My Bravest Year Yet (my personal PTSD + OCD journey) | Ep. 420

In this deeply personal episode, Kimberley shares her journey through OCD and PTSD recovery, revealing the struggles, breakthroughs, and the powerful strategies that helped her make this her bravest year yet.

What You’ll Learn in This Episode:

• How Kimberley recognized the signs of OCD and PTSD despite being a mental health professional
• The unexpected ways anxiety and avoidance can show up in everyday life
• Why getting an official diagnosis brought both fear and relief
• The difficult but effective treatments that helped her regain control
• The role of emotional exposure and how facing fear helped her heal
• Practical strategies to cultivate courage and resilience in daily life

Your Bravest Year Yet: A Journey Through OCD and PTSD Recovery

Welcome back to Your Anxiety Toolkit. This episode is different from the usual format because it’s deeply personal. Kimberley shares her journey through what she calls her bravest year yet—a year of struggle, diagnosis, and ultimately, healing from OCD (Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder) and PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder).

Through this raw and honest conversation with her husband, we uncover key insights about mental health, facing fears, and embracing vulnerability. Let’s explore the skills and strategies she used to find her way through.

Why It Took So Long to Share This Story

Kimberley waited before sharing her journey—not out of avoidance, but out of intention. She wanted to be sure that telling her story would be helpful to others rather than simply a way to process her own pain.

She also struggled with a sense of hyper-responsibility—the worry that her clients might feel like they had to take care of her if they knew what she was going through.

Key takeaway: You don’t have to share your struggles before you’re ready. It’s okay to process privately until you feel prepared to speak about them in a way that serves you and others.

Recognizing the Signs: How OCD and PTSD Showed Up

At first, Kimberley didn’t realize she was experiencing OCD and PTSD. The signs came in waves:

• Disproportionate anxiety about external events, including a series of suicides in her community
• Severe hypervigilance, feeling like the sky was constantly about to fall
• Nocturnal panic attacks, sometimes up to a dozen per night
• Avoidance behaviors, such as steering clear of sad movies, emotional music, or any reminders of difficult emotions

Key takeaway: Sometimes, mental health conditions develop in ways we don’t expect. If anxiety feels relentless and coping strategies stop working, it might be time to seek professional guidance.

The Power of Naming It: Getting Diagnosed

After discussing her struggles with a close friend who is an OCD and PTSD specialist, she received a gentle but firm nudge:
“Kimberley, I love you, but this sounds like OCD and PTSD.”

At first, she resisted.

• How could she have OCD when she had never met the criteria before?
• How could she have PTSD when she hadn’t thought of her past experiences as trauma?

But after taking official diagnostic tests, the reality set in: She met the criteria for both conditions.

While the diagnosis was hard to accept, it also brought a deep sense of relief—a framework to understand what was happening and a roadmap for treatment.

Key takeaway: Denial is normal, but getting an accurate diagnosis can be empowering. It turns confusion into clarity and allows you to take actionable steps forward.

The Hardest Part: Facing Exposure Therapy

Kimberley knew that the gold standard treatment for OCD is Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) and for PTSD, it is Prolonged Exposure Therapy (PE).

But even as a therapist, she wanted to avoid it.

• “I didn’t want to do exposures. I didn’t want to face it.”
• “I was in 10 out of 10 anxiety all day, every day.”
• “I just wanted any relief anyone could give me.”

Yet, she also knew something her clients often don’t: ERP and PE work.
So, she made a commitment to trust the process—even when it felt unbearable.

The Healing Process: Step by Step

1. Response Prevention for OCD

ERP focuses on reducing compulsions, not necessarily the thoughts themselves. For Kimberley, this meant stopping subtle compulsions she hadn’t even noticed, such as:

• Seeking reassurance through texting friends and family
• Avoiding triggers like certain TV shows, songs, or conversations

Each time she resisted these compulsions, her brain learned that she could tolerate discomfort without needing to engage in these behaviors to feel okay.

2. Prolonged Exposure for PTSD

With the help of her therapist, Kimberley worked through her trauma by:

• Writing out the full story of the event, adding details over time
• Recording herself reading it and listening repeatedly
• Allowing herself to fully feel the emotions— including sadness, grief, and even rage

At first, she felt nothing. But after weeks of practice, the emotions surfaced—and eventually, they no longer had control over her.

3. Emotional Exposure: Facing Fear Through Media

A surprising part of her healing was reintroducing emotions she had avoided for years.

• Watching sad movies
• Listening to melancholic music
• Engaging with stories that triggered deep feelings

At first, it was overwhelming. But by gradually allowing these emotions, she trained her nervous system to process feelings instead of shutting them down.

Key takeaway: Avoidance might feel like protection, but it keeps us stuck. Facing emotions—little by little—helps us heal.

Life After Treatment: What Kimberley Still Practices

Even after significant recovery, mental health is an ongoing process. Today, Kimberley focuses on:

• Distinguishing responsibility versus hyper-responsibility—knowing what is truly hers to carry
• Allowing emotions to flow instead of blocking them
• Asking, “How can I make this my bravest day?”—shifting the focus from fear to courage

Final Thoughts: It’s a Beautiful Day to Do Hard Things

Through therapy, self-compassion, and a commitment to facing fears, Kimberley found her way through the hardest year of her life.

Her advice to others:
“If your goal is to never feel anxious, that won’t work. But if your goal is to make today your bravest day, that IS possible.”

Transcription: My Bravest Year Yet (my personal PTSD + OCD journey)

Kimberley: Welcome back to Your Anxiety Toolkit. The format of today is going to be a little different. The title of this episode is Your Bravest Year Yet. And the reason that I’m sharing this story is that on the eve of 2025, I was actually flying across the international date line where the pilot said,

“Everybody, I would like to welcome you into 2025. We’ve just crossed the international date line.”

And I thought to myself, This was your absolute bravest year that you’ve ever, ever had, that you’ve been through the hardest things maybe that you’ve ever to date had to go through. And I felt that this was something I was ready finally to share after not being ready to share for quite a long time.

Now, again, the reason that the format is a little different here is that I embarrassingly have rerecorded this episode more times than I would like to admit to. I did my best to structure it and share by myself in a solo episode. And I just couldn’t get it done. Not that I was being perfectionistic. It’s just that it was scary and hard, and I couldn’t seem to do it.

So, as always, when you’re having a hard time, your best thing to do is to reach out and ask someone to help you. And so today, I have my husband here, and he’s going to ask me questions, and we’re going to do this together. Because it’s actually something we went through together, and he held my hand through.

So, alright, so let’s get going.

Hubby: So, how do you feel sharing this? I know you’ve been through this a number of times where you’ve tried to record it on your own and for some reason it just didn’t feel right or fit right. So how do you feel talking to me about this?

Kimberley: If I’m going to be completely honest, I’ve had a lot of hyper-responsibility about this episode, worrying that I wouldn’t say it right or that I’d tell it wrong or I wasn’t going to honor the people right in how I shared it.

So, I’m pretty nervous, but I’m also happy. Thank you. And my nervous system is happy that you’re here.

Hubby: You said to your audience, it’s taken you a long time to get to this point where you’re able to share this, but, and I think I know the answer to this, but can you tell them why that is—why it’s taken you so long to share it?

Kimberley: Sure. So, number one, when I’m going through something, I’ve always made it a rule to do my best to share it only if it’s beneficial to other people and not just to sort of vent it out. I wanted it to be very intentional, and I also wanted to do it in a way where I was through the worst of it.

The big piece was also that I wanted for my clients to not ever feel like they have to worry about me or take care of me or not share something with me because they’re afraid that I’m going through something. I always just want—when I’m with my patients, I’m so present, that I’m so with them, and I wouldn’t want them to be in the background wondering how I’m doing or what’s going on, or should they not bring something up in fear that it might trigger me.

Hubby: That must be difficult because you’ve always had this—your M.O. is to help people and use your own struggles to help people, but at the same time, you don’t want to open them up to their own OCD around that.

Kimberley: No, yeah…

Hubby: So, what was happening in your life when you started noticing the PTSD and the OCD?

Kimberley: Right. So, for those who have listened, I probably should just share the actual—what we’re talking about.

So, in early—almost a year to date, and it’s January 31st today, actually past a year—I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and OCD. I have, up until that point, never met criteria for either condition, even though I’ve always said that my eating disorder was very similar to OCD.

In fact, I’ve always said that I felt like I resonated more with the OCD community than I did the eating disorder community. And while I’ve always had traits of generalized anxiety disorder and, you know, done some little compulsions here and there, I never really felt like I met criteria for OCD.

Nor did I ever, in my whole adult life, think that I would ever be someone who would be diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Hubby: It’s more of a general question, like what motivated you to get to the point where you needed to seek a diagnosis? Or what tipped you off that there was something that wasn’t right?

Kimberley: Well, in late 2023—I mean, it actually, I think, started before that, even early 2023—there was a series of little, insignificant events that happened in my personal life or in society.

For example, there were some celebrities who had died by suicide. In our community here in Los Angeles, there were a series of deaths by suicide. And for those of you who are listening, if you’re particularly triggered by themes of suicide, you may want to know that this will include information about suicide.

A lot of the academic schools here in Los Angeles, there was a series of suicides in the teen area. When these things happened, rightfully so, I was really sad and triggered by it. I started to notice these disproportionate symptoms of anxiety showing up.

What’s interesting is that every year, I take courses on suicide prevention because I have to, for my license. I’ve even given presentations on suicide prevention, suicidal OCD, or the overlap between OCD and depression. And yet, those things never seemed to tip me off.

But something about this time of my life—whether it’s hormonal, perimenopausal—I had also just come out of a very, very traumatic medical season of my life. I started to notice that these triggers were causing a pretty severe degree of hypervigilance. A lot of hyper-responsibility for my loved ones, the people in my inner circle, family, and so forth.

I was starting to have panic attacks every single night—nocturnal panic attacks. You probably remember, up to upwards of 10 or a dozen panic attacks in the night that were uncontrollable.

And I have all the skills and all the strategies, but yet, nothing I was doing was helping. I was still functioning, I was going to work. The good thing is, when I was with my clients, I had none of these symptoms. But as soon as the session was up, I would close my laptop, and they would come flooding back.

And I just felt like the sky was falling. That’s the only way I could say it. Like, bad things are going to happen, and I couldn’t shake that feeling.

Hubby: Right, and this wasn’t something that just happened, it was starting, it was getting worse and worse and worse.

Kimberley: It was getting worse, yeah.

Hubby: Over a course of six months, the first half of last year?

Kimberley: Or even before that. Yeah, before that. So, I was—basically, in January of last year—I was having these symptoms and sharing them with my best friend, who is an OCD specialist and is really well-versed in PTSD.

I was sharing with her, and this is where I get a little embarrassed to say, but I’ve really tried to be as gentle as I can… I was sharing with her the behaviors I was using to manage these symptoms. And one day, I was saying to her, I’m just gonna do this thing, and it just helps me feel better, and even though it was adding more time to my day, taking up more of my mental capacity, or I had to take the day off work to go do this thing, she sort of gently said,

“Kimberley, I love you, I’m always here for you, but it’s beginning to sound like this is OCD.”

And that alone was rough because I was like, Oh, give me a break. I am in my forties. Like, I do not have OCD. I have never met criteria. I kept thinking to myself, Maybe I over-disclosed. Maybe I’m being dramatic. Maybe I’m just trying to get attention. There is absolutely no way I could meet criteria for OCD.

I even thought maybe she was being dramatic—like, maybe she was over-pathologizing me. That’s not what it is.

The other piece is, she had said, This is beginning to sound a little bit like PTSD. And I did exactly the same thing. That can’t be, because I haven’t had anything traumatic happen to me.

Hubby: Well, that’s not exactly true though.

Kimberley: Well, then she said, Have you had any experiences or something that may have happened?

And I said to her, Well…—completely nonchalantly—I said, Oh, well, there was that time when my roommate died by suicide in college.

And she was like, What?

And I was like, Yeah, you know, I’ve told you about… and I said his name.

And she was like, Kimberley, you’ve never, ever mentioned this to me. Like, we talk every single day and you’ve never mentioned that happening to you.

And I totally blew it off. I was like, Yeah, no, it wasn’t… You know, that can’t be what it is. I can’t have PTSD about it.

And she was like, Hun, I really think you need to go and do a proper assessment for these two conditions. Like, I think that’s what you need to do.

Hubby: I remember that week and that month that he killed himself, and I remember being very surprised at the time by your reaction—how well you were taking it, how you weren’t falling apart. And you weren’t somebody that fell apart ever, really, but it was very difficult, and it was really intensely personal. And he was a friend of yours.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Hubby: And it just seemed like you were, at the time, kind of burying it a little bit.

Kimberley: Well, at that time, I was already deep in an eating disorder.

Hubby: You were very young.

Kimberley: I was very young.

Hubby: You were only 21 years old, I think. 20 or 21?

Kimberley: I was 19, I think. Or 20. Yeah. And so I just sort of doubled down on the eating disorder. I remember going home to my mom and dad’s. I took the long weekend off after that happened. I went home to see them. My mom asked me how I was. I said I was fine.

I tended, in my eating disorder, to be more of a restrictive type. I would restrict and then do compulsive exercise. But I do remember that weekend doing a lot of binge eating. And then I kind of just pulled up my bootstraps and went back to school, went back to college, went back to my eating disorder—if anything, doubled down—and I just shoved it so far down deep, I couldn’t even access anything about it. I just did everything I could to not have to acknowledge that it happened.

Hubby: Yeah. I remember asking you about it six months ago, when you began your treatment, and there were a lot of details about it that you didn’t remember or situations that didn’t—it just seemed like there was a lot of it you didn’t recall.

Kimberley: Yeah. Well, that was during the prolonged exposure, which we can talk about in a little bit.

Hubby: Yeah.

Kimberley: So, going back to your diagnosis though. I mean, you were obviously surprised when your best friend said, You possibly have PTSD. You possibly have some OCD around this. But then you felt like you needed to get a professional diagnosis—somebody outside of your circle of friends and family. Somebody that was—I don’t know what the word is, but…

Hubby: More objective?

Kimberley: Yeah. Well, it was the same as the eating disorder when I had it, in that as horrified as I was, I was also relieved because it helped me explain why nothing I was using was helping.

And it also gave me a bit of hope, because at that point, I was like, I’m literally spiraling out of control here. If something doesn’t change, I’m in trouble.

Hubby: Right. Now that you know the problem, you can find the solution.

Kimberley: Yeah. But at the very same time, I went through about a solid three weeks of beating myself up pretty harsh. Not beating myself up, but immense degrees of shame, thinking like, I’m a fraud. No one will believe me.

Like, I felt like an idiot—not for having OCD or PTSD, but because I’m a specialist in these conditions, but it didn’t fit the way that I usually see the progression go.

And that’s because I’ve never actually had a client who was an OCD therapist who didn’t have OCD—who then all of a sudden did.

I just felt like—I think I was, and I am still afraid even as I record this, and I think a big part of the reason I was struggling to record it on my own is I was afraid that it would seem like I was just trying to get the diagnosis.

Not that that would benefit me in any way, but like I was over-diagnosed. Right? Like, Oh, you know, when people go through their master’s degree and they read the diagnostic manual, the DSM, and they’re like, “Oh, now I have all these conditions.” You over-hyper-pathologize yourself.

Like, I felt embarrassed. Will people think that?

And this is not that. Like, I was in so much pain, and I was so terrified.

Hubby: You were carrying a lot of shame with you about it.

Kimberley: So much guilt about it.

And also just feeling like—again, a part of the hyper-responsibility was like, Oh man, now I’m gonna genetically…

I started worrying even about the kids—genetically. That’s another disorder I have. Now that was also a part of the OCD.

Then it was like, I was having OCD about having OCD. Like, I’m going to mess them up, or their kids will be messed up, you know what I mean? Because genetically I’ve set them up…

But, I mean, this wasn’t my fault, and I knew that. And even though I was having all this shame, I knew none of it was true, but I had to work through it.

It took me like a couple weeks until I was like, Okay, you’ve given it three weeks. You’ve gone over it enough. Like, enough is enough. It is just what it is. You gotta practice what you preach.

Hubby: And so in your treatment, I imagine that you kind of knew at the time what you were going to have to do—like the steps you were going to have to go through.

But what was the scariest part about starting that for you?

Kimberley: Well, I actually diagnosed myself, technically—meaning, I have access to all of the diagnostic tests.

And, of course, as any doctor or therapist would, I’m going to disclose—I took the test myself because I was like, I need to know. I need to check this out before I share it with anybody.

So, I actually just went onto my own electronic records program and took the OCD and the PTSD checklists, and yeah, very clearly came out as meeting criteria.

As soon as I did that, I knew what the treatments were. I know what the gold standard treatment for OCD is—it’s exposure and response prevention (ERP).

I know what the gold standard treatment for PTSD is—it’s prolonged exposure (PE) and cognitive processing therapy (CPT).

But, it’s so funny to me, and I laugh now because I remember sitting in Frankie, the van, thinking to myself, There are all these new therapies out that claim you don’t have to do ERP, and I’m going to take that route.

Hubby: The easy route.

Kimberley: Just because I was so scared.

Hubby: But what were you scared of?

Kimberley: I didn’t want to do exposures.

Hubby: You didn’t want to face it.

Kimberley: I didn’t want to face it. I was in 10 out of 10 anxiety—all day, every day.

I was panicking in my sleep, all night. I couldn’t—there was not a minute of the day where I wasn’t—my brain wasn’t on fire, or I felt like I had been…

The only way to explain it is I just felt like someone had injected liters of adrenaline into my bloodstream.

And I just wanted any relief anyone could give me.

The idea of doing exposures… it made me want to throw up.

Hubby: And so now, you know how your clients feel.

Kimberley: Well, I already knew how they felt, but it was this moment where I was like, I’m not doing exposure. No way.

Until I was—I laughed—I remember laughing out loud at myself and being like, Girlfriend, you cannot be the… you’re just… you’re going to do what you’ve been telling your clients to do.

Like, there’s no way around it.

The cool thing is, and I have said this in all of the recordings that I did previously to this—which is probably one of the most beautiful parts of this process for me—was I didn’t want to do exposure, but I had the gift of knowing that it worked.

Whereas I think so many patients come in, and they’re already so unhappy and uncertain and in so much stress…

Hubby: And probably tried so many different things.

Kimberley: Yeah. And they come in, and they have to blindly trust this therapist to tell them to go and do scary things.

And the beautiful thing is, I was like, Girl, you know this will work. This is a slam dunk if you just do it.

And so, I promised myself I would just trust the process and trust my therapist and go hardcore.

The other thing is—therapists are the worst patients. They are known as the worst patients.

But I’ve never been that way. I handed—I hand over my trust to all my therapists. I always have.

And I was so unwell, I just had to say, I’m going to trust that you know better. I’m going to trust that you get it.

And the truth is, I had lost my insight in those moments.

Like, you would even lay in bed and be like, Everything’s fine. We’re all fine.

And I’d be like, Oh my gosh! But what about this? And what about that?

And I just could not… yeah.

I would look at you and be like, How is he not freaking out?

And sometimes, I would even judge you. I think, if I’m being completely honest, I’d be like, God, I wish I had your brain. You’re over there in denial land, and I’m over here—the one who knows how dangerous the world is. And I have this intuition about how the sky’s gonna fall. And I’m going to be the hero in this story and save everybody from all of the bad things.

And you’re going to be over there living your best life—which, I’m so happy you were.

I would never wish this on you.

And I will say—it was actually relieving to have you and see you, and you were calm and collected and seemed to be coping well with the way the world is.

Hubby: So, tell me about the treatment.

Kimberley: Okay, so, I reached out to some really trusted colleagues, and they gave me a referral of somebody I didn’t know—which is a miracle, because, you know, it’s hard to find therapists when you know most of the good therapists in the area.

So, I found an amazing therapist. Shout out to my therapist—I love you forever. You saved my life.

And we began exposure and response prevention for the OCD, with a heavy emphasis on response prevention.

Right? So, it was mostly response prevention to start.

And then, for the PTSD, with the help of my therapist, we identified—because there were just one or two main index traumas, like events—that we agreed that we would do prolonged exposure as my treatment instead of doing cognitive processing therapy.

Kimberley: So, prolonged exposure is similar to ERP, but it’s a little different.

You have to basically write out the story of the traumatic event and then add details in increments to make it more difficult. You add more detail, add information about what emotions you felt, where you were, who you were with, what happened, what you saw, and what you remember.

Then you record yourself saying it out loud, and you just listen to it on repeat—over and over and over again—until either it doesn’t activate you anymore, or you reach the point where you’re ultimately kind of…

Hubby: Almost bored with it?

Kimberley: Well, yeah. It’s not that it’ll ever bore you, because it happened to you, right? It’s a painful event. But there’s sort of an integration that happens where you can hear it without your body going into full panic mode.

You’ll still feel emotion, but your body isn’t completely dysregulated.

So, I started with ERP, working on reducing a lot of my avoidances. I was avoiding a lot.

The biggest thing I was doing was actually a ton of reassurance-seeking—without even realizing that’s what I was doing.

Even little, nuanced, subtle compulsions. Thankfully, my therapist caught a lot of them.

Like, even as I checked in with friends or family via text—while I wasn’t checking in with them for reassurance, their reply was giving me reassurance.

So, I had to do some pretty high-level, tactical response prevention there.

And then, for the prolonged exposure—so, my experience of prolonged exposure was interesting in that I told the story, and I didn’t feel anything.

I didn’t feel sad, I didn’t feel anxious even.

And my therapist said, That’s okay. That’s alright. Usually, and often, it will create a lot of distress for the person with PTSD.

But for me, I was like, Nope, nothing.

She said, It might just take some time.

So, it took me about two weeks of reading it and adding enough detail before I started to feel something—anxiety and grief.

Which, I had never really felt the grief around it.

Maybe a little, but not much.

Then, after I had done a lot of exposure to that, we identified—this is where the OCD and PTSD intertwined—I was engaging in a lot of emotional avoidance.

She identified that I was avoiding sad movies, sad music, any TV shows that would scare me, any TV shows or movies that had a lot of death or killing in them.

Hubby: Like Stranger Things.

Kimberley: Stranger Things is too scary!

Hubby: You didn’t make it past the first episode.

Kimberley: No. And that’s a compulsion. That’s an avoidant compulsion.

Because I used to love—love!—as a 16-year-old, I loved X-Files. I loved being scared.

And I used to listen to country-western music, which is very sad. You know, songs about my dog, my love, my girlfriend left me… all the sad stories.

I could do it back then.

And then, at some point, I just stopped.

She identified that, and then I had to start watching sad shows and sad TV and listening to sad music—which, believe it or not, that sounds easy for some people, but for me, it was so hard.

My heart hurt.

Hubby: Well, you were feeling emotions you didn’t want to feel.

Kimberley: Yeah. I remember doing it, and right now, just thinking about it, I feel my throat tighten and my breath shorten.

So, we identified the emotions…

Oh, and then with the prolonged exposure—the last stage of it was the anger.

As I was reading my exposures, I would have these waves of anger.

I felt like I was going to lose control of my body.

And I wasn’t angry at anyone in particular, but I just felt rage through my body. Rage, rage, rage.

Hubby: Well…

Kimberley: It’s very personal, and I’m not sure I’ll go into too much detail here, but I was angry that that happened to me.

I was angry that there was enough sadness and grief in the world that someone would end their life.

And I just want to disclose—I understand why people do. I completely have nothing but compassion for them. I totally understand.

And I have a lot of education and experience treating clients with this.

Hubby: But the people left behind are usually angry.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Hubby: That’s a very normal thing to feel.

Kimberley: Yeah.

Hubby: And that must have been a big surprise—just knowing all of this stuff, but struggling to implement it on your own.

Kimberley: Yeah. Well, I think the thing that I’m struggling with the most today as I share this story is that I still can’t believe this happened.

Like, I’m only sharing because I feel very well recovered.

Not to say I don’t have bad days, but like, I feel super good about the recovery piece.

But I still say, How did that happen?

I feel like somebody put a pause on my life, got into my head, mixed up all the wires, and was like, Okay, press play. Let’s see how she handles rewiring herself.

That’s what it feels like happened to me.

Hubby: Well, nobody chooses to have OCD or PTSD.

Kimberley: No. But it felt—even though it wasn’t—like someone just messed up my wiring in the middle of the night.

Like there was some magic lightning bolt that messed up my brain.

Hubby: It was me.

Kimberley: You play tricks on me!

Hubby: So obviously, you still manage some symptoms today, right? Everyone does.

What tools or practices do you use?

Kimberley: The biggest tool I have to practice is distinguishing between appropriate responsibility and hyper-responsibility.

And when you’re triggered, you can’t see what is what.

So, that’s really something I have to keep in check—my insight, in the moment.

I have to catch when I’m over-accommodating my anxiety.

And, not feeling like it’s my responsibility to fix everything—that’s hard.

Because I want to fix everything.

Hubby: And what’s your biggest piece of advice?

Kimberley: Of course, It’s a beautiful day to do hard things.

And also, I asked myself, How can I make this my bravest day?

If your goal is to not have anxiety—well, that’s not going to work.

If your goal is to not have a panic attack—well, that’s not going to work.

If your goal is to not be triggered—that’s not effective.

So, I would often ask myself, How can I make this my bravest day yet?

That helped me break it into chunks—bravest minute, bravest hour.

And that made things feel doable.

Hubby: I love that.

Kimberley: Thank you for doing this with me. I don’t think I could have done it without you.

Hubby: My pleasure.

Kimberley: And thank you to everyone listening. I’m so grateful.

As always, It’s a beautiful day to do hard things, and I’ll see you next week.