What are Your Obstacles to Healing Anxiety?

This is Dr. Nicole, and we're talking today about healing from anxiety and how there can be obstacles to healing. And so if you've been doing the work, if you've been taking all of the right supplements, if you've been doing the exercises, if you've changed your diet, if you've taken the medications, if you're doing all the mindfulness interventions, really everything, if you feel like you're doing all of the right things and yet you're not getting results, there could be an obstacle to cure. There could be an obstacle to you overcoming anxiety. And we want to remove those obstacles. And so I was going to tell you a story about a client of mine that I used to work with, and his name, we'll call him Mark. And he had a ton of anxiety and panic. He's 20 years old, and he noticed that as he got farther away in proximity from his family, from his mother and father, that he would get more anxiety. And so he started to develop panic attacks anytime they would go out of town or anytime he had to go out of town. And so his life got smaller and smaller and smaller. So whereas before he was able to drive from one town to the neighboring town and feel okay about it, as the anxiety got worse, he found that he wasn't able to go farther away from his. His parents. And he rationalized that, what if something happens and I can't reach them or I can't get to them? What if something happens to them? What if something happens to me? What if I need help? And so he had all of this stress and anxiety. Right. And so Mark is having this experience, even though for him, it makes sense logically, in one sense. But then there's this other part of him who wants his life to open up again. So as I'm telling you the story, just notice in your own life if you resonate with any of this. So Mark was doing all of the work. He saw a good counselor. He had a psychiatrist. He was taking a bunch of vitamins. He'd done functional medicine testing, which can be really expensive. So he did all of the right things, but he wasn't getting results, and he couldn't figure out why. So we started to explore a little bit about the anxiety and the dissociation and what positive things could come from the anxiety and dissociation. Because oftentimes there is a benefit to our symptoms. Our symptoms are trying to tell us something. Right? And so he felt that when he was anxious, he knew what that would be like. He felt like, at least anxiety is Familiar to me. I know that my anxiety keeps me close to my parents. It protects me from getting far away where I can't be helped. There. There's a lot of benefit to my anxiety. And then he said something to me that really stuck out, and it's remained with me for all of these years. He said, I don't even know who I would be if I wasn't anxious. I don't know who I would be if I wasn't anxious. And so for Mark, the anxiety had become such a big part of his life that it was a part of his identity. Does anybody hear. Does anyone resonate with that? Where it feels like you've been anxious or depressed or dealing with irritation for so long that you almost don't remember what it's like to not feel that way? Yeah, I felt that way of you, where it becomes a part of your identity and a part of who you are. It's like you're saying, yes, we have a comment. It's being in that safe cocoon, in that comfort zone. It's the predictability and reliability of I've been here before. And it may not be optimal and ideal, but at least it's familiar. Right. And so for Mark in his story, that safe cocoon of being anxious for him, being in proximity to his family as a result of what his safe cocoon needed, it felt safer than what might happen if he got better. And so he started to think about, if my anxiety got better, what would happen to me? What would that be like? What would I suffer with then? Would something else worse happen? Would I then go far away from my parents and something would happen to me or something would happen to them, and then I was too far away. So then there's the fear of not having the fear. Right. Can you see how that can be a vicious cycle, how it can be an obstacle to cure? So he's doing all these things to try to cure himself of anxiety, but then that was creating anxiety because being out of that cocoon, like you said, being out of that space of predictability of familiarity can be really scary. So this was an obstacle to cure for him. So he was resisting the process of healing. And today we're talking about resisting versus receiving. And so for Mark, he's doing the work, but there is a part of him, a very valid part, that was resisting. So you have to work with the resistance. Otherwise that resistance is going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. And it's just like, you know, I have this wall behind me here. So if I Push on this wall, the wall is going to push back at an equal and opposite pressure. Right? Because physics dictates that. Right? Because if I push harder than the wall, the wall will fall that way. If the wall pushes back harder on me, then the wall will follow me. Right? And so it's the same with psychology. If we're p pushing ourselves and we're not rolling with the resistance, we're not rolling with ourselves, then there's going to be parts that are trying to protect us that are going to push back. And so this made Mark feel like he was hitting his head against the wall and that he was doing all of the things and nothing was working. Have you ever felt that way? Because I can tell you I have. And it's such a frustrating place to be. And you spend money and you spend time and you spend day after day after day feeling like you're in groundhogs. It's like Groundhog Day. And so what we want to start with is we want to identify the difference between resisting and receiving. And so I have some notes here I'm going to read to you. We're going to put it in a blog, and I want you to notice your journey. So whatever it is, let's pick something that you're trying to work on. So are you trying to work on putting yourself out there more, or are you trying to work on getting a new job? Or are you trying to work on going farther from your house, maybe ordering food on the phone? Like, it could be anything, right? Whatever it is that you're trying to work on, and when you think about what you've been doing to try to work on that, we want to identify are you resisting or are you receiving that? And so I'm going to go down the differences between the two, and as I say each, I want you to kind of make a mental note of which one you resonate with. Okay? Resisting is refusing to tolerate the moment versus being in the moment. So let me give you an example, right? So anxiety is where we really focus our time. Anxiety is my jam. And so when you have anxiety, we'll use that as an example. When you have anxiety, do you feel an urge to resist that anxiety and push it down or take a supplement or take. Or trying to make it go away? Are you resisting that anxiety or are you being in the moment, are you actually allowing that anxiety to come up, to flood you, to surround you, for you to experience it wholly and entirely? Are you resisting the anxiety or are you receiving it? Okay, and what we resist my Loves will persist. Right? And I know that sounds so counterintuitive, and I get it. I've had anxiety. I still am an anxiety warrior. That's where my nervous system goes when we're stressed, as I get anxious. And so it's really important that you identify am I resisting or am I receiving? Okay, so that's the first one. Number two is, are you giving up on the process or are you holding space when the emotions become extremely powerful? So resisting, are you giving up on the process? Like, just, screw this, give me a pill, give me a supplement, or I'm just gonna watch, I'm gonna fall down a YouTube hole. I'm gonna scroll through TikTok. I'm gonna dissociate. I'm gonna just do anything. I. Being in the process, I'm refusing to tolerate being in the moment. I'm giving up on the process. Are you doing that or are you holding the space? Are you creating space for when those motions become powerful? So if you're having a panic attack, an example of that is refusing to tolerate it and to give up on the process is you don't. It's the opposite of holding the space. It's the opposite of being like, all right, strap our seatbelts, we're in for a wild ride. We're going to be here now. Right? So it's resisting versus receiving. Okay? Are you distracting yourself from unpleasant sensations? So do you distract? Do you dissociate? Dissociation and distraction could be online shopping. It could be using coping techniques. You know, coping techniques are good, but are the coping techniques trying to get you out of something or help you work through something? Right. So are you distracting yourself or are you letting go of the need to control? And so let me give you another example of sleeplessness, right? Insomnia. Anybody else hear an insomnia warrior? Because I can tell you that that always goes with my anxiety insomnia, Right? So are you. When you go to bed at night and you're having a hard time falling asleep, are you trying to sleep or are you just like, whatever? I just accept whatever my body will do. And that when I was dealing with a ton of anxiety, I would have, like, punted myself for saying this. I get it. But if you try to make yourself sleep when your nervous system doesn't want to sleep and you get upset about not sleeping, you're going to spiral yourself. You're going to resist sleeping by resisting your body not sleeping, right? So counterintuitively, if you just simply don't care if you're not sleeping. It will help you sleep. This is called cognitive behavioral therapy. Insomnia, CBTI 101. And it is so ironic, but I promise you resisting will amplify, right? It's going to amplify. It's going to push back, right? So receiving. We have a comment here. Insomnia and then fatigue, Vicious cycle, right? And then when you're fatigued, your body is going to produce epinephrine and cortisol. Your melatonin is going to be off balance, which is going to pull from your serotonin, and so then your mood's going to be off balance and it just spins and spins. So are you resisting or receiving another one? Are you overfilling your schedule so much that you don't have time to be in your suffering, or are you giving yourself space and time to listen? Which one do you resonate with? I could tell you I'm a schedule overfiller. What about you? Do you do all of the things instead of looking at that big pink elephant that's in front of you and facing it head on? Right. What's your big pink elephant? What's there? Stop and reflect right now and just notice. What is it that I'm resisting? Resistance can be powerful, right? We want to honor that resistance. We want to roll with the resistance. We want to work with our parts. We have a question. It says, are distractions a bad thing all the time? That's so good. So when it comes to resisting and receiving, we want to be strategic about it. So let's say that you're in the middle of a meeting or you're holding space for somebody, you have a feeling come up. What we want to do is we want to notice and acknowledge and then put it in a protective box to deal with later so that we can intentionally receive. So that may be. So I'm in a meeting and I have anxiety come up and I start worrying and be like, okay, I hear you, anxiety, and I'm going to put you aside. I'm going to put you. I'm going to put you in a protective box and then we're going to come back and we're going to mindfully receive that information. So it's about finding, finding the right timing for that. So the question is, are distractions bad? Is you can use distractions. You want to set aside kind of like an eggo waffle, Right? I'm going to be in this Eggo waffle and I'm going to dissociate for a little bit. That's Totally fine. Right. But we always want to make sure that we go in and we receive. Otherwise, kind of think about it. It's like, well, I'm going to. I don't want to wash my dishes right now. I'm going to put it in the sink, and I'm going to finish hanging out with my friends. But then go back and do your dishes later. Right? So you may resist doing the dish in the moment. That's okay. But just go back and do the dishes later, because otherwise what will happen day after day after day, adding dirty dishes to the sink, Then suddenly we have a pile of dirty dishes, which is a metaphor for a pile of a whole bunch of stuff that your nervous system is trying to release. Right? All right. Resisting versus receiving. Are you trying to be in control? Are you letting go of control? Are you attaching to your hurts? Are you resisting the process of acknowledging the hurts and then releasing the hurts? Or are you receiving those hurts and having empathy for them? Right, right. Yeah, I totally hear you. I totally hear you. Yes, yes. It's so natural to resist it. Right. And it's okay to resist it at times, but you always want to intentionally receive it. So a couple other signs. So we're reflecting, we're noticing, are there obstacles to cure? Are there obstacles to you getting better? And resisting versus receiving are a huge part of that. So the last two, and then we'll finish up here. Are you trying to fix your suffering? Oh, my gosh. I'm calling myself out right here, right here with you guys. Are you trying to fix your suffering? Or what would the counter be? Instead of trying to fix our suffering, what would you do instead? Right. With me, I wrote noticing, releasing, noticing, releasing, noticing, releasing. So the suffering comes up, I notice. And then I'm gonna put it my protective box so I could deal with it later. So instead of trying to fix. Instead of trying to fix my suffering, noticing and releasing. And I actually want to pause here, and I want to talk about helping other people in their suffering. Right? So have you ever had somebody who calls you and they're dealing with something and they feel, like, so upset, and then is your impulse ever to try to fix it, to ever create solutions for them? That is definitely my impulse. That is definitely my impulse is to try to fix everything. But really, the best gift that we can give is to help people feel the pain, feel the suffering, experience it, and then release it. Honor that, acknowledge that. Yes, yes, I hear you. You are so good. I love this. And we have a question. What about avoidance of People, because of their negative responses, they give all the time. This is such a good question. So what if your environment, we call this your cast of characters, Right. What if your social characters are not allowing you to be in this process, whatever this process looks like? Right. What if your cast of characters are in a couple of ways. Because I could see this going down in a couple of ways. What if they are trying to force you to suppress it? Like, oh my gosh, why are you so grumpy? You need to move on. Right? Or what if they're stuck in it? Right? And so when it comes to resisting and receiving, I think having really good boundaries is important. Having good boundaries of this is what I need from you and this is what I cannot deal with right now and making sure that you have those boundaries and tell people, again, this is what I need from you right now and this is what I can't have right now in order to honor where you are. Right? And another question that we have here is trying to be the hero. Yeah, Blossom, I completely hear you. That's, that's my impulse. I'm a helper. I'm a two on the Enneagram. A two, three. And I want to help and fix everybody. And one of the ways to do that is to help people receive. To receive the data. To receive the data. We have a question. Does anxiety cause burping? And yes, anxiety absolutely can cause burping. In fact, your anxiety brain impacts your gut brain axis. We call your gut your second brain. Right? And so there is an intimate relationship between your digestive tract and your emotional well being. And so, so anxiety can cause nausea, vomiting, gas, bloating, burping, passing wind. It can cause heartburn, can cause chest pain. Anything that your brain can communicate to in your body, your brain can tell to experience anxiety. So a couple of other questions. We have a shout out. Thank you so much for the four S's. The four S's are ways that we talk about how to really deal with panic when it comes up. And so if you haven't seen that content, we have a post on that on our Instagram and it's really good, really helpful. The four S's target your brain stem, which is what is running the show when you're really anxious. So we've been talking about obstacles to healing for anxiety. If you feel, feel like you've been doing all of the things and if you feel like I've spent the money on testing, I've gone and seen a therapist, I've seen my psychiatrist. I've seen my primary care, I've looked at my thyroid. I've done everything that they've told me to do, and yet I'm still anxious. The question that it's important to ask yourself is, is there an obstacle to healing? For me, is there an obstacle to healing? And by noticing the differences between, between resisting and receiving can help you start to identify where your obstacles are. And so one of the questions that came up is, can explain anxiety sensitivity a bit. Katie, can you expand a little bit more on this question? I want to make sure to make sure I can answer that. Welcome from the uk. I'm so happy you're here, Sully. And we have a comment that prayer is good to help with anxiety and health and finances. Absolutely. That Mind, body, spirit connection, and really getting in to your spiritual life is so helpful. We have a question of how to start, how to stop overthinking. So there's actually a video that I did, and it's called Thought Relocation. And so when we're overthinking, if we try to resist, resist overthinking, remember, what we resist will persist. Right. And so if you've ever noticed, like, my brain is thinking and I'm trying to stop it from thinking, that it just gets worse, right? It can get louder, more intrusive, more upsetting, more obsessive. All of these things can get worse by suppressing them. And so what we want to do is we want to receive the overthinking. We just want to notice it. Okay, brain, you're thinking. You like to think. Brain, we acknowledge it, and then once we've acknowledged it, we do the exercise called Thought Relocation. And so I'll tell you little bit briefly how that works now before we finish up here in a couple of minutes. And I want you to start practicing that, because the more that you practice Thought relocation, the better it will work. And I've been practicing this with Transcendental meditation, and it's getting easier because I can tell you I'm with you people. Pr. I love to live in my brain. I like to analyze and overthink, but it can really hijack your happiness. Right. So before I answer that question on thought relocation is. Yes, Amy, I'm going to put this in our stories. Please share. If this would be valuable to anybody, please spread the word. Absolutely. This will be in the stories. And I'm going to have a blog on this topic, too. And so you can find all of that by clicking on the link in the bio and then you can go to the blog. So There's a button in the bio link that says blog. And you can find blogs for almost every video that I do. And so we're talking about thought relocation. And so the question that someone asked is, what do you do if you have obsessive thinking or intrusive thinking or intrusive thoughts that just keep spinning around in your head or maybe even over. Analyzing people's words in a conversation is just to simply receive that information. Notice it. Okay, brain, you're thinking. That's what you do. You're smart, your brain analyzes things. But the problem is when your brain is hijacking you instead of you controlling your brain. Right? So one of the ways to start controlling your brain is to do thought relocation. So let me teach you that. And then I'm going to answer a couple of other questions because I love it when you guys ask questions. If, by the way, you ask a question and I don't get to it in the live, then just leave a comment because these comments don't show up when I save the video. So I don't have them. So just put your comment once the video is saved, which will be in just a moment when we finish up, and then I will answer every single one of your comments. It'll be me, Haley, or Brooke. We'll answer every single comment, every single dm. And then if there are topics that you want to hear, I'll do videos on them. We'll write content on them. So it's all here for you. So as we finish up, I want to talk about thought relocation. So this whole topic today is all about removing obstacles to anxiety freedom, right? It's removing obstacles to healing. It's removing obstacles to cure. And if we resist the data that's coming up from our body, the body's just going to relocate it and it's going to get louder. It's just going to get louder. If we resist it, we have to receive it. So with thought relocation, this is a practical exercise that you can start doing right now. And you've got to practice it because it's a new skill. And it's just like you're carving out a trail in the woods. You're gonna have to get your giant. What is the word that. That grass cutting thing. I'll remember it as soon as I finish up. Right. But you're gonna have to carve new pathways in your brain. And so I know this may be a little bit challenging at first, but practice it. And I promise you, I've done this with hundreds and hundreds of people. It gets easier and it really works. So thought relocation, obsessive thoughts, thinking thoughts. I always close my eyes and I think about my thoughts. It helps me focus. So I'm going to close my eyes. That's okay. So you have the thoughts. They're in your brain. Notice them. It's going to be racing, it's going to be spinning. You're going to have all of these intrusive thoughts. They may be negative thoughts or scary thoughts or irritating thoughts or going over conversations or worrying about the future or remembering past hurts. The content isn't important. What's important is the thought relocation. So what I want you to do is notice where your thoughts are when I think. Oftentimes my intrusive thoughts feel like they're in the front of my head. Wherever yours are they in the back of your head. Notice it. Now maybe we'll just be quiet for a second. Just notice your thoughts. Okay? Wherever they are, what I want you to do is imagine pushing them forward towards your nose and then past your nose and push them forward and see how far forward you can push those thoughts. So, so just notice them thinking outside of your head in the front, right? So do this with me. Okay? So just keep practicing that. And then once you've gotten that, once you feel like, okay, I've imagined with my imagination, I've pushed them forward. Those thoughts are still happening. They're going to be thinking. They're going to be thinking, this is hard. I don't know what I'm doing. Does this really work? Blah, blah, blah, itinerary. Right? They're going to do their thing. Just notice them. Just receive it. We're relocating it. And then I want you to practice the pushing it to your right side. So you're going to pull them out of the front. Now you're going to push them to the right side. Okay? So you're in practice relocating out away from you on the right side. They're still there. Do the same thing. Push to the left. Just push those thoughts to your left. Just thought relocation. You're going to go to your left and then you're going to. Eventually, this is the harder one, but you can do this is we're going to push them to the back so that on command you can thought relocate so that you're able to focus. Like, okay, this is what I'm doing up here. I'm focusing. I'm living my life. I'm making choices, I'm willfully thinking. And then in the background there's all this noise. And then we'll practice after you've mastered that, we'll practice the volume where you can turn thoughts louder and turn thoughts softer. And this actually works. I promise you. Please practice that relocation. It makes a really big difference. Okay, another question here before we finish up is, next time, can we cover how to reduce dependency? See on outside reassurances and developing confidence in our own inner voice. I think that is such an amazing question. And I just took a screenshot so that I will remember that. And yes, we will do that topic. Thank you for that suggestion. I think that's awesome. Jared, I'm so happy to see you here. Thank you for being on. I'm just delighted. Okay, so we have a couple comment. Fear, anxiety, having anxiety about having anxiety. We actually, if you got in on the beginning of this conversation, we were kind of talking a little bit about that. We were talking about Mark and how Mark had anxiety about not having anxiety. And in the same token, we can have anxiety about having anxiety. In fact, that was my number one anxiety, is I'm gonna get anxious going to sleep tonight, and then I'm not gonna sleep. And then, of course, I got anxious going to sleep at night and then didn't sleep. So it was a vicious cycle, right? And so what we want to do is we want to notice the fear anxiety. So fear anxiety, in whatever way it manifests for you for today's exercise, we just want to notice it. We want to acknowledge it, write it down, allow your body to give you that data and just acknowledge it and relax, receive it. Because every single symptom that you get, anxiety, headaches, back pain, stomach pain, nausea, heartburn, belching, passing gas, numbness and tingling, feeling like you can't move your lips because your lips feel heavy. All of these different symptoms, these are all pieces of data from your body. There are pieces of data that will give you answers on what needs healing and how. Okay, Overanalyzing is the same thing. Sully, Overanalyzing is the same thing. Think about that. With the thought relocation, you overanalyze because you are analytical and smart, right? Sully, you are analytical and smart, and this is a gift. But what's happening is there's something that your brain and your body is trying to tell you by producing these thoughts over and over. And my guess is that you've been resisting and there may be something that you need to receive. Okay, so practice this. Practice this. And then we have cast of characters, and stigma seems to prevent me with the release and the resist. And this is thank you wolfs, this is such a really important. And this actually goes back to a comment that we had earlier about who is around you. Are they letting you acknowledge? Are they letting you be in your experience, or are they trying to force you to push it out of the way? And I know that this can be really difficult, but you might need to do an audit of your relationships and the House of boundaries. So the House of Boundaries is a whole exercise that we do where we identify the front porch people, which are very distant people that we're not intimate with. And then we go to the living room, which is a little bit deeper, the kitchen, which is much more intimate. And then the bedroom is the most intimate at all. And then I teach you in the this House of boundaries exercise how to be in relationship with these people and who gets to come in and who gets to give you feedback and who doesn't. And so if your cast of characters is shrouding you with this stigma and it's preventing you from releasing and resisting, then, babe, you got to do an audit. You have to do an audit of your cast of characters. And then when we think of society at large, right. Is we want to be the change. We want to be the voice of mental health, health advocacy and breaking down the stigma. But you have to protect yourself first. You have to create a world around you that is nourishing in you and supporting you. Okay. I adore you, Jared. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for your kind, your kind messages. We have Blossom asked a question. Thought relocation. Is that the same as wiring your brain? Yeah, you're rewiring your brain. It's kind of like a machete. There's the word, you know, you're rewiring, creating a new trail. You're paving a new trail. And so when we have a thought and when we make an association, your brain is making a synaptic connection. Synaptic connection is you have dendrites and axons, and it's helping us go from point A to point B. You are literally rewiring your brain. And if you spend 30 seconds, that is enough time to start the process of creating a new synaptic connection. And then you want to really select, solidify those and pave it and myelinate it and make it really strong and more automatic. That takes, on average, 90 to 120 days of consistency. Yeah. Yep. So, Blossom, that's really good. Thought relocation is the same as rewiring your brain. Couple other questions. How do I have a good connection? Communication and compatibility with people. This is, we should do a whole conversation on this. I, I think that this is something that would be good in terms of obstacles to cure is having a conversation about how our social cast of characters can be an obstacle to cure. And so how do we cultivate connection and communication and compatibility? I actually talk about this in the cable criteria in the House of Boundaries exercise. And so I believe that there is some free content on that. Sully. So if you click, click on the link in the bio and you click the button that says blog, it'll take you to my website, Dr.nicolecane.com and there should be a search button there. And when you go to the search button, you can type in House of Boundaries and there's a video and there's a blog. And I believe that it goes through the cable criteria to get started on that. But let's do a whole obstacle to cure conversation on that. So I screenshot that question too. And we have Jared Bipol Fuller, Bachelor, who's asking, can we do thought relocation in people of states of mania? Yes, absolutely, Jared. We can do thought relocation in children, in adults, in mania, in depression and anxiety, in obsessive compulsive disorder. So if you struggle with ocd, you can do thought relocation.