Anxiety Recovery: Mindset, Belief, and Motivation? | EP 324

If you are struggling with chronic and disordered forms of anxiety, you may be told every day that you need to adopt positive beliefs, a positive mindset, and you need to get motivated to face your fear so you can get better. Well, today I want to talk about why belief, mindset, and motivation are three of the most tragically misunderstood, misapplied and counterproductive concepts in anxiety and anxiety recovery. So let's get into that right now. What if I told you that the belief that you have about yourself today, though it may be negative, will still get you into the recovery process and help you get where you want to be? What if I told you that your negative, like, defeatist mindset is still okay to work with because that's the mindset you have? What if I told you that the fact that you cannot find motivation to go and intentionally do triggering scary things is pretty normal and that's also okay? That might sound silly because you may be. If you are listening to a podcast called the Anxious Truth, where we talk about anxiety and anxiety disorders, you might be looking for help with this particular problem. You're chronically anxious. You're afraid of being anxious. You're anxious because you're anxious. Your own body and mind seem to have betrayed you. You're afraid of your body, you're afraid of your symptoms. You're afraid of your thoughts. You're afraid of big emotions. When you're in this situation and you're looking for help and nobody blames you, and I guessing that's probably why you're listening to this podcast or watching my YouTube channel, you may be stumbling again and again and again, either through passive consumption of content, or maybe you've engaged the services of a helper of some kind. Anything from just a sort of an influencer that's running communities, air quotes to, you know, coaches, to even therapists that don't necessarily understand this, this process and the paradoxical nature of anxiety disorders. You may be hearing all the time that you have to wake up believing that you can do this. You have to adopt a positive mindset. This negative mindset is holding you back. And you have to find a way to motivate yourself to go and do your exposures or face what you fear. Just do it. Push through, like choose this, blah, blah, blah. You may be hearing these things all the time. I'm here to tell you that if they are not landing for you or you cannot just seem to conjure up new mindsets, new beliefs, or a feeling of motivation, that's not a you problem. You're just kind of getting bad advice where these concepts are tragically misapplied in our particular context. So let's talk about that today. I'm going to be a little bit aggressive. I'm going to kind of be dismissive about the way sometimes these topics are applied in our context because it really matters whether I'm working, you know, interacting with the thousands and thousands of people in the community surrounding this podcast, or I'm working individually with my therapy clients. I see this every single day. So I'm going to talk about sometimes where this advice comes from, this misguided and often unhelpful or even harmful advice comes from. I'm going to tell you what's more realistic and why it's okay to work with the beliefs and mindset motivation level you have right now, and why we simply cannot create internal states like new beliefs or new mindsets or feelings of motivation before acting. More than anything else today, we're going to flip it on its head. Those feelings come after the experience. They don't come before because we do not get to just simply manufacture new beliefs and adopt them as if they are gospel. It just doesn't happen that way. So before we get into that, for those who are new here, now that I'm like three minutes into the podcast, I guess I'll introduce myself. And by the way, if you're on YouTube today, sorry, no video, just a still image because nobody wants to see me today. I'm tired, it's early in the morning and I just don't have time to do video editing this week. So sorry about that. But I am Drew Linsalata. I'm creator and host of the Anxious Truth podcast and YouTube channel. I'm a therapist practicing in New York in the area of anxiety and anxiety disorders. I'm an author on this topic, clearly a podcaster. I also co hosted Disordered Podcast with my friend Josh Fletcher. You could find that at Disorder fm. I am a three time author on this topic with more books to come. Psychoeducator, advocate, social media dude, guy with expensive microphones and cameras. All of those things. So you are new here. I hope what you hear today is interesting or applicable or helps you in some way. Go check out the other content. Of course, if you're a returning viewer or listener. Welcome back. Thanks for hanging out with me for the next 20 minutes or so. I appreciate that. And remember that the Anxious Truth is more than just this podcast episode or this video. The Anxious Truth is way more than that. Go over to my website atthe anxious truth.com and you will find links to all of the other goodies, most of which are free. Even if there is a cost, it's a very low cost. People seem to like what I'm producing, so go check it out. Avail yourself of all the resources, especially the free ones. For sure. So let's get into this belief, mindset and motivation. See, here's the thing. If you are stuck or feeling trapped in a state of chronic or disordered anxiety and this podcast or this YouTube channel, we're talking about things like agoraphobia or OCD or health anxiety or panic disorder, that sort of thing. If you feel trapped in this situation, we are always talking about the fact that you have to kind of go toward those fears, not away from them. So we never talk on the Anxious Truth about managing anxiety or managing triggers or interacting directly to knock down symptoms or thoughts. We're not in the control strategy business here. We are in the accepting and navigating strategy business here because that proves to be the most effective way to do this, although it's not an intuitive way to do it, and it's a really hard sell. So that being said, everybody wants words before action to be a thing, right? In our context, anxiety disorders, anxiety disorder recovery, everybody wants words to work because the action that we have to take is very difficult action. It's counterintuitive action. It involves intentionally deciding to be uncomfortable and afraid. Nobody wants to do that. I didn't want to do it. I don't blame you if you don't want to do it. So we all want words to fix us. We want to hear words that will make us think and feel differently without having to take difficult action. We want to be able to say words that will somehow change things without taking difficult action. But in the end, that's actually not a thing. Like the idea that words before action will make things better is a fantasy. I don't. I hate to say that I'm not picking on you if you're clinging to that. I totally get that because I cling to it at one time as well. But the idea that words or, or motivation or memes or song lyrics or like powerfully delivered speeches or coaching is going to fix this is a fantasy. It is not reality. We have to act first and, and beliefs, mindset and motivation trail behind, then this is not a thing just in anxiety and anxiety disorders. This is a thing that if you look in psychological literature, neuroscience, cognitive science, you're going to find this studied a lot, especially over the past 20 or 30 years. As it turns out. Motivation follows the behavior, it doesn't precede the behavior. So this is actually a thing in all of life. This is just how humans work. So we have to address that thing where either you are passively consuming content, which is fine, like podcasts or social media posts or videos, it's okay. And you're hearing again and again words like positive mindset, you need a can do mindset, or you need to wake up in the morning and believe that you're strong enough to overcome this. Or you have to find moat, you got to get motivated, you got to want it enough. You have to want it enough to go out there and intentionally trigger yourself to face your fears, to be a warrior, to do your exposures. Nerd buzzer. This is bad advice now. It's common advice. You're more than likely going to hear that again and again and again as you passively consume content online or read books, you're definitely going to hear it. If you hire or otherwise engage the services of a helper who may have the best of intention, who may believe that they're genuinely helping you, they may believe that they actually know this. Sometimes it's because they're relying 100% on their own experience, and that's not a good thing. So sometimes you have a helper in the form, whatever the form of the helper might be, not just coaches. I know sometimes I pick on the coaches, could be therapists too, that don't necessarily understand anxiety disorders. They may be relying heavily on what they want to be true, what resonates for them emotionally or what their own personal experiences are. But that's not enough. We have to understand the mechanics of this very unique circumstance. There's so much paradox and anxiety disorders that we can't just rely on that stuff. So you may have actually be paying money for somebody who's telling you that you have to change your mindset, you have to just believe, you have to be motivated, you have to want it. You may be getting that sort of stuff because when we work with people who are struggling with these kinds of problems, who are finding it difficult to get up in the morning and go intentionally face their fears and learn from that, which everybody finds it difficult without an understanding of the nuance or the mechanics underneath that, or, or the ability to think a little bit more deeply and broadly about this, this problem and integrate it into a person's entire life, not just their anxious moments, we can accidentally just sort of fall back on things like you just don't Want it enough or you gotta want it enough or you gotta believe. You gotta wake up seeing yourself as a worrier. That is not the way human beings work. It's just not. So we wind up. We can accidentally wind up leading people down a bad path where the. They want words to change things for them and they cling to that fantasy because they're getting those words delivered again and again and again, which is just feeding into the fantasy that will one day those words will change things, but they won't. They won't like to change comes after the action. So let's talk about this. Let's talk about beliefs. Right now, if you are struggling and you're in the grips of it, you're in the mud, the muck, in the mire. And those are tough days to be. And I get it. I was there. Right now, you might not believe that it is safe to have thoughts about insanity or psychosis or harm. You probably don't believe that it's safe to ignore the physical sensations of anxiety. You might not believe that you can actually accept or tolerate or float through this. You might actually believe that you will in fact die or have a psychotic break or make a scene or whatever. You might not believe that you're ever going to get better. You might not have any kind of motivation to get up in the morning and go toward these incredibly difficult internal experiences. Those are facts. That is your reality. You can't just decide to believe different things. If you could do that and get better, you would have done it already. You wouldn't be listening to this podcast. I would have never had to start this podcast and that would be awesome. But the fact is, your reality right now is a struggling, anxious person might be that you do not believe in yourself. You do have what most people would see as a negative mindset, and you can't get motivated to change direction. Okay, this is the reality you got. So now we have to learn to work with that. Because you can't just decide to create beliefs or mindset or feelings like motivation on demand and hoping that you can so that doing scary things will be easier or less scary is leading us down a bad path. That's what helps us get stuck. If you find yourself saying things like, why can't I get this? Because the influencer that the anxiety influencer or coach or guru or even your therapist keeps telling you, but you can do it. Just believe it. And you can't seem to believe it, so you stay stuck. You may be thinking, why can't I get this? What is wrong with me, I'm never going to get better. Like this isn't working. Clearly there's something wrong with me. But that would be untrue. Those are incorrect conclusions to draw. And you're drawing those conclusions because of the information you're being given or at least the way these concepts are being presented. Right. So am I saying that belief, mindset, motivation are irrelevant completely? No, I'm not saying that they are part of the equation for sure. But the reality is that when we look at people who do overcome this problem, who do get better, who do recover, use whatever word you want, improve their well being, their wellness, I don't care. When we look at that, but we see is that this is about people who are acting even when they didn't believe they were taking action before they were motivated, they were taking action even in the midst of a negative mindset or defeated negative or self defeating mindset, it didn't matter, they were acting anyway. That means that everything inside them might have been saying, don't do that or you can't do that or what's the point? Or this doesn't matter, it's not going to work. But they did it anyway. They did it anyway. So if you listen to Disordered, one of the regular features we have on that podcast is a thing called Did It Anyway where people who listen to the podcast and this emails or voices males to tell us the things that they did that they didn't think they should or could do. And then they're really happy because like, oh my goodness, look at that. I did it anyway. What they're saying is my mind was telling me that there was no point. It was telling me that it's too dangerous. It was telling me it was too risky. It was telling me that I can't handle this. It was telling me that I'm weak. It was showing them negative belief, negative mindset, lack of motivation, but they acted anyway and they learned something from that that is super critical. We act before we believe. So you don't believe it's safe to actually engage in a conversation with a friend when your mind is saying, you better pay attention to your sanity because you're about to have a psychotic break here at lunch? Well then I can't engage in this conversation. I have to do something to save myself from that. No, I'm going to disengage from that as best I can while I hear that threat, while I'm afraid, while I'm uncomfortable. And I'm gonna do the best I can to surf through this experience and watch it end organically and naturally. We're gonna do that with anxiety sensations, we're gonna do that with scary thoughts, we're gonna do that with scary beliefs. We're gonna do that again and again and again. I don't get into the Mechanics because I've 300 and somewhat episodes where we do talk about that in books and workshops. But in the end, this is about taking that risk. Even though you don't believe that it's safe to take that risk. It's about making that change or changing the way you're acting and reacting and interacting with that negative internal experience. Even though you don't really have a positive mindset, you have a very defeated or self defeated mindset right now. You're going to do that even though you're not motivated to do that. This is, this is the deal we have. One of the things that you hear me say all the time is this is a really raw deal. But it is the deal we have. So we have to work with that. I had that raw deal. All of you guys have that raw deal. I hate that. But this is the reality that we're in. So we have to kind of work with that. So let's talk for a second about mindset, because mindset is probably the most misapplied and most overused word in the wrong context in our entire, you know, in this whole topic, in the community surrounding the work that I do. Mindset, mindset, mindset. Here's the only mindset that matters. It's a mindset of awareness. I am aware that I am holding a negative belief. I am aware that I don't believe in myself. I am aware that I see this as impossible. I'm aware of these beliefs and I'm aware that these beliefs are telling me to just stop and stay still and don't do the things that I want to do to get better. I can watch that happen. I can be aware of this and I have to be willing to accept that the fact that I believe that I'm never going to get better is just a belief and I can challenge that. So you don't need a positive mindset. You don't need a winner's mindset. You don't need to choose positivity. You don't need to do any of that because you are genuinely having negative emotions, negative thoughts, negative beliefs. Those things are actually happening and you can't choose to not have them happen. So you have to be able to acknowledge. I'm not sure that this is going to work. I'm not sure that this is safe. I'm not sure about any of this. But I have to see look critically at my beliefs, my mindset, my lack of motivation. And I have to recognize that I have to be open to challenging those things. Now we might get into chicken and egg never ending circle here. Well, that's a mindset shift. You got to make that mindset shift. All I'm asking you to do is not adopt a positive mindset. I'm asking you to be at least a little more open. So if you are rigid and like, I cannot do this and I can't change anything in the way I act until I believe differently, I have to change my internal state so I could change my behavior. That's a very rigid interpretation. And if you're sticking to that and feeling frustrated or stuck or, or like nothing is working or you're wasting your money on the community membership or whatever it is, your coaching fees, your therapy fees even. There are many therapists who don't understand this. That's true. Even though they all mean to help. I get that. But if you're feeling stuck right now and you are rigidly adhering to the idea that my belief and my emotional state must dictate what I do, then you wind up stuck and frustrated and feeling like there's no hope and like nothing can possibly work for you. So the only mindset, if you want to even call it that, is a mindset of being willing to look like clearly at what's going on inside of you. Like in terms of those beliefs. These are a lot of negative beliefs. That's true. But I don't have to flip them to positive. I just have to be a little bit willing to challenge them through behavior. So if there's a mindset shift, it doesn't have to be from negative and self defeating to positive and can do it only has to be a small mind shift, mindset shift toward openness and maybe being willing to experiment a little bit, that's it. We're not talking about positive or wishful mindsets. We're not talking about fantasy mindsets, about being an amazing warrior that's going to vanquish your anxiety. If you cannot conjure that. If you can cool, like capitalize on it, but it usually doesn't last. It's only going to be momentary and if you have it run with it, that's cool. But we don't have to create that. We only have to challenge the existing internal state that we're in. That's it just open up to the possibility that rigidly sticking to this narrative that I, that I loop in my head all the time isn't helping me. And if I try to flip the narrative from positive to from negative to positive, from defeated to victorious, if I try to flip just my internal state, my thoughts and my beliefs, I could say the words, I could read the quotes, I could read the memes, I can listen to the coach give a speech, I could get on the zoom, call in my mental health air quotes community and like get all motivated for 10 minutes. But then it falls apart when I have to go do a scary thing. That's normal. Like you're normal. You're like everybody else. If you're trying to flip just internally without taking action first into a positive mindset, positive belief, all of those things and feeling very motivated, that's not going to happen. It's. People can't find that that doesn't work. So just look at like it's normal to not believe that you can do this. It's normal to believe that it's risky or unsafe to accept anxiety or symptoms or scary thoughts or big emotions. It's normal. You're just a human being in a really difficult situation reacting like all human beings do. And I really hate the idea that people are telling you that you have to wake up in the morning and believe that you are a powerful warrior that can like vanquish your anxiety because you don't believe that. And it's not fair to tell you that you must do that. The other thing that I think it's super not fair to do is to tell you if you can't make this work. So let's touch on this. If you cannot seem to make belief and mindset shifts or motivation conjuring, if you can't make that work and you're still stuck if you are told, well, you just don't want, you need to want it, you need to find your why you need to want it more. That is also not fair. That 100% grinds my gears because if you could just want it enough to go do it, you would have done that already. We cannot instantly create a feeling of want or yearning. We can be hopeful or wish that things were different because that's kind of automatic. But that's not enough to motivate behavior in the face of fear. Right? That doesn't just say, oh cool, I really want to get better, so I'm just jump out every single day and go intentionally face what I fear perfectly in a spirit of openness and experimentation. I'm going to learn and I'm going to rocket up to the front of the line and recovery doesn't work that way. So it's not about wanting it enough. It's just about recognizing that, oh, the feelings that I'm having inside of me, the thoughts that I have, the beliefs that I bring into this are kind of standing in the way. They're keeping me rigid, they're keeping me close to experiences and they're not letting me experiment. Okay, well, what can I do now? Well, I can take the risk of trying to experiment anyway, little by little to see what changes when I do that. So you cannot just decide to believe in yourself. You can't just decide to want it more. These are words that you will get. I'm just going to say it. I said it on my Instagram stories this past weekend and I got a lot of good feedback, but also a little bit hate from it. When you are told you just have to want it more or you're not ready. You're not ready to work on this. You're just not prepared for this. You don't have the right mindset with this. When you're told those sort of things, that's nonsense. You're encountering a helper that may really want to help you, but is showing you maybe personal experience, but a lack of real understanding and nuance. So that is not a you problem. Don't be told. Well, you just have to adopt a new mindset. You just have to believe in yourself. You just have to want it more. Don't let somebody tell you that, because that's just not fair. That is a grossly oversimplified, under understood approach to this particular problem, which is full of nuances and full of subtleties and full of paradox. So if nothing else, know that it's okay to not believe in yourself. It's okay to believe that you're too weak. It's okay to maybe believe that this can't possibly work for you. It's okay to believe that you're special and unique and worse than everybody else and the rules don't apply to you. It's okay to have a negative mindset right now. It's okay to not be motivated to go and intentionally trigger yourself and do exposures and learn from that. All of that is normal. Everybody starts there. Nobody changes that just by hearing somebody talk in a zoom call or looking at like posts in an endless scroll. All we can do is open up a little bit and start to challenge that rigidity. And that happens a little by little by little, which means you have to be patient with yourself, which means you have to be kind to yourself. You have to treat yourself with a little bit of compassion and respect. Like, I am choosing to do a really difficult thing here that is completely counterintuitive and opposite from what, like, I really want to do. So I'm going to have to give myself a little bit of time and not just assume that I can read a book or watch a video or listen to a podcast and somehow instantly change and feel less afraid and be ready to do this. That's not going to happen. I'm still going to have doubts, I'm still going to have fear. I'm still not going to believe in this. But can I take the risk anyway and experiment a little bit? That's all you're looking for. Don't let people shovel words at you to motivate you. If it's not working for you, if you're passively consuming the content, it does become incumbent upon you to stop consuming that content. If you're, if you're not. If it's. If they're actively being handed to you by somebody you're working with one on one, or in a mentorship or a community or a group, then it's incumbent upon that person to understand, well, this isn't landing for this person, so I'm gonna have to shift or I'm gonna have to say, I might not be a good fit for you. So either way, you're gonna have to consider that what you think might be helping you, hearing about positive mindset and choosing positivity and positive beliefs and motivation and all of those things you think that might be helping you. You could literally just being have these words shoveled at you over and over by default because there's no other understanding of why it's harmful. And all that's doing is perpetuating the fantasy that I started with, which is the fantasy that words will change how you think feel. They will make you less afraid, they will make you more sure. They will make you go out and do the scary things. They will make you go into recovery. They will not. All they can do is teach you the principles, which is like what people like me try to do, explain the rationale for why you might want to do scary and difficult things intentionally. But words are not going to change how you feel overnight. And suddenly, like it was a game changer when I went on that zoom call, there is no such thing as. And continuing to chase that whether you choose to keep consuming that content or your helper just keeps shoveling at you, at you, so you pay your fees, that is just perpetuating the fantasy that, like, it'll work someday. No, won't we? Those changes in belief, mindset, motivation, come after the action, which means we do it anyway. That's why Josh and I do. Did it anyway. Undisordered. There's a reason for that. It's not just good theater. It actually illustrates the concepts I'm talking about today. And if I was working with you in therapy, if you were one of my therapy clients, we would be talking about this. Like, I just can't seem to believe that it's safe. I had that conversation with my therapy clients every day. I don't berate them and tell them that they shouldn't think that or they should just believe me. No, no, we understand. I do totally understand you don't believe that, which makes this so hard. Which makes you have to, like, understand and acknowledge that, like, I am choosing to act against what appears to be my self interest or self preservation. That's a big deal, right? So we don't just tell you to think differently. That's not possible. All right, enough ranting about that. Where am I here? About 25 minutes into what I thought would be a 20 minute episode. If you guys have been listening to me or watching long enough, you got to be laughing. Like, this dude constantly goes longer than he thinks he's gonna. What am I gonna say? Like, I get into a bit of a rant sometimes a little bit, maybe too passionate about this stuff. I do understand that some of the concepts today, as I presented them, might seem a little bit aggressive. They may seem invalidating. If you are a huge believer in mindset and belief and motivation and choosing positivity and thinking positive and visualization of yourself as a warrior. I understand I might seem like I'm kind of dumping all over that in a way. I kind of am. Because I wouldn't be doing my job if I were just like, yeah, go. That'll get the job done. I just don't see it working. Not on a regular basis at all. People wind up listening to this podcast, which is arguably the least popular approach to anxiety and anxiety disorders that I can imagine in the world, because that stuff isn't working. So I'm only going based on what I see and what the data tells us over, like, the last 50 years. I didn't just make this up. It's not that I just dislike coaches and influencers this is an actual thing. I gotta follow the data. I gotta follow what, what, what the majority of people are showing me. Right? So that's why I'm saying this. I don't mean to be invalidating. I do mean to be challenging, because sometimes we got to challenge that belief. That's that willingness to be a little bit more clear about what you're feeling and a little bit more open to challenging the rigid. The rigid adherence to those beliefs. So, yeah, I'm a little bit challenging today. If you're a coach and you regularly rely on things like you got to believe when you wake up that you could do this, please stop doing that. Like, that's not helping the people that are paying you, that are trusting you. You're not helping them to keep shoveling those things over and over and over. You have to recognize that the person you're talking to is a human being with a unique experience before they got into your community or your coaching program or your therapy office. I don't, I don't mean to pick on you guys, but, like, I'm trying to be helpful here. There's a reason why they cannot shift their belief in their mindset. And if you are in the business of just dismissing that, well, that person just not ready to work with me. Me, I only work with people that have a positive mindset. Okay, then. Then send them along their way and stop collecting the money. Just saying. All right, guys, that's enough ranting for today. I appreciate you hanging out there. If you made it all the way to the end of this episode, well, good for you. I appreciate you hanging in there because I know I got a little ranty in this one for sure, but I knew that was going to happen. And I guess as I leave, if you do hang, if you did hang out to the end of the video of the podcast, if you're on YouTube, even though it's just a still image today, I'm sorry, guys, there's nothing to watch. Although I'm really nothing to look at today. Maybe like the video and subscribe to the channel or hit the notification bell. So, you know, when I upload new videos, most of which have actual video. I promise if you're listening as a podcast episode, especially on Apple podcasts or Spotify, where you can leave a rating or review, 5 star rating is appreciated. If you think I have earned it or deserve it. And if you're really into it, maybe take a second and write a very quick review about why you like this podcast. Because it helps other people Find it and then more people get some help. And that's why I do this to begin with, with the silly microphone in front of me every two weeks. What else can I tell you? If you don't listen to Disordered, which is the podcast that comes out every Friday with my buddy Josh Fletcher, go to Disorder FM and check that one out. Check out all the stuff on my website atthe anxious truth.com and if you do nothing else today, if you do nothing else today, just take five minutes to like, give yourself permission to think and believe and feel what you think, believe and feel today without trying to forcibly morph that and change it into something positive, because that's not fair to yourself. Be nice to yourself for a few minutes and then maybe consider that you might have to challenge that rigid adherence to like, no emotions and thoughts first. What if you flipped it? And at least consider the possibility that it's behavior before thoughts and emotional change. Where might that get you? That counts. Just challenging that today and giving yourself permission to exist as you are in your negative mindset, negative belief state is a win. Take it. So I'll be back again in two weeks with another topic. We might talk about anxiety and sour coffee. Little teaser there. There's a. There's a whole thing that is super technical, like a little more of the nerdy stuff. I might do that in two weeks. We'll see. I just didn't have an immunity to go into the technical tall grass with that stuff. So this is what you got today was rant. Thanks for listening. Do the best you can today. I'll see you in two weeks. We're out. Sa.