EP 179 – Recovery Principles Or Instructions?

Episode Highlights:

• (02:45)…How often have you looked up the 5 things you can do right now to lower your
  anxiety? We are naturally drawn to these because we feel so out of control and we want
  anything to help us fight the anxiety NOW. But instructions are ‘now-focused.’ They do
  not help us recover over the long term.
• (04:20)…If you’re in the early stages of recovery and crave the instant relief from the
  instructions, that is okay. However, if you are a little further along your journey, you may
  have already noticed that these instructions only offer temporary relief, they are not
  sustainable. Tomorrow, you could be back on the internet, searching for more tips that
  will make you feel better right ‘now.’
• (06:00)…When you seek out these prescriptive instructions again and again, you can
  start to feel buried in them. Suddenly, you have certain breathing techniques you have to
  do every day, you need grounding, mantras, oils, nature, calm smells, calm sounds, you
  need to touch this thing or breathe in that thing or eat this thing. It gets to be too
  overwhelming.
• (08:15)…If you’re instruction based right now, you might be feeling overwhelmed,
  frustrated or even discouraged because it feels like you’re never going to recover. You
  keep doing the things, but the anxiety and panic just keeps coming back. What can you
  do to have longer lasting results and get out of the cycle? – You’ve got to learn the
  principles of anxiety and recovery.
• (10:40)…When we step back and try to understand what the nature of this disordered
  anxiety really is, we can finally stop spinning on the hamster wheel of instructions.
• (12:05)…”Okay these sound right. I don’t like them, but they sound right. I’m going to
  really embrace these principles, try to understand and I’m going to apply these things to
  my own recovery journey. I’m going to step away from people telling me what I have to
  do every minute of every day and I’m going to start to understand what I have to do so I
  can do it myself.”
• (14:25)…It’s important to note that taking the principled approach to recovery means that
  you’re going to have to take on a whole lot more responsibility. While that might seem
  scary or even impossible, we have to acknowledge that learning and applying the
  principles of recovery is what’s going to help you actually recover. Principles beat
  instructions every time!
• (17:00)…Moral of the story? – If you’re feeling stuck on the treadmill and don’t feel like
  you’re getting better, please do not give up. You are not broken. You did not fail. If you
  are here, take a step back and start to think about how you can approach your recovery
  a bit differently by learning and applying the principles of disordered anxiety and
  recovery. It will make a great, big difference!