Amazon Music Podcasts
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I summarize this year by giving you the best bits of the year 2022.
Enjoy!
What is your biggest challenges with your new puppy? Tell me about it, share it with all of us on my IG or FB.
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
If you want to support my work please send me your contribution to swish number +46700279792 or if you are not in Sweden contact me and I will give you my paypal billing details.
Subscribe and notices about new episodes by clicking the bell icon in your podcast app. Please write a 5 star review in your podcast app or on Spotify.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Podcaster, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic, Stitcher, Podvine, Podbean.
Thank you!
Transkcript:
00:00 – 4:51 Intro to Best of 2022
04:57-13:13 Extreme breeding with Gerard O'Shea
13:19-15:27 – Berikning med Etologen Heide Garringan och Vimedvovve´s Sofie Kummu
15:33-17:13 – Julfaror för din hund
17:19 – 21:27 Den skygga rescue greyhound Luna
21:33 – 28:37 Don´t do this with your dog
28:43-31:30 Hur kan du tänka innan du köper en hund
31:36-40:13 Vad är allergenius?
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Let me tell you my 5 most valuable tips to a newbie puppy owner. I made this episode in Swedish and it was a big success, so I give it to you in English as well.
Enjoy!
What is your biggest challenges with your new puppy? Tell me about it, share it with us on my IG or FB.
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
If you want to support my work please send me your contribution to swish number 0700279792 or if you are not in Sweden contact me and I will give you my paypal billing details.
To get noticed about new episodes click on the bell icon. Please write a review in your podcast application or on Spotify. That will also help me to get more people to the podcast.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic and Stitcher.
Thank you!
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Dr. Farshad Goodarzi is an animal nutritionist at Freie Universitet in Berlin and the creator of Dr.Helathew app. Dr.Helathew helps you create recipes for fresh food for your beloved dog! It's a great and simple tool and behind it all is an AI that Dr. Farshad Goodarzi designed and programed to be very precise, more precise then himself as he says. Hear me talk to Dr. Farshad about how he came up with the idea of creating this amazing tool. If you have been thinking that feeding your dog the same dry kibble every day is strange then listen to this animal nutrition specialist. What does he think and know about this? He has been researching animal nutrition for many years.
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
If you want to support my work please send me your contribution to swish nr. 0700279792 or if you are not i Sweden contact me and I will give you my billing details.
Subscribe to get notices about new episodes, click on the bell icon. Please write a review in your podcast application or on Spotify.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic, Podbean, Podvine and Stitcher.
Thank you!
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I talk about 10 most poisonous plants for your dog (and cat). You will get a list and a description of the plants and all the possible symptoms of poisoning.
Here is a link to ASPCA webpage that has list over all the poisonous plants and all with pictures of the plants: https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/animal-poison-control/toxic-and-non-toxic-plants
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
I you want to support my work please send me your contribution to swish nr. 0700279792 or if you are not i Sweden contact me and I will give you my billing details.
To get notices about new episodes click on the bell icon. Please write a review in your podcast application or on Spotify.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic and Stitcher.
Thank you!
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I have some ideas what ta talk about after summer. Listen and please let me know if you like the topics and what other topics you would like to hear about? What guests would you like to have here?
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
To get noticed about new episodes click on the bell icon. Please write a review in your podcast application or on Spotify.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic and Stitcher.
Thank you!
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If you’re reading this, I’m guessing that you have been through times when you would happily pay big money to feel relaxed just for a few minutes.
Then one day you discover that you ARE feeling relaxed. Then you get anxious because it doesn’t feel “right”. True story. This happened to me many times during my recovery, and it happens to many people in our community every day.
Why? Why does this happen? Why does not feeling anxious make us anxious in some cases?
There are two explanations I can offer for this. The first is that anxiety is triggered by waiting for the other shoe to drop. When you have spent such a long time battling anxiety and trying to get away from it, feeling like it attacks you constantly, when it does subside it’s normal to remain on guard and ready for it to return. That state of readiness and guardedness is in fact anxiety, so you stop feeling anxious, then get anxious because you are anticipating being anxious again. This is quite common.
The second reason that we might feel anxious about being relaxed is that after so long in a continuously tense state, relaxation can feel “empty”. I used to call it feeling “floaty” or detached. Not in a DP/DR way. But it would feel like my body was both heavy and light at the same time, or sometimes the best word I could use to describe the sensation was “hollow”. Being in a physically relaxed state, augmented by a mentally calm state, meant that I just felt different from head to toe. When you are afraid your own body, it becomes natural to not only scan for changes, but to closely evaluate and judge every physical state you encounter.
Just when you start to come to grips with the idea that feeling tense, wound up, and anxious is OK, that feeling goes away, leaving you to analyze and evaluate this brand new feeling … NOT being anxious or worked up. It quickly leads to questions like:
“Is this right? Am I supposed to feel this way?”
“Why do my legs feel so light right now?”
“Can I even feel my hands?”
“Is something happening to me?”
Some of this inner dialogue and analysis might be familiar to you. Isn’t it interesting that feeling NO anxiety will trigger some of the same questions and catastrophic “what if” thinking patterns that we experience when at the height of anxiety?
An anxious brain is never satisfied, is it? It simply must scan for threats, and when it scans, it finds them even where none exist. NOT feeling anxious is different and different is wrong and wrong is dangerous so … anxiety.
The key here - in my opinion - is to accept the FACT that all states are acceptable. I mean within reason of course. Nobody is telling you that bleeding from your upper thigh because you’ve had a chain saw accident is acceptable. But in general, in the absence of actual physical impairment or medical danger, ALL states are acceptable and even permissible. Humans experience a very wide range of physical, mental, and emotional states, so all are allowed. We are designed for all of them, even the ones we do not like.
It’s OK to get anxious because you’re not anxious. But when you do, remind yourself that your job in that moment is to allow that state and to move through it so that you can learn that there is no threat and that you are OK when you feel that way.
If someone told me on my 16th birthday that one day I would be writing an article for thousands of people to explain that its safe to relax, I would have never believed it. Yet … here we are. Brains are so strange.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
I guess you have heard about the Alfa Male. Both in the animal world and the human world. Have you heard a dog trainer recommending you to be the Alfa in the relationship to your dog? And did you know it´s bullshit?
The whole theory is based on a misunderstanding and poorly designed studies done on wolves in captivity from 1940's and in 1970´s. Here I tried to explain the whole thing. Wolves in captivity behave very different then they do in the wild. Do you want to know more? Then listen.
If you like what I am talking about please comment on my IG: https://www.instagram.com/valpkonsulten/ or on my FB: https://www.facebook.com/valpkonsultpodden. You can also reach me on my website www.valpkonsulten.com.
To get notices about new episodes click on the bell icon. Please write a review in your podcast application or on Spotify.
You will find Valpkonsultpodden on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Anchor, Amazon Music Sweden, Castbox, PocketCasts, RadioPublic and Stitcher.
Thank you!
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OK-ness.
I’m not sure if this is even a word, but I’m gonna use it anyway because it’s my newsletter and I can do what I want. For our purposes, we’ll define OK-ness as the state of being … well …OK. I’m quite the wordsmith, aren’t I?
What is conditional OK-ness?
The best way for me to answer that is to give you a little assignment to complete. Think of something you find hard to do because of anxiety. Then finish this sentence:
I can do this hard thing AS LONG AS …..
Whatever comes after “AS LONG AS” is a condition of OK-ness for you. For example, “I can drive by myself as long as I don’t get more than 5 minutes from my house.” This sets a condition on being OK. That condition is staying close to home. A fully recovered person would have no such condition. They would not have have to stay close to home to be OK. In this light we can define recovery as a quest to attain consistent states of unconditional OK-ness.
Is your OK-ness conditional? Think about “normal” everyday activities, situations, and contexts that you really want to be able to engage in and enjoy again. Maybe you’re already engaging in them because you’ve pushed yourself and managed to expand your comfort zone to some degree. If you have, good job! But now think about any conditions that you’ve set on being OK in those situations.
* Do you need a safe person with you or nearby?
* Do you need water, mints, or sweet snacks?
* Do you need to have my podcast playing to be OK?
* Do you need to have your essential oils or ice packs at the ready?
* Does the temperature have to be in a certain range?
* Is there a limit on distance traveled or the number of people at the gathering?
These are typical examples of conditions for OK-ness.
So what can we do with this?
When you can identify your conditional OK-ness, and identify those conditions, you have a new roadmap to follow. Your conditions are now guideposts for you in your recovery. Road signs, if you will. You now know that in order to continue to progress, you must remove those conditions one by one.
At this point you might be cringing and wondering why I am raining on your parade or making things so difficult for you. I’m sorry. I really don’t want to do that, but if we are shooting at complete, lasting, durable recovery that works across multiple contexts in your life, this is the path we must follow. I’m not minimizing the progress you’ve made. You did that! But that progress can be fragile if there are conditions attached. This leaves you vulnerable to that dreaded word … SETBACK! When we build conditional OK-ness we are building an acceptable bubble for ourselves and that bubble is easily popped.
Let me acknowledge that all living creatures have some conditions for OK-ness. Plants are OK as long as there is sunlight and water. Humans are OK as long as there is food and the temperature is under about 110 degrees F. Cats are OK as long as there is a dog to annoy on a daily basis. You get the idea. But if we we want to go all the way in RECOVERY, we cannot be satisfied with conditional OK-ness.
So … is your OK-ness conditional? And if it is, what are you going to do about that?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Many many anxious people that have NO intention or desire to harm themselves wind up terrified that they might do that anyway, against their will. This is a more common fear than you think so I want to talk more about it. I’ll start by relaying my own experience.
First, I have to remind you that this edition of The Anxious Morning is not meant to be a crisis management tool or a substitute for therapy. As always, if you feel that you are an immediate danger to yourself or anyone else, you MUST reach out for in-person help right away. We all care about you and want you to remain safe above all else.
When I was going through the worst of panic disorder, agoraphobia, a barrage of irrational repetitive thoughts, and depression, I am thankful that I never even once reached the point where I considered harming myself for taking my own life. However, I did become irrationally terrified of the thought that I might somehow do that anyway, against my wishes and against my will.
I had no plan. I had no intention. I did not want to hurt myself or kill myself. Yet, I was terrified to be alone because being alone would make it easier for me to do exactly that … even though I didn’t want to do that. I was gripped with the fear that I would have a thought, then somehow follow through on it, and nobody would be around to stop me or save me from myself. This also meant that I was terrified to be alone with my then small children because I was terrified that I might somehow hurt myself in front of them, or even hurt them.
I was afraid of the knives in the kitchen.
I was afraid of the scissors in the house.
I was afraid of all the electrical outlets.
I even spent time in every bathroom in the house checking to see if I could somehow reach from the bathtub to the light fixtures above the sinks. Not because I wanted to hurt myself or commit suicide. But because I was afraid that I might try to do it anyway and needed to protect against that happening.
I always had a bottle of Xanax nearby as a panic rescue device. I refused to take any of it because I am stubborn and do not like medication (MY issue, not a judgement on anyone else), but it was there. You know how this works. At one point I asked to have that bottle of pills hidden from me because I was afraid that I might suddenly decide to take the whole bottle at once. I went through every cabinet in the house, and tore the pantry apart covertly bit-by-bit and item-by-item to make sure there was nothing in the house that could potentially become a weapon that I would use against myself - against my will.
Twice I left my house in a frantic state and drove pretty recklessly to the hospital nearest my home to sit in the parking lot outside the emergency room “just in case” I needed to run in and have them stop me from killing myself — a thing I had absolutely ZERO desire to do. Mind you, that hospital was well outside my driving comfort zone at the time but the irrational fear of snapping and deciding to harm myself, and the desire to be saved from that irrational fear, was strong enough to override the fear of driving too far from home. One day I’ll write about that in relation to agoraphobia because there’s a lesson in there, but it will have to wait.
Some of what I am describing here may be familiar to you. This is more common in our community than you think. I understand just how terrifying this fear can be and how disturbing thoughts about suicide can be. I totally get the strong desire to immediately save yourself from them and protect against this horrible thing happening … because you do NOT want it to happen but are afraid that it might anyway.
Please know that in this situation, where you have no intention, desire, or plan to harm yourself but are afraid that you might do it anyway, you are safe. You are not so anxious or afraid that you will somehow lose control of yourself and impulsively take your own life, even though the thought of that is so terrifying that by itself you are afraid it will break you and compel you to do it. I used to think that too. Many people think that. You are not alone in this and even when your anxiety is telling you that you are worse than the rest of us and that in your case it might actually happen, it is wrong.
In early July of 2022, episode 215 of The Anxious Truth podcast will cover this common fear in greater detail, so stay tuned for that. Tomorrow in edition 115 of The Anxious Morning, I’ll talk about how I overcame this fear and how it ultimately faded away on me.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Since we’ve spent much of the week talking about cognitive distortions and distorted thoughts, I thought I would kick off our little series on the common forms of cognitive distortions that we see in our community. From time to time I’ll add to this series.
Let’s start with all or nothing thinking. This is sometimes called black-and-white thinking. The premise behind all or nothing thinking is that only one thing can be true at a time. When you engage in all or nothing or black and white thinking, this OR that must be true. Multiple outcomes cannot co-exist under this distortion.
If you step back for a minute and think about the premise of all or nothing thinking, you can see almost immediately why it is a cognitive distortion. Is life always black and white? Is everything always well defined? Can more than one thing be true at at a time? Your life experience tells you that things are often unclear and that there can be more than one point of view, more than one outcome to an action, and that multiple things can and are true at the same time every day.
When under the sway of disordered anxiety, that life experience goes out the window and you begin to believe all or nothing thoughts. You might still readily acknowledge that both pizza and tacos can be delicious at the same time, but when it comes to those “special” thoughts that scare you, the ability to see nuance like this gets squashed and things become black and white quickly. This fuels fear and does not help promote recovery.
Let’s relate this distortion to the common fear of never getting better or never being able to fully recover. Consider a day in which you engage in few exposure activities. The particulars do not matter. You’re challenging yourself by intentionally being anxious and uncomfortable so you can get better at those things and move forward toward recovery. You complete all your exposure assignments successfully, but you felt very afraid and didn’t want to complete them. All or nothing thinking will drive you to declare this successful day (you did all your exposures) a failure because you still felt anxious, afraid, or uncomfortable. You are not recovered at the end of the day and the all or nothing distortion will tell you that you must either be recovered, or not recovered, therefore you have failed.
See the problem here?
All or nothing thinking means you totally discount the reality of the situation, which is more complex and nuanced. In reality, you did scary, difficult things and felt afraid when you did them. But you also successfully completed the challenges. You also had real world experiences that get filed away and contribute to a changing relationship with anxiety and fear. More than one thing was true on this day. You were both not recovered, and also moving toward recovery. You were both feeling bad, and making progress.
Emotional reasoning and discounting the positive are other cognitive distortions that matter in this situation. We’ll talk about them down the road. But at the heart of “I’ll never get better” is all or nothing distortions that rob you of the ability to even consider the nuanced and complex nature of the recovery process. They force you to declare failure and defeat when you simply do not have to do that.
Are you guilty of all or nothing thinking? Most people are at least sometimes. Even “normal” people! If you have examples of all or nothing thinking in your life, share them in the comments on Substack if you’re so inclined.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Yesterday in the 103rd edition of The Anxious Morning we went over the basics of ERP - exposure and response prevention. We defined it and clarified when it is used in the mental health community.
I said in yesterday’s edition that the RP part - response prevention - is the most important part of ERP, and the most important part of any exposure based therapy regardless of the initials you use to name it. Why is this?
We care so much about response prevention, because that is the part that creates the learning condition. The goal of exposure is not to teach you that you can run with a knife in your hand, sing a song about killing your family, or drive to the supermarket with your kids. The goal of exposure is to teach you that you can tolerate and navigate through anxiety, fear, uncertainty, and discomfort without having to take special steps to save yourself or be saved from the disaster you fear.
Exposure is a way to find, then strengthen our tolerance and resiliency muscles. We use specific exposures to trigger discomfort, but the specific exposures are not really the point. Generally speaking, the discomfort is the point. More specifically, learning that you can handle that discomfort is the point.
When you engage in safety, escape, or soothing responses and rituals, you are not learning anything about your ability to tolerate and navigate through psychological, mental, or emotional adversity. Those old responses designed to keep you “safe” get all the credit for keeping you safe, perpetuating the myth that you were in danger. You were not, even when it felt like you were. Those old responses and rituals confirm to your brain that there is danger, that you need to be saved from it, and that those panic and anxiety alarms should keep coming. Your old responses are like rocket fuel for an anxiety disorder. They are training your brain to sound alarms like praise trains a dog to sit and stay.
When you experience fear, anxiety, discomfort, or distress and do NOT try to save yourself, be saved, or escape, that state of discomfort naturally ends. Not nearly as quick as we want it to, but it will end. When we do nothing to save ourselves, we signal to our brains that everything is OK and that the troops can stand down. When the anxiety passes (because it always will), there is no explanation for why it passed. No safety device, ritual, compulsion, or safe person to give the credit to. We are left standing face to face with reality. You did nothing to soothe or save yourself and still wound up OK.
Of course I have to remind you here that feeling shaky, afraid, and vulnerable is still OK. That’s not actual harm. Those are things humans can feel sometimes.
This is why response prevention is so important. When we take away the old responses, we learn through actual first hand experience that WE get the credit for moving through the fear. We see that WE did it. We tolerated, navigated, and handled. All things that we would swear are impossible, yet we did it, and we have nothing to credit but ourselves for that success.
THAT is the magic moment where recovery happens, little by little, neural pathway by neural pathway. Experiences with positive outcomes where you did nothing special but allow that outcome to happen naturally. Boom. That is the goal of exposure, and the response prevention is vital in getting there.
So take a few minutes today to think about this. Are you engaging in response prevention, or are you powering through your anxiety, fear and panic with all kinds of special rituals and techniques designed to get you through? It’s a question you may not have asked yourself yet, so this is as good a time as any to ask it.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Let’s wrap up our little self care mini series by looking at some examples of what self care might look like in recovery. Some will be obvious. Some might be surprising to you. I can’t give you step by step instructions on every way you can rest, recharge, and take care of yourself, but I can at least give you a list to get started with.
Caveat: I am hardly a master of self care. I can own my shortcomings, and one of them is sometimes skimping on this in my own life. I have no elaborate or well developed self care rituals, but I’m not really sure that self care has to be all that elaborate. Regardless, I urge you to seek other sources that might have better insight than I do on this topic. Just don’t let the gurus of self-care accidentally drive you into that justified avoidance we talked about yesterday.
Physical Self Care
The most obvious forms of self care are physical. Our bodies get tired, sick, and injured sometimes. We have to take care of them and give them opportunities to rest, recharge and … oh my God I’m going to say the word … heal. Physical self care doesn’t automatically mean soaking in a tub surrounded by candles. It might, but physical self care can also look like eating a proper meal rather than a jelly sandwich over the sink. It might mean taking a 15 minute break to just walk the dog around the block. Physical self care can be practicing some light stretching or progressive muscle relaxation every morning. Showering and getting dressed is self care. On some days just getting out of bed is self care. Wearing comfortable clothing can also be a form of self care. Are you getting the picture here?
Mental Self Care
This one is a bit trickier. For anxious people desperate for recovery, thinking and solving can become a full time job that occupies almost every waking moment. This can result in mental and cognitive fatigue. You have to give your brain a rest when you can. Mental self care can be turning out the lights, putting your phone down and listening to your favorite music. Reading things you love - not just anxiety books and articles - is mental self care. Learning something new just for the fun of it is mental self care. So is doing a crossword puzzle, drawing, or writing a poem or short story. Your brain deserves to disengage from problem solving to have some down time and fun time. That’s mental self care.
Emotional Self Care
Probably the most amorphous kind of self care. Emotional self care might include talking to a friend you haven’t spoken to in a while or in some cases disengaging from friends and family for a day or two because you just need a break and some quiet time. This can be especially true during stressful times or situations full of strife, conflict, or drama. Emotional self care can be sitting quietly with your dog and telling her what’s on your mind. Another form of emotional self care might be taking time to tend to an intimate relationship because you value that connection and it nourishes your heart and soul.
Emotional self care might be drawing boundaries for yourself that protect you from emotionally taxing or draining people or situations. Journaling can be a form of emotional self care. Reminiscing and remembering are a form of emotional self care when you have happy or comforting memories and experiences to fall back on. Emotional self care can be nuanced and subtle but in many ways while it might be the hardest form of self care to define and practice, it also might be the most impactful.
We can only scratch the surface of this topic in a morning newsletter. Just keep in mind that the recovery process can be demanding and stressful … and so can life in general. Self care, used wisely and in the context of self-honesty, is a valuable tool that can help you along the path while also supporting your well being in general. That’s not bad. Not at all.
What are some of your preferred self care strategies?
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
One of the concepts I talk about quite often is the need to remain process focused in recovery rather than outcome or solution focused. When I tell you that you almost have to abandon your focus on feeling better before you can feel better, odds are you have a hard time grasping that idea. That’s OK. You’re just being human. Humans are driven to feel good, avoid discomfort, resolve conflict, and release tension.
Let me tell you a little story about what happened this week when I forgot the importance of following good processes and got caught up in trying to directly achieve a solution. Stick with me on this. There’s a point to the story, I promise.
My Masters program started drilling ethical good practices into my head from day one. This is a good thing. One of the assignments I’ve been working on is a hypothetical case study that would present a therapist with a possible ethical or legal dilemma. My task was to work through this sticky situation and come out the other side. Hmmm. That sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
When confronted with an ethical dilemma, it’s damn near impossible for a human being to file away their own core values, beliefs, and judgments about what is right or best in terms of of resolving the dilemma. Emotion is involved. Self-image and identity is involved. I KNEW the answer to this problem because I KNOW what’s right and just and what must be done! At least that’s what my emotional brain, my sense of self, and maybe even my ego were telling me. This ethical dilemma was creating conflict on an emotional level and I wanted to resolve that conflict based on who I am. But here’s the rub. In a professional setting I don’t get to resolve ethical conflicts based solely on what I like, believe, or want. That’s dangerous in that it puts ME in the center of the situation, and I’m not the one that belongs there.
To combat this, therapists and counselors develop detailed ethical codes and processes for using and implementing these codes in real life. This is designed to prevent the exact thing I just described. It helps to keep things as fair and objective as possible. There is a process to follow for a reason!
Hmmm. What else has a process to follow?
Nonetheless, I ignored the process and wrestled with this for some time. I wanted a SOLUTION because I needed to exercise my ego, emotions, and core beliefs. I had to resolve that tension, right? The problem is that when I approached this assignment that way, forgetting the process and insisting that my emotions and need for resolution should call the shots, things only got worse. The problem got muddier. I was searching everywhere for information, guidelines, tips, and tricks for how to bring it all to a neat resolution, but that was making the tension worse and making it even harder for me to complete the task. This is also sounding familiar, isn’t it?
My lightbulb moment came last night when I walked away from the problem in total frustration, feeling super grumpy and somewhat disillusioned with this whole “be a therapist” thing. While chatting with a friend and making a late dinner I reached the conclusion that I’d go follow the steps of the process just to get the damn thing done. I didn’t want to do it that way, but I was tired of wrestling with the problem so that’s how I decided to proceed just to put the whole assignment behind me.
Boom. When I stopped searching for an immediate solution based on emotion and the need to release tension, I started making progress. My writing became clear, I was able to lay out a solid course of action, and within about 45 minutes I had everything done and dusted. This morning before I sat down to write this edition of The Anxious Morning I submitted my paper. Guess what? I DO feel good about how it worked out. My final solution is not in total agreement with what I want from an emotional standpoint but the PROCESS still resolved that tension and got me the outcome I needed, which as it turns out is more important than the outcome I wanted.
Oh, and one more thing. This experience taught me some HUGE lessons that will serve me well going forward both in my grad program and as a therapist in the real world so as it turns out the process of working through hard things teaches us stuff if we let it.
Imagine that?
I told you there was a point to the story.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Are you trying to frame every thought you have and every thing you do within the context of recovery? Are you trying to get recovery right and working overtime to make sure that every waking moment is full of productive recovery stuff?
You can stop doing that. It’s not helping you.
We talk all the time about learning to let go. We learn to let go of the rope and allow ourselves to “fall into the abyss” of insanity, death, or permanent broken-ness. We let go to learn that there is no abyss.
Well, sometimes we have to let go of the letting go. Getting glued to recovery and completely wrapped up in to the point where you are trying to relate every last part of your life to getting better or not getting better is not helping you in any way. That’s counter-productive and can lead to becoming frozen by your need to not be frozen.
This is especially true for those of us that are dealing with the need to think obsessively, analyze everything, and ruminate on everything. If these are some of your thinking habits, it can be easy for you to you caught up in the mistaken idea that you should keep learning, asking, reading, refining, testing, analyzing, and measuring your recovery. You can’t. And shouldn’t.
Why am I saying this?
We do not learn to recover. We learn to do things that teach us lessons that lead to recovery. The things we do start to look quite a bit like just doing life again. So in the end, we are not really doing recovery or learning how to get better. We are doing life, and along the way that doing means we get better. The “better” is a happy side effect of doing life even when you’re sure you can’t. In this light, you have to stop looking at recovery as a task you must complete or a box you must check so you can do life again. That’s backwards. We live again, little by little, so that we get better.
See the difference? It’s really important.
So when you feel overwhelmed by recovery because you’ve been trying to manage and micro-manage and predict and measure every last shred of it … stop. Let go. Let go of the process, and just do life. Whatever happens, happens. Because that’s what life looks like for non-anxious people anyway. When you are “recovered”, that’s what you’ll be doing again.
Let go of the process sometimes. Take a break and go live to the best of your ability. Because as it turns out, even when you are not trying to recover, you are probably recovering anyway.
Have you listened to this week’s episode of The Anxious Truth podcast? Check it out out on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, Amazon Music, or my website and YouTube channel.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit theanxiousmorning.substack.com -
Idag pratar vi med Linkfires vd Lars Ettrup om deras avtal med Amazon Music. Linkfire har som mål att nå lönsamhet 2023. Dessutom pratar vi fastigheter med Emil Ekholm som är positiv till SBB.
Bli kund och ta del av all vår analys:
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