Danielle Jhiani, an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, argues that staying stuck is harder than recovery. Avoidance keeps problems alive, but facing hard tasks pays off. She emphasizes baby steps, tracking small wins, and not believing negative thoughts.
Welcome back. My name is Danielle Thornton Gianni. I'm an anxiety and OCD recovery coach, helping people recover and have happy, healthy relationships, just like I have. I often hear the feedback from people who are either recovering, recovering, or haven't yet found the right help to recover that this is really hard, whether it's dealing with the issues that we're dealing with or going through the recovery process. And I will say that, yes, when we're struggling with something like anxiety or ocd, it can be very difficult. But staying in that place of being stuck and struggling is a lot more difficult than the recovery process. Now, I'm not saying the recovery process is easy. It's not. But one of the reasons why we end up where we're at is because we are avoiding hard things. We're avoiding uncomfortable things, and we've been doing that for a very long time. So when we start to face these things and do the hard things, yeah, it's gonna feel hard. But I promise you, it's the hard things that are gonna give you the best, best payoff. And when we're struggling, we're listening to these negative thoughts that tell us it's too hard, I can't do it. It's never going to work for me. That is the problem in itself. We're listening to these negative thoughts that keep us stuck in the unhealthy behaviors versus creating healthy habits where we build comfort and we build ease and we build confidence. So, yes, it's hard. But I promise you, even though your brain is telling you if you are on the recovery journey, that it's harder in the recovery journey than it is when you're stuck. It's not. It's a lot harder to stay stuck. It's actually easier to go through the recovery journey. It's just that we have to learn to stop listening to these negative thoughts and recognizing what is going well. The recovery process and human behavior change is slow. It's all about baby steps, and there's a lot of learning involved. So the things that are worthwhile are not quick and overnight successes. We all want that magic pill that's going to fix everything, but it doesn't exist. So when you're going through the recovery process or making changes to improve your life, I want you to remember that whenever your brain tells you it's too hard, we're learning not to listen to these negative thoughts. Right? And the more you listen to that, the harder it feels. I want you to recognize that, yes, this is difficult, or yes, this is not easy, but I want you to recognize even more what is going well, what small changes you are making, the knowledge that you have now that you didn't have before. All of this is helping you make progress. And yes, it may be baby steps over weeks, but when you look back two months from now, you're going to go, wow, I've actually made a lot of changes and this feels really, really good. So we're learning not to listen to negative thoughts, not to focus on negative feelings. It's okay to notice those things, but we're learning to shift, to also see as much, if not more, what is going well, what we can accomplish. So the next time your brain tells you that this is too hard, I want you to recognize that that's just a thought. Thoughts aren't facts. And if it doesn't feel good, we're not going to give that thought attention. Please comment, like and subscribe. Let me know what you thought of this video. If you need help with your journey, I am here. The tools that I teach you always work. We're here to support you. Check out the link in the description below and we'll talk to you very soon.
