imperfect. I don't want to feel shame. I don't want to feel vulnerable. I don't want to take these behaviors away." But as I looked at how they were impacting my life, I then started to realize how they're actually keeping me trapped and holding me back. 
2. Explore how society encourages perfectionism
   The second piece was, I had to then do a deep exploration and look at how society had encouraged me to maintain my perfectionism. I had people all around me cheering me on. "Good job. Keep going." "You're so thin. Look at you thrive." "You're so successful. I can't believe how you do it." "I'm so impressed. You inspire me." I was constantly fed reinforcement. That kept me trapped in perfectionism and made me want to stay in perfectionism, but kept me anxious, kept me feeling like I was a complete fraud, kept me feeling like I was an imposter who, if anyone would ever find out that I'm actually this imperfect, terrible, hopeless human being with no worth, I couldn't bear the idea of that, And so, I really had to look at how society had fed me into this system as a woman, but also as a human being and as a young person, how this had kept me stuck, and how it was going to keep keeping me stuck if I didn't start to change some things. 
3. Determine how YOU want to live your life
   Now, the next thing I had to do is really look and determine how I wanted to live my life, and that was really influenced by my personal values. What was important to me? Is my uncle's opinion of me or my coworker's opinion of me more important than my own opinion of me? I used to first say yes, but with practice and really looking at it, I started to realize I'm going to die with everyone thinking I was perfect and I'm going to die miserable. I wouldn't have done the things I wanted to do. I was living a life based on what other people thought of me and living a life basically hiding from all of my feelings, which brings me to the next big, big, big point of my recovery. 
4. Learn to feel your feelings
   If I could say one thing was the most important in my recovery, it would be this: I had to learn how to feel my feelings, and I had to be willing to ride out some really uncomfortable feelings that I had about myself. I had to write out shame and still do. I had to write out feelings of being worthless, and still do. They still show up, and when they do, I instinctually go to run away from them, and then I have to slow myself down and say, "Kimberley, just stay. Be here with it. Running from this emotion, patching it up, or making it look pretty is only going to keep you trapped and create a life where you're more and more and more anxious." 
5. Develop a self-compassion practice
   I also had to develop a very strong self-compassion practice, but that actually came last for me. I'm really doing my best with my patients and with you here today to have that be a beginning part of your recovery. But for me, I refused it. I hated the idea, and I didn't want to do it. I felt it was weak, and I actually thought it would override my perfectionism and make me into some kind of weak loser who can't control their life, and all these words, like, I'll be a failure, I won't be successful, it'll make me lazy. I had a whole belief about what self-compassion would do to me. But with time, I did start to see the benefit of it. And again, it's something I still have to work on. 
6. Understand that this is a life-long process of recovery
   I had to also recognize that this was a lifelong practice. I do remember, and I will share a story with you, that early in my perfectionism treatment, I actually stopped treatment. I told them, "I'm fine. I'm doing great. I don't need you anymore," and off I went. A part of that was me, because I think I was really afraid to do the next level of work, but I think another part of me truly thought that that was all it took. But then, as I struggled with different stresses in my life, or as it continued to show up in my relationships and at my work, I realized this is a lifelong practice. This is something I'm going to need to practice for some time. 

Now, before I finish up with you, I want to share with you some beliefs that I had to adopt to help me overcome perfectionism, and I had to remember these every step of the way. Now, I was really lucky I had a therapist who would reinforce this with me every single week, but maybe you don't. And so, I wanted to just be here to share them with you, just in case they're helpful with you managing your own perfectionism. So, here they are. 

• IT IS OKAY TO MAKE MISTAKES 

The first belief I had to adopt is, it's okay to make mistakes. It's human to make mistakes. I also had to reframe what a mistake meant. As I said before, a mistake didn't make me a failure anymore. Instead, a mistake was data to help me learn and challenge this problem I was having. And now I've done my best. I've even done episodes on Your Anxiety Toolkit, talking about how I went out and purposely made mistakes a hundred times in less than a year because I still realized I had to challenge this idea that getting a no, getting rejected, or making a mistake is a problem.

• IT IS OKAY IF PEOPLE DO NOT UNDERSTAND ME OR LIKE ME

Another thing I had to adopt is, it's okay if people do not understand me or like me, and this one still breaks my heart. I'm not going to lie, it's still really, really hard for me. But it is important to recognize that most of the time, you can be imperfect, and people will still make space for you. It is okay to not be perfect.

In fact, I have learned the more perfect I tried to be, the more disconnected I was with people. The more perfect I tried to be, the more I sabotaged relationships. I made other people feel judged and uncomfortable. I made it feel unsafe for them to be imperfect, therefore impacting our ability to be vulnerable and in deep connection with each other.

• WHEN I AM IMPERFECT, I BECOME MORE CONNECTED

So by being imperfect, I actually learned that the real relationships started to show up, that I could be vulnerable, and then they would be vulnerable. And I would feel seen, and they would feel seen. And then I would feel worthy and they would feel worthy. And it healed itself in that respect through the relationships, through showing up imperfectly in relationships and letting them see that I'm actually struggling. I'm actually really having a hard time. 

I remember talking to my therapist and saying, "Nobody would know." Nobody would know that I'm having such a hard time. But when I actually started sharing, other people started sharing, and I realized that I didn't have to be perfect because nobody was getting through this life without going through their own struggles and challenges.

• MY WORTH IS NOT RELATED TO MY OUTPUT

Another really important thing I had to adopt is that my worth is not related to my output. And this is one I still have to remind myself that I do not deserve self-care and kindness just because I kicked butt at work today. That I'm allowed to have compassion, self-care, and pleasure, whether I was successful, made money, or achieved the things on my to-do list. That I'm always deserving of self-care and pleasure. That that is something innate inside of me and that I can use at any time if my body needs it.

• LISTEN TO MY BODY. IT IS WISE

And then the last thing I had to adopt was truly listen to your body. Stop pushing through discomfort in a way where you know that you're pushing your body too hard or too fast. I would say yes to everything, even if my body was exhausted. I had to learn to listen to my body and listen to when my body was gently nudging me, saying, "Stop. I'm tired. I need to rest." That is still something I'm working on and something that I'll always have to be working on as I age and as my limitations change as well.

So that's the things I want you to adopt to help you overcome depression. Now, you may have some other things that you need to adopt as well, and that's okay. I want you to make this as personalized as possible. But I do hope that this, number one, validated you and your perfectionism anxiety. I hope that it informed you of ways that it shows up for people. And third, I hope it gives you some inspiration that you too can overcome perfectionism anxiety and depression, and hopefully go on to live a very fulfilling life. 

Have a wonderful day, everybody, and always remember it is a beautiful day to do hard things.

What if I never get better? This is a common and distressing fear that many people worry about. It can feel very depressing, it can be incredibly anxiety-provoking, and most of all, it can make you feel so alone. Today, I'm going to address the fear, "What if I never get better?" and share tools and strategies to stay hopeful and focused on your recovery.

If you have the fear, "What if I never get better?" I want you to settle in. This is exactly where you need to be. I want to break this episode down into two specific sections. So, when we are talking about "What if I never get better?" we're going to talk about first the things I don't have control over, and then the things we do have control over. That will determine the different strategies and tools we're going to use.

Before we do that, though, let's talk about first validating how hard it is to recover. Recovery is an incredibly scary process. It can feel defeating; it can feel, as I said, so incredibly lonely. When we're thinking about recovery, we often compare it to other people's recovery, and that's probably what makes us think the most. Like, will I ever recover? Will I get to be like those people who have? Or if you see people who aren't recovering, you might fear, "What if I don't recover either?" even if you're making amazing steps forward.

It can be an exhausting process that requires a lot of care, compassion, and thoughtful consideration. Most of all, recovery requires a great deal of hard work. Most people, by the time they come to me, are exhausted. They've given up. They don't really feel like there's any way forward. And I'm here to share with you that there absolutely is, and we're going to talk about some strategies here today.

Now, that being said, while all of those things are true—that it is hard and distressing and can be defeating—I wholeheartedly believe that recovery is possible for everyone. But what's important is that we define recovery depending on the person. I do not believe that there is a strict definition of recovery, mainly because everybody is different, everybody's values are different, and everybody's capacity is different. So we want to be realistic and compassionate, and we want to make sure our expectations are safe and caring as we move towards recovery.

Let's talk about what that might look like. Again, it's going to be different for every person. 

If we're talking about recovery for OCD, let's say we're going to be talking about what's realistic. Again, what's compassionate? So, if someone comes to me and says, "I want my goal of recovery to be never to have anxiety and never have intrusive thoughts ever again," I'm going to say to them, "That sounds really painful and out of your control. Let's actually work at controlling your reaction to them instead of trying to tell your brain not to have thoughts and not to have feelings, because we all know how that works. You're going to have more of them, right?" But again, the degree in which you recover is entirely up to you.

Recovery for anxiety or generalized anxiety is going to be the same. I am probably going to use me as an example. I have generalized anxiety disorder—it doesn't stop me from living my life as fully as I can. It's still there, but I'm there to gently, compassionately respond to it and think about how I can respond to this effectively. I think I'm genetically set up to have anxiety, so my goal of recovery being like never having anxiety again is probably not kind; it's probably not compassionate or realistic.

Recovery for depression—again, it's going to look different for different people. Some people are going to have a complete reduction of depressive symptoms. Other people are going to have a waxing and waning, and I consider that to still be a part of recovery. It might be that your definition of recovery is, "As long as I'm functioning, I can take care of my kids, and I can go to work and do my hobbies." If that's your definition of recovery, great. Other people might say, "My definition of recovery is to make sure I get my teeth cleaned, go to the doctor once a year, and have an exercise schedule," and whatever's right to them.

Really, again, I want to be clear that you get to decide what recovery looks like for you. I've had people in the past say, "I've considered my recovery to be great. I'm not ready to take those next extra hard steps. I'm happy with where I am, and I'm actually going to work at really accepting where I'm at and living my life as fully as I can, whether these emotions or these feelings are here or not," and I love that.

Recovery for hair pulling and skin picking—another disorder that we treat at our center in Calabasas, California—might be some reduction of those behaviors. For others, it might be complete elimination, but you get to decide.

I know that for me, the recovery of a chronic illness was not the absence of the chronic illness. It was getting in control of the things I knew I could control and then working at compassion, acceptance, care, support, and resources for what I could not control.

So I really want to emphasize here first that we want to be respectful. I want to be respectful of your definition of recovery before we talk about this fear specifically related to "what if I don't recover." Some people have the fear that they won't recover, and that might be valid because they've put their expectations so high that the expectation in and of itself causes some anxiety.

So let's talk about it first. We're going to first talk about what I don't have control over, and this is what we're talking about here in regards to how I manage this fear. 

Now, the first thing to do when we're talking about what we don't have control over is, we don't have control over the fact that we have this fear. Of course, this fear is coming up for you because you want to recover, you want to live your best life, and you deserve that. You deserve to have a life where you go on to succeed in whatever definition that means to you. But we can't control the fact that your brain offers you the thought, "What if I don't recover?" We don't have control over that, so let's try not to stop or suppress those thoughts. We know that with research, the more you try and suppress a thought, the more often you're going to have it.

The other thing we don't have control over, and I actually mentioned this before, is, we have to acknowledge our genetics and acknowledge that genetics does have a play in this. I'm never going to probably be someone who is anxiety-free. My brain comes up with some ridiculous things. My brain loves to catastrophize. My brain loves to find problems where there aren't problems. That is my brain. As much as I can work at eliminating how I react to that, I'm probably not going to stop that entirely. So I'm going to accept that I don't have control over my genetics, and that's okay.

A quick note here too is, if you do have anxiety and it is a part of your genetic—DNA, your family team tends to have it—also catch your anger around that. You're allowed to be angry; you're allowed to be dissatisfied or have grief about that. But we also want to catch that as well. Again, we do have to just acknowledge that no one has control over their genetic makeup.

The third thing to remember here is that recovery is a series of valleys and peaks. That we do not have control over. Some people have extreme fear that they will never recover because they believe or were led to believe that recovery should be this very straightforward recovery process where you go from A to B, there's no peaks and valleys, and it's all straightforward from there. We do have to accept that it is normal. Recovery will always have peaks and valleys. It will always have highs and lows. And that actually doesn't mean you are relapsing or anything bad is happening.

I actually say to my clients a lot of the time, and I often will demonstrate to them as I'll say, "You're in the messy middle. You've started recovery, so you've made that huge step. You've gone through that chapter where you're learning and you're ready for it, and you've educated yourself and you're prepared. And now you're starting to make some strides. You're seeing where you're doing well. We're also seeing where there's challenges. You're in the messy middle, and this is where valleys and peaks, ups and downs are going to happen. Our job isn't to beat you up when you're in a valley or a low; our job is to stop and just inquire, nonjudgmentally, what's going on? What can we learn from this? What could help me with this if I were to navigate this in the future?" 

This has been a huge piece of my work managing a chronic illness because I could wake up tomorrow and not be able to get out of bed, but today I feel like I'm full of energy and all good. It's completely out of my control sometimes. On the days where I don't feel like I can get out of bed, my job is to recognize that this is normal. This doesn't mean it's going to be forever. Can I be gentle with myself around this hard day and not catastrophize what that means?

So, there are the three things we can't control. 

Now we're going to move over to the things we can control. There are actually seven of these things, and we're going to go through them, and they will inform the tools and strategies you are going to use when you're handling the fear, "What if I don't ever recover?"

Number one, something that we do have control over, is: how do I respond to this thought? Now, you must remember, the fear, "What if I don't recover?" or "What if I never get better?" is actually just a thought. It's not a fact. It's not the truth. It's a thought your brain is offering to you, and we want to thank it for that thought because your brain's trying to help you along. It's saying, "Just so you know, Kimberley, there is a small possibility that you won't recover. What can we do about that?" But if you have that thought and you take it as a fact, like you won't recover, or recovery is not in your future, and you respond to it that way, you're going to probably respond in a way that increases anxiety, increases depression, increases hopelessness, and isn't kind or effective.

So we want to first acknowledge, okay, in this present moment, maybe it's Tuesday at 9:30 in the morning and I'm having the thought "what if I don't recover," knowing that on Tuesday at 9:40, I might be having different thoughts, which is again evidence that thoughts are not facts. They're fleeting. They're things that show up in our minds. We can decide whether to respond to them or not.

Now, what we want to do when we do have this thought is respond to it in a kind, compassionate way. For those of you who know me and have followed me for some time, I'm always talking about this idea of a kind coach. The kind coach would say, "Okay, I acknowledge that's a thought. Okay. What do we need to do? Kimberley, you've got this. Keep going. Keep trying. You know you've done this valley and this peak before. What did you do in the past that was helpful? What did you do in the past that wasn't helpful? Great, let's do more of that." The kind coach cheers you on. It's there to encourage you. It's there to remind you of your strengths. 

It's not there to bring your challenges and use them against you, which brings us right to tip number two, which is, you have 100% control over how kind you are to yourself throughout the process.Actually, let me renege that maybe not a hundred percent because I know a lot of you are new to the practice of self-compassion, and sometimes we do it without even knowing. So let's also be realistic about that as well. Forgive me. We can really work at changing how kind we are to ourselves when we have that thought.

Let's say you've been through the wringer. It's a very Australian frame or quote, but you've been through the wringer, which means you've been through a really tough time, and you're thinking, "I only have evidence that things go bad or things get worse." A kind coach, your compassionate voice, or your compassionate self—that compassionate part of you would be there to offer gentle, wise guidance on what you need to do for the long term to move you forward. Again, that compassionate voice will validate how hard it's been. It will not invalidate you. It will say, "I understand it has been hard. I understand that this is really, really challenging." It will also offer you kind, effective, wise ideas for what you could do in that moment.

Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is just acknowledge the thought and keep going. Sometimes the kindest thing we can do is to say, "No, brain," or "No, anxiety," or "No, I'm not buying into this today. Thank you very much for offering it to me, but you do not get to determine where I'm headed. I get to determine where I am headed."

So, compassionate reactions aren't just gentle. Sometimes they're quite assertive and they'll say, "No." Sometimes they might even swear, like, "Bug off, anxiety. I'm not dealing with you today. You're not going to tell me what to do. You can come along for the day's ride. I know I can't get rid of you. I know it's out of my control to try and get rid of you, but you will not determine what I'm going to do today. You'll not get to tell me that my life will be bad, or my life will be terrible or unsuccessful, or I won't have recovery." You get to stand up to fear in that way and let that then inform the actions you take from there.

The tip or tool number three is, also take a look at how much time you're dedicating to recovery. I've had patients who've come to me really struggling with this fear that "what if I never recover?" We actually find that they're not engaging enough in the recovery skills and tools throughout the day.

It's sort of like going to the gym. If I went to the gym for an hour, once a week, yes, I would have some improvements, but to really maintain those improvements, I do need to be doing my homework, my stretches, my walks, and my weight training in a way that's effective and not overdone throughout the week.

So a lot of you, if you're struggling with this, be gentle around this question, because we don't want to overdo it either. But we may want to check in and say, "Let's be strategic here." I know that in our online course—we have an online course called Time Management for Optimum Mental Health. It's a course to help people schedule and manage their time so that they can prioritize mental health and other things they have to get done. There are other priorities, chores, and things they have to do. We often talk about, let's put mental health first. Have you scheduled it in your day to do your homework if you're doing ERP? Have you done that? Have you scheduled a time or an alarm to go off to remind you to sit and journal, do some self-compassion practice, or meditate?

For me, a big one from my mental health is an alarm to say, "It's time to leave the house. You need to get outside." I work from home. I'm often indoors with my patients. "It's time for you to go outside." That is important for your long-term mental health or your medical health. And so, it's important that we are very strategic and effective about scheduling. I call it calendaring. We calendar recovery-focused behaviors. That is something you do have control over.

Again, you do not have control over the fact that the fear is here. You don't have control over whether it will return tomorrow, but you do have control over your recovery and the steps you take, acknowledging that there will still be peaks and valleys. It will not be perfect. One thing I want to stress to you—and I shouldn't laugh because it's actually not funny; it's actually very serious—is that so many people start recovery and get perfectionistic about it, which is often why they're having the fear "what if I never recover," because they've told themselves there is this one way that they are going to recover and that it again shouldn't have peaks and valleys and it should be this way, and I shouldn't be hijacked by any other things. But the truth is, life happens along the way. You might be cruising along with recovery for your specific struggle, and then all of a sudden, a life stressor happens, like COVID.

Here in LA, my husband works in the film industry. There's a huge strike happening. It's a huge stressor for a lot of families. It's been going on for months. A lot of families. I have all kinds of stresses—financial, relationship, and scheduling struggles. Life does happen, and so we have to be gentle with ourselves on the times when our recovery isn't going to the speed we would've liked because of the life hiccups that happen along the way that slow our progress. When that happens, we can gently encourage ourselves that we are doing the best we can. We're going to be okay with the fact that it's a little slower. We're going to let ourselves have our emotions about the fact that it's slower than we would've liked, and we're going to gently just keep taking one step at a time in the direction you want to go in.

Now the fourth thing you want to remember here, and something that is in your control when it comes to the fear "What if I don't recover?" or "What if I never get better?" is how willing am I to ride waves of discomfort? This question is key, you guys, and will determine a huge degree of how speedy your recovery is. Maybe it's not even speedy. For some people, it's speedy, but for others, it's how deep the recovery process goes.

I know for me that I often will try to get things to move along nice and fast and on schedule and so forth, but I've really missed the true meaning, which is, have I actually learned how to be with myself when I'm uncomfortable? Have I actually slowed down and really had a degree of willingness to be with whatever discomfort it may be—tightness in my chest, racing thoughts, not in my throat, an upset stomach? Am I actually willing to allow that to be there AND still moving in the direction towards my long-term wellness?

Often, when discomfort comes up, we're like, "I don't want to feel this. I don't want to have this experience." And that's often when we engage in behaviors that keep us stuck and keep us out of recovery, keep the disorder going. We know that when we engage in behaviors like compulsions, avoidances, and mental rumination, that often just keeps us stuck and keeps us cycling on the same anxiety and the same disorder.

The big question: How willing am I to ride this wave of discomfort? You may want to even put it on a scale of 1 to 10. You might say, "Out of 10, how willing am I to ride this wave? 10 being the most, 1 being not at all." I always say to my patients, and I've said it here before, we want to be up around the 7s, 8s, 9s, and 10s. Even 7 is fine. It's all fine, but we're looking for 8s, 9s, and 10s here of how willing you are to really, truly just allow discomfort to be there and observe it as it's there and not engage in it again, as if it were a fact.

Number five is, how accepting am I of the ups and downs? Now, we've talked about this, the peaks and the valleys. When you're going through peaks and valleys, how accepting are you of that? Or when they happen, are you like, "No, this shouldn't happen. I don't like it. I don't want it. It's not fair"? I want to validate you. That response is normal and human, but we want to be careful not to stay there too long because when we're there, we're actually not moving forward. We're then often so much more likely to beat ourselves up, put ourselves down, and compare ourselves to other people.

What we want to do is just gently accept. I understand. I validate that this is hard and that we may have taken a step back, and I do accept that. I take responsibility for that in the most compassionate way, and I'm still going to stand up and keep moving forward. It's like that song. I may be aging myself here, but they say, "I get knocked down, but I get up again." He talks about how nothing's going to get him down. This is what recovery is. You get knocked down; you get up again. Maybe it should be your theme song—you get knocked down, you get up again; you get knocked down, you get up again. And that is so brave.

I celebrate any of my clients or any of my students when they say, "I got knocked down, but I got back up again." That is so powerful. So courageous. So resilient. I just have all the words to say. I celebrate anybody who is willing to get knocked down and still get up again. So I hope that you can practice that for yourself. 

Number six is, how patient am I with this process? A lot of these are similar, I know, but patience is actually something I talk with clients about all the time. Often, particularly when they have the fear, "What if I never get better?" it's often because they're struggling to really connect with patience. They're doing the actions. They're engaging in their homework. They're moving forward. The only thing that's getting in the way is they're losing patience with the process. 

This takes time, guys. Changing your brain takes time. It is a long-term process. Just like any muscle that you're building, whether it be bicep curls, quadriceps, or your brain, it does take time. We do have to practice the mindfulness of being patient, steady, and slow, letting it be a process. I know, I hate it too. No one wants to be patient. It would be so much easier if it just happened fast, and you're probably seeing other people where their successes happen faster than yours. But again, go back to: how willing am I to be uncomfortable? How accepting am I of my ups and downs? How can I be accepting of my own genetic makeup and the way that my brain responds? How patient can I be with myself in this process?

And then that brings us to tip number seven, which is, are you asking for help? Please, guys, as you navigate recovery and as you navigate the fear that you won't recover, please do not hesitate to ask for help. Ask for support. Ask for resources. We have over 350 episodes here at Your Anxiety Toolkit. They're there to support you, to cheer you on, and to celebrate your wins. There are therapists there who are there to help you and guide you. We have a practice in Calabasas, California, where we help people move towards their values as well. There are clinicians in your area. If you don't live in California, we have a whole range of vaults of online courses, if you're needing more resources or reminders. 

A lot of the people who take out online courses at CBTSchool.com actually have been through treatment, but taking a course helps remind them of the core concepts. "Ah, yes. I needed to remember that. I forgot about that." It's okay. The courses are there. You can watch them as many times as you want. They're on demand. Again, you've got unlimited access. They're there to encourage and support you and push you towards the same concepts of moving towards your definition of recovery. 

They're the seven tips I want you to think about. We are here to encourage and support you as best as we can and give you those strategies and tools. But the big question again is, are you putting them into practice? Please don't listen to this podcast and go on your way. The only right way that this podcast will truly help is if you put the skills, the tips, and the tools into practice.

I always say it's a beautiful day to do hard things, and I really believe that. So I hope today has been helpful. We have really gone over what is in your control and what is not in your control. Please focus on the things that are in your control, and I hope you have a wonderful, wonderful day. I'll see you next week.

[00:00:00] If social media causes anxiety, you will find this incredibly validated. Today, we are covering the nine reasons why social media causes anxiety and depression, and we will get specific about how you can overcome social media anxiety and depression. In a way that feels right to you, so let's go.

If you hear yourself saying, social media gives me anxiety, you are not alone. In fact, many people say it gives them such overwhelm and panic they just want to shut it down completely. That is a common experience, and I want to provide a balanced approach here today. So, let's first look at some social media stats.

Research shows that people use an average of 6.6 social media networks monthly. When I heard that, I thought that couldn't be true, but I counted the ones that I use, and it is. I thought that was [00:01:00] very interesting. That sounds like an incredibly massive amount of social media networks.

But the average time spent on social media daily is two hours and 24 minutes, not weekly, daily. While 67% say they have a drop in self-esteem as they compare their lives to others they see on social media, 73% of people report. They also find solace and support in these platforms during tough times.

We all experienced that during COVID-19, and I know that as someone who lives in America but is Australian, social media has allowed me to be friends with people from high school & college; I get to be connected with my parents' friends. I have found it to be an incredibly beautiful process, but today, we're looking specifically at how social media impacts our mental health, particularly how it causes anxiety and depression. 

Now [00:02:00], we have some social media depression stats here as well. We do have research to show a link between social media use and depression. More than three hours on social media daily does increase your risk of mental health problems. 

This study was done specifically for teens, but I think as adults, we could all agree that's probably true as well. There are also some social media addiction statistics that we want to know. We know that 39% of social media users report being addicted to social media, meaning they want to get off but can't. Or, they experience adverse experiences and consequences when they're not using it in moments of distress and needing to regulate.

We may also look at some social media anxiety disorder statistics. Studies showed that around 32% of teenagers say social media increases their anxiety and hasn't had a [00:03:00] negative impact on people of their age. 

However, I found it interesting that only 9% believed it was the case for themselves, but they believed that for others.

Interesting statistic. 67% of adolescents report feeling worse about their own lives after using social media, and most teenagers say that social media has had neither a positive nor a negative effect on themselves. So, we are getting some mixed statistics here. The real point for you is to decide for yourself.

Is it helping me, or is it hindering my mental health? And if it is, let's discuss some skills we can use. So here we go. 

We have nine reasons social media causes anxiety. Now, to be clear, this needs to be scientifically backed. I did a review from people on Instagram. It's funny how it's a social media platform. Still, I did interview them and did a poll and also have a question box where they get to put [00:04:00] their specific reasons why some social media has impacted them negatively.

And here are the results. 

1. SOCIAL MEDIA COMPARISON

So, the number one reason social media causes anxiety is comparison. Social media comparison seems to be the biggest reason for increasing anxiety and depression, and I think it's important that we identify how social media comparison impacts us. Now, what I've found as a clinician and a marriage and family therapist in helping people with anxiety is how often social media reinforces untrue beliefs they have about themselves. Or, we could say negative beliefs that they had already. 

Examples:

I'm not good enough. 

I'm not doing enough. 

I'm not happy enough. 

I'm not making enough money. 

I don't have enough followers. 

I'm not succeeding enough. 

And that constant, having it in your face of what they're doing and seeing their highlight reels makes us feel like we're not doing enough [00:05:00] and maybe bringing up the insecurities that we aren't enough. 

So, it's really important that we first use social media as an opportunity to take a look at those beliefs and those thoughts. What thoughts does social media bring up for you? Are the thoughts true? Are they helpful? Do they determine facts, or are they just feelings and thoughts you've had on a whim because of your anxiety? 

When we look at those thoughts, we can then determine whether we want to respond as if those thoughts are true. It's also important to recognize that people only post what I call their "A-roll."

They don't post their B roll. They don't post their C roll. They only post the highlights. They post the things they're most excited about. They post the things they want you to think about. No one wants you to see their dirty socks, laundry, meltdowns [00:06:00], and relationship struggles. 

People are talking about that on social media, but even those people, we can't assume they're not showing us, you know, only the good stuff. It could be that they're also showing, you know, only the good stuff. 

1. FEAR OF BEING JUDGED BY OTHERS

Now, we can move on from there and look at the number two reason that social media causes anxiety and depression, and that is the fear of being judged by others.

The truth is that social media can cause social anxiety, which is the fear of being judged, humiliated, and shamed publicly. I'm going to really encourage you guys to use social media as an opportunity to practice letting people have their opinions of you. One thing I have learned.

Being on social media a lot and being a public figure in many, you know, this small area that I'm a public figure in is I've had to learn how to let people have [00:07:00] their opinions about me. I've had to give them permission not to like me. I've had to practice allowing the right in writing the wave of discomfort that I'm not for everyone.

The truth is, when we are on social media, we have to face the fear that our opinions may upset people.  People may say things about or critique us, which may impact how we feel about ourselves. I've been through a lot of therapy here, so I can speak about this a lot. I'm okay with people not agreeing with me, not liking me, or understanding me.

I've gotten really good at allowing them to have their feelings and thoughts about me. I'm going to have my feelings and my thoughts about them too. Does that mean I don't care about what they think? Absolutely not. I deeply care what they think, but I have learned not to let it imprint how I show up on social media [00:08:00] and how I feel and think about myself.

1. TROLLS

The number three reason that social media causes anxiety is trolls. Getting bullied is a huge piece of social media; we see it daily. I have been trolled. People have insisted on taking me down for years, and I have, through what I just talked about, learned to give them permission to really not like me.

I've even considered their opinion and really thought about, "Do they have a point?" How can I look at this from a place of compassion? Is it true? Is what they're saying? Factual In many cases, no. Right. Um, the truth is, hurt people hurt people. So, the people online who are saying horrible things usually come from a great deal of hurt, harm, and pain.

That doesn't mean I'm saying it's okay that they're doing this behavior. [00:09:00] We must also recognize from a place of compassion that most trolls out there are doing it, not because they're happy, fulfilled people, but because they're on a mission to take people down with them. And that really helps me to be compassionate and not take on their opinion, um, and allow it just to be a part of social media and not take it personally right now. 

1. FEAR OF BEING CANCELLED

The fourth reason social media can cause anxiety is the fear of being canceled. You may see that these points are growing on each other. Cancel culture is a thing, folks, and I get it. It is scary out there. Many of you say that being on social media, even commenting on your friend's posts, creates the fear that you might say something that will offend them and cause you to get canceled

[00:10:00] Maybe you feat that on a whim, you say something or you make a joke that causes you to get canceled. This is a widespread one as well. A lot of folks who weighed in were saying that this is a true fear for them.

As someone who has come head to head with this, what was really helpful for me was actually to write down a cancel campaign of my own, which is like, what is the worst thing someone could say about me, you know? What would it, what would they say? Sometimes people will say negative things, which doesn't hurt my feelings, and sometimes I'm afraid they'll say certain things that would really hurt my feelings.

I use that as an opportunity to look at those and ask, why are those things so important to me? Is it my values? Is there something about that where I was taught to be ashamed of those qualities as a child? Am I afraid of how people will stand up for me? Or am I afraid of how I will handle this sort of public shaming that goes on. 

[00:11:00] It was a super helpful experiment that I did with a therapist to really help me get to the bottom of what the fear is, um, and go from there. Of course, I won't say anything mean on social media. I'm not concerned about that, but I am worried at how people will go out and attack me, because it has been something that I've dealt with in the past, and it sounds like it's something that's bothering you guys as well.

1. FOMO

Now, we move on to number five. The fifth reason that social media causes anxiety is FOMO. The fear of missing out is a real thing. If you fear missing out, social media can make this so much worse because you will often see other people going off to college, and you see somebody else starting a job in their hometown.

You might be thinking that maybe I should have done that. Maybe that the fear of you're missing out on that opportunity. Perhaps you chose to go [00:12:00] to the movies, and then you see a social media post about other people who decided to go to a party, or maybe you went to the movies not knowing there was a party, and then you had deep hurt feelings about not being invited.

These are true real emotions, and I want you to slow down for all of these points, but especially this one and give yourself a ton of compassion. And understand that social media does have everybody's a-rolls, and it will mean tou will have emotions. Normal human emotions like jealousy, envy, anger, and resentment.

That is a normal human emotion. When we're on social media, we judge ourselves for the emotions we feel about what we see on social media. I shouldn't be judging them. I shouldn't be jealous. I shouldn't be angry. I wanna give you permission to acknowledge and feel all of those feelings [00:13:00] 'cause they're normal human experiences.

1. SOCIAL MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS NEGATIVITY

The sixth reason that social media causes anxiety and depression is that social media highlights negativity.  Many of you said that you have tried your best to turn off the news. I don't sign onto the news apps, but other people post about things that frighten me when I go on social media.

Shootings, global warming, politics, religion, and they were saying that this really creates a lot of anxiety and stress on their nervous system as they just want to have some fun on social media and have a few laughs and watch a few baby dogs and kittens. Have a little fight over a piece of string or something.

I get it. I've had that same experience, too. It's the end of the day you're thinking, "ah, I just want to check out and do a little deep breath and then zone out on social media, " yet you're faced and [00:14:00] bombarded with negativity. If that's the case, and this goes for all of the points we're making, do an intention check as you log on to social media.

Check in. Do I have the capacity to see things I don't want to see when you see them? Have I got the discipline to turn it off if it's unhealthy for me? It is really, really important piece that we have to remember here. Similar to that. 

1. SOCIAL MEDIA TRIGGERS MY ANXIETY DISORDER

The seventh reason social media causes anxiety is seeing things that trigger my anxiety.

A lot of you said that you go on social media, and lo and behold, your exact fear shows up in somebody's feed, right? Maybe you're afraid of spiders and they've posted a photo of a funny spider, or maybe you're afraid of throwing up or getting sick. Someone's posting about getting cancer and having to be admitted into the hospital.

I know [00:15:00] personally, when I was sharing about, you know, all of the medical issues I was having in 2019 and 2020, a lot of people were so kind and so loving, and some people actually reached out and said, I am so incredibly triggered. What's happening to you right now is literally my worst fear coming true.

And so I get it. Again, we have to do an intention check when we go on social media and be prepared to see what we don't want. Right? One thing to know here, too, and this is a skill I want you to take on or more, it's actually a strategy, is you can train the algorithm to do what you want it to.

So, as you've probably already experienced, if you wanna see more videos of dogs, Google or search for dogs and it will start to show you more, particularly if you watch the video from start to end. You can also click on specific content. When you see something you don't want to see, you can click a button and say, see less of this, [00:16:00] or block this topic, or block this hashtag.

And that can be a way to help you keep your social media clean. Right. Another thing to remember here and going back to seeing other people's a role, is you can actually mute your friends. They won't even know if what they're doing is too triggering and it's causing you so much depression, right? Because we do know that social media can cause depression.

It's okay to take a break from them, particularly if they're in your face a lot with all their successes and wins. You can mute them. You don't have to unfollow them or block them. You can mute them, so you're still remaining friends. They still know that you're important to them and they're important to you, but you don't have to be seeing their content.

You can take a break and set healthy boundaries with social media so that you're not continually being bombarded by what they're posting. That goes with things that trigger you as well, anxiety-wise. Now, the eighth thing that causes [00:17:00] social media, um, to cause anxiety is perfectionism. Now I've put two things in one here, which are perfectionism and exceptionalism. 

Perfectionism is the hope to be perfect and not make mistakes. The truth is, on social media and off social media, you will make mistakes. You're not going to be perfect, and you have to bathe yourself in a ton of self-compassion when engaging on social media and giving yourself permission again to be imperfect is to let it be a little rough. You don't have to be perfect and make it curated. And all the things some people posted about how they even had anxiety about what graphics they use, um, how they're making their posts, whether they line up perfectly, whether the music is exactly the right thing.

Again, just be real. No one wants to be friends [00:18:00] with perfect people. Believe me, I have found much more success on social media being a normal human being who is imperfect and is just regular old Kimberly. And yes, there are perfectly polished accounts, but you have to ask yourself, is that helpful for my social media?

Maybe what they're doing is good for their mental health. Is it good for me?

9. SOCIAL MEDIA CAUSES OVER-STIMULATION

Right now, the last one, the last point on why social media causes anxiety is overstimulation. This is a big one, and I finished with this one for a reason is social media posts are made to keep you on the platform. That's how they make money.

The posts that get sent to you and are suggested to you are so short, fast, and funny because they're promoting the exact videos and campaigns that will keep you engaged. But the problem with that is if you're [00:19:00] engaging and consuming content that is fast-paced, short, the content is very quick and it changes 1, 2, 3, 4, really, really fast and example would be TikTok, it actually will leave your nervous system quite overstimulated.

This is a problem, folks. The overstimulation. How social media content is delivered to us increases people's anxiety and stress levels. It increases the chance that they engage in safety behaviors such as compulsions because you put the phone down and you're literally vibrating from overstimulation.

I'm going to encourage you again to do a check-in. Is this good for me? Does this makes sense.?Are the benefits outweighing the negative? And a lot of the time the answer is no. How do we fix this? 

A lot of it that I have found is around setting strong [00:20:00] boundaries with social media. I created a course called Time Management for Optima Mental Health, and a reason for that wasn't because of social media; it was because many people with anxiety and depression tend to engage in behaviors that make their anxiety and depression worse.

What we do in this course is work at scheduling the healthy behaviors first and then building your day around that. If social media is a problem for you, we're going to set some limits and intentionally put some parameters and boundaries in to help you manage your mental health. 

Other resources include that most phones have a shut off time or an alarm that will alert you to when you've gone over or you have spent too much time. 

Some phones also will give you a usage report. [00:21:00] I know my iPhone sends me a usage report every Sunday. Kimberly, your social media uses up by such and such a percentage. Or it's down, or you know, you're within your limits if you set limits for yourself.

I know my daughter set a social media limit for herself because after a certain amount of time, she was getting overstimulated, and she was starting to feel lethargic and crappy. And then she wanted not to eat, exercise, sing, or do the things she loved to do. And that was an effective move on her part very, very wise.

Another thing to remember is many phones. Well, all phones will have an app. There are many apps you can access that will shut your phone off so that you actually cannot access that social media app or pro platform once you've used a certain amount of time. And if you are someone who struggles with boundaries and really disciplined in that area.

Go ahead and get [00:22:00] those apps. Invest in them because they will be better than therapy that you get. Maybe, probably not, but it will contribute and complement your therapy in that you've invested in this tool to help shut down. These apps if they're not helping you. Now, once again, I'm not saying all social media is bad.

Again, social media has lifted me out of depression in many cases. When I was having a lousy day showing me funny things, you know, me passing back, . Funny, you know, reels between my husband and I is a way for us to connect when he's at work, when he's away, or when he's upstairs and I'm downstairs.

It's not all that. It's about being intentional and checking in on what's helping you. What's not, it's going to be different for every person. So truly listen to yourself and go from there. Now, as I always say, it is a beautiful day to do hard things, and what that means [00:23:00] is setting limits is hard. It's not fun.

It actually takes a lot of willpower. So do employ your support systems, ask for help, get a therapist if you need one, who can help you implement some of these tools. As always, I hope this has been helpful, and I look forward to talking with you next week.