If I Could Focus on Only One Thing in Anxiety Recovery, This Would Be It | Ep. 394

Introduction

Hi, my name is Kimberley Quinlan, and I’m an anxiety specialist. Over the past 13 years, I’ve helped thousands of people with anxiety, both in person and through online courses. Today, I’m going to share the single most important thing to focus on for anxiety recovery.

Let’s dive right in.

The Overwhelming Amount of Anxiety Advice

The internet is overflowing with information about anxiety. Books, blogs, podcasts – you name it, it’s out there. It can be incredibly confusing to sift through all this advice. But if I had to choose just one thing to focus on, it would be this: Focus on what you’re avoiding and work on not avoiding those things.

Why Focus on Avoidance?

Avoidance is a common thread across all anxiety disorders. It even extends to eating disorders, depression, and other mental health struggles. By identifying and confronting the things you’re avoiding, you can make significant progress in your recovery.

How to Identify What You’re Avoiding

When working with my patients, we start by thoroughly assessing their day-to-day activities that they are avoiding. We call these Avoidant Compulsions. Here’s how you can do it too:

• Places: What places do you avoid?
• People: Are there specific people you avoid?
• Emotions: Which emotions are you avoiding?
• Sensations: What bodily sensations are you avoiding? (e.g., tightness in your chest, a niggling in your tummy)
• Thoughts: What thoughts do you avoid?

Create a detailed list of all these avoidances.

Taking Action

Once you have your list, choose where to start. Some people prefer starting with the easier items, while others want to tackle the more challenging avoidances first. There’s no right way to do this; the key is to commit to facing these avoidances.

Exposure Work

Facing what you avoid is a form of exposure work, which is crucial for anxiety recovery. Regardless of the type of anxiety you have, exposure and response prevention helps you gain mastery over your discomfort.

Sense of Mastery

When you confront your avoidances, you build a sense of mastery. You’ll find yourself thinking, “I did the hard thing. I’m stronger than I thought.” This feeling of accomplishment can significantly boost your confidence and reduce anxiety.

My Personal Experience

Recently, I faced one of the most challenging periods of my life. It was incredibly tough, but it changed my perspective on fear. The things that used to scare me now seem insignificant because I’ve already faced something much worse and come out stronger.

The Role of Self-Compassion

While focusing on avoidances is crucial, remember to be kind to yourself. You can choose to face your fears harshly or kindly. I encourage you to explore the kind approach.

No Perfect Timeline

Everyone’s journey is different. Some might check off their list quickly, while others take longer. There’s no right timeline; it’s about what works for you.

Taking Inventory

Listing your avoidances gives you a clear picture of how much anxiety is affecting your life. Even if you think it’s not that bad, you might be surprised at how much it’s holding you back.

Applying This Approach to Different Conditions

This strategy isn’t just for anxiety disorders. It can help with:

• Social Anxiety: Say yes to more social events.
• Health Anxiety: Balance visiting the doctor and avoiding compulsive reassurance.
• Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia: Gradually face the places and situations you avoid.
• OCD: Tackle your list of avoidances related to your obsessions and compulsions.
• Generalized Anxiety: Confront the various aspects of life you’re avoiding.
• Eating Disorders and Depression: Face the activities and foods you’ve been avoiding.

Celebrate Your Wins

No matter how small the victory, celebrate it. Every step you take towards facing your fears is a big deal.

Conclusion

If there’s one thing you take away from this, let it be this: Face the things you’re avoiding. Do it at your own pace, and do it kindly. Share your wins and celebrate your progress.

Thank you for reading. If you found this helpful, please leave a review and let us know how we can continue to support you. For more resources and online courses, visit CBTSchool.com. Have a great day!

 

Transcription

If I could focus on only one thing for anxiety recovery, this would be it. My name is Kimberley Quinlan. I’m an anxiety specialist. I have been helping thousands of people with anxiety for over 13 years, both in person and through our online courses. Today, I’m going to tell you the one thing, so let’s do it.

Welcome back, everybody. Let’s get right to it. 

As you guys know, there is so much information about anxiety on the internet. There are books, there are blogs, and there are podcasts. It is a flooded market in that everybody’s saying all the different things to use. This thing helps. That thing helps. I was really thinking about how confusing it must be for people with anxiety. I was thinking if there were to be one thing, the one thing that I would use, if I could only pick one, it would be this: Focus on all the things you are avoiding. Once you’ve identified what you’re avoiding, work at not avoiding them. 

I am going to tell you, of all of the things that you can be doing, this is the one thing that will get you the most bang for your buck across all the anxiety disorders, even spreading into eating disorders, depression, and other mental health struggles. Focus on the thing you’re avoiding, and that is the key to your recovery. If you could only focus on one thing, if you’re spread for time, you haven’t got a lot of time, you’re at capacity, and you feel so overwhelmed, and you just need one thing, it would be to identify the things you’re avoiding and work at getting back to facing those things. 

Now what I do with my patients is we sit down. We do a thorough assessment of what is happening in your day-to-day. We do this in all of our online courses. If you have a specific panic disorder, you could go to Overcoming Anxiety and Panic. If you have specific OCD, go and take ERP School. They’re going to go through these specific to the condition, but if I were with a patient disregarding what mental health struggle they were having, I would go through and list out everything they’re avoiding. What places are you avoiding? What people are you avoiding? What emotions are you avoiding? What sensations in your body specifically are you avoiding? Maybe it’s a niggling in your tummy. Maybe it’s tightness in your chest. Maybe it’s rushing thoughts. Identify the specific sensations you’re having. What thoughts are you avoiding?

We want to look at this with a magnifying glass to start. We want to get a really thorough list of all the things that you’re avoiding, and then we go to work. We look at that list, and I’m going to say, “Which of these things are you most interested in working on?” Some people will say, “Well, I want to start with the easy thing first.” That’s fine. That is a brilliant plan. Other people are like, “No, my life is out of control. I need to get back to work,” or “I need to be able to drive,” or “I need to be able to take my kid to soccer. I need to focus on these things that I’m avoiding.” It might be higher on the list in terms of creating more anxiety or discomfort for you. But if that’s important to you and you have a really good why, pick those things. There’s no right way to do this. And then commit. Commit to doing the thing that you’ve been avoiding. 

Now, the reason I chose this as the number one thing is it gives you an opportunity to cover a lot of strategies in one hit, which is you are doing some exposure work, which is crucial for your anxiety recovery, disregarding what kind of anxiety you have. Even I who had an eating disorder, a lot of my recovery was around eating the foods that scared the pants off me. If you have OCD, if you have panic disorder, if you have health anxiety, if you have social anxiety, or if you have general anxiety, a lot of this involves doing some exposure work.

The next piece is a sense of mastery. When you face your biggest discomfort or even your smallest discomfort, there’s a sense of mastery that you take with you, like, “Look at me. Go, I did the hard thing. I’m stronger than I thought.” There are all these people on the internet right now talking about how you don’t need to do exposure and it should be easy and it should be relaxing and calming and all these things, but you don’t build any mastery over discomfort that way. You don’t get a sense of actual, real control that way because next time you’re really uncomfortable, you’re going to be like, “Oh my gosh, how can I get away from it because I have no practice being uncomfortable?” We want to practice being uncomfortable so that you have a sense of like, “There’s nothing that can hurt me.” 

Recently, I went through one of the most difficult times in my life. It was horrible. I’m not going to lie, it was horrible. I’ll talk publicly more about that when I’m ready. But until then, what I will say to you is, literally, most things are laughable to me. The things that used to scare me don’t scare me anymore because I’m like, “Compared to that, this is nothing.” I know I handled that thing, so there’s really very little I can’t handle. There’s very little that scares the pants off me anymore because I’ve had my pants scared off me already, and I navigated it. I came out on the other side, and I was forced to use skills like compassion, emotional regulation, mindfulness, asking for help, and getting support. I also learned how to hear new ways of coping with things. Because I’m a therapist, I thought I knew the perfect way. Sometimes you need other people’s advice as well.

Facing fears, facing the things you have avoided will change the way you see yourself. It will change your identity by facing just the things you avoid. Again, we’re here to keep it so simple. Just identify the things you’re avoiding and work at checking off all of those things as best as you can. 

Now here’s the thing to remember: Number one, there is no perfect timeline for this. Some people can bang this list out in 20 minutes, go to work, and get everything on their list checked off by the end of the week. For some people, it might take months, and there’s no right way to do it. It just depends on your particular set of things. Now, that’s why this is also so helpful. It helps you to do an actual inventory of how much your anxiety is taking over your life. 

I’ve had patients before say, “It’s not that bad. I’m only here because my spouse or my parents are making me come to therapy.” And then we sit down and we actually write out all the things they’re avoiding. They’re like, “Whoa, I had no idea. This is really getting in the way of me living my life. Even though I’m coping fine and I’m functioning fine, this is stopping me from doing some really fun things, learning some things, mastering certain tasks, or making certain friendship groups.” It can be really helpful for us to really get a better understanding of the reality of how much anxiety is affecting us. I know maybe you don’t want to really get to that reality, but I promise you, again, recovery comes from just doing the thing you’re avoiding. It truly does. So much can come from this. 

Now, of course, a lot of you have probably thought that the one thing I would say would be self-compassion, not facing the things you’re avoiding. Yes, I went through that before I created this video and this podcast, thinking, ‘Well, that is the one thing that’s most important,’ but this is an opportunity to practice being kind. As you face your fears, as you face the things that you’re avoiding, it’s an opportunity to say, “Let’s do this kind.” 

Here’s what I say to my patients all the time: We are going to face all the things you’re avoiding. That’s for sure. We’re committed to it. We know the benefits. It’s a path. It’s a journey. We’ve already got it set, and we know the outcome. It’s going to be amazing for your anxiety recovery. You could do it beating yourself up. That’s fine with me. Or you could do it kindly. It’s a decision you have to make. I’m not here to tell you what’s right for you, but I’d love for you to explore that we’ve already committed to facing this list of avoidances. How do you want to do it? Do you want to do it mean or do you want to do it kind? It’s a choice, and often people hesitate. “Yeah, I get it. Being kind feels uncomfortable, but I guess it’s probably better.” If we’re going to do it anyway, we might as well do it kind. 

Just think about that. We can do the list of avoidances in whatever order, in whatever timeline that’s right for you, and really just have a little conversation. Do you want to do it mean or do you want to do it kind? And we can go from there. We have a whole range of podcasts talking about how to practice self-compassion. You can go back and listen to those if you’re interested. 

That’s the real work here. Again, I want you to remember, this can be done throughout different conditions. You don’t even have to have a condition. You could just be a human being with no mental health condition and still take a look at the things you’re avoiding in your life, saying, “Okay, it’s time.” 

But I want you to remember, if it’s social anxiety, you’re probably saying no to a lot of things you wish you were saying yes to, or you’re saying no to a lot of social events that would benefit your long-term you so much if you were willing to be uncomfortable. 

If you had health anxiety, maybe you would go to the doctor. Or if you’ve got health anxiety and you’re going to the doctor too much, it would help you to not do that and step away from the compulsive reassurance that you’re doing. It can help with health anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia. Huge, right, that you’re avoiding all these things. Yes, you might panic when you face the things that you’re avoiding, but by doing that one by one, you’ll learn that you can tolerate the anxiety and panic, and the panic gets smaller and smaller the more you practice this. 

If you’ve got OCD, absolutely, there might be a whole slew of things that you’re avoiding in different areas of your life. Write them all down. Put them on a list. Compile them from easiest to hardest, or the ones you want to tackle first to last, and get going. 

If you’ve got generalized anxiety, again, take a look at your life. What are you avoiding? Again, this is the truth for specific phobias, this is the truth for eating disorders, even depression. With depression, you’re avoiding things that might bring on more depression, write them down. Practice slowly, bit by bit, again, preferably kindly facing those things that you are avoiding. 

We can use this in so many areas, and it will change your life. That’s the one thing. If I could do one thing, it would be to face all the things you’re avoiding. Go ahead and do it at your own pace. Do it kindly. Don’t forget to tell everybody about your wins. Because even if it doesn’t feel like a big deal, it’s a huge deal. We want to celebrate every single time we face our fears. 

I hope this has been helpful. Please do leave us a review. Please do let us know what’s helpful about it or what’s not helpful so that we can continue to provide really awesome resources for you through CBTSchool.com. 

All right, have a great day. If you’re interested in any of our online courses, go to CBTSchool.com. We have a whole range of courses to help you if you don’t have access to one-on-one therapy. 

Have a great day, everybody.