Hi there, Huddlers. We start Community Time sharing a moment from the week where we are proud of how we related to our private experience. This week, I want to elaborate on why we do this. 

The Huddle.care schedule this week is: 

• Community Time - Mondays at 8pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 4 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 7 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Wednesdays at 7 pm CT

• Any and all content - Thursdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Fridays at 2 pm CT

• If you try to sign up for a group, but the sign-up is closed, email me so I know that there is extra interest in that time. 

Content for review: 

Donate to Get Peace, Give Peace

Listen to my interview on The OCD Stories Podcast

Review the Huddle.care Core Values

Review the Huddle.care Curriculum infographic

Review the Huddle.care Self-monitoring infographic

#MoreEffectiveMoments When you click on the button below, you'll be redirected to a secure form where you can share your moment. Follow the prompts when you submit your moment and explain how what you did was effective. I'll give you an animated character and post it to Instagram. 

Edited transcript:

The interpretation of a moment of high physiological arousal as a threat or danger is an experience that your mind is co-creating with your brain. You aren’t making up what you feel. Those sensations and feelings are very real. You are making up what it means. Sometimes a racing heart is a good workout and sometimes it’s a reason to panic. Sometimes when your stomach aches you are hungry and sometimes you miss someone. Even feelings that seem objective, like hunger, are dependent on how you’ve responded to it in the past. 

We have to stay awake to our experiences to understand what’s happening within us and respond effectively. Notice that I’m using the word effectively, not accurately. We are not striving to respond to ourselves and our environment accurately, as if there is an objective reality. We are co-creating reality with our environments. In striving to respond effectively, we can use the human proclivity to add meaning to experience to create lives that are more and more values-driven. Put another way, if you pay attention and learn to read your feelings well, you can add meaning that helps you build your life in a way that is more and more meaningful to you over time. 

Your interpretation matters

Here’s an example of how interpreting your experience with shame will impact you:

You experience anticipatory anxiety before something you care about. 

You add the interpretation: “This feeling means I can’t do it. I shouldn’t have this feeling. I’m not good enough. I should feel confident and competent. I don’t feel that way so I should quit. I’ll never be happy as long as I have this feeling.” 

You avoid the thing you care about or you bear it with dread and fear. You add self-criticism for avoiding or for not doing your best. You lose motivation to do the thing you value in the future. You are further from valued-based behavior in the future. 

Here’s the same experience interpreted with pride:

You experience anticipatory anxiety before something you care about. 

You add the interpretation: “Yes! Look at me! I found something that I care enough for my body to pump me with adrenaline to prepare for it. This is great! What an opportunity for me! I’m going to do my best and see what opportunities this creates for me.”

You then try as hard as you can at your valued-based behavior while feeling anxious and uncertain. You learn whatever skills are relevant while you’re practicing the thing you value. You gain new opportunities because you have new skills. It’s easy to feel compassion towards yourself for the way your body reacted before the valued-based behavior. Your insomnia and diarrhea and muscle tension and catastrophic thinking were just the result of the extra adrenaline your brain gave you. It’s easy to feel proud because you know your own experience and you can tell that that moment was the next step for you. Great job. Keep going. 

Shift from avoidance and shame to connection and pride

Bringing us back to Community Time, we’re trying to shift from feeling ashamed about moments of anxiety, OCD, and depression to interpreting these experiences as opportunities for connection and pride.

Some of you have known each other for years. Isn’t it awesome to hear how people grow? It feels great to hear when someone without work finds a job they like or when someone who was struggling with dating finds someone they love. It feels great to hear people who used to be totally stuck in worry, OCD, or depression describe how they got out. You might notice that your feelings towards fellow Huddlers when they describe progress are more positive than hearing the same thing in everyday life. How come? It’s because you heard their internal process. 

As you hear the details of other people’s experiences, you had two experiences: Some of what they said totally resonated with you and it felt very human and connecting for you. Some of what they said didn’t resonate at all and you realized that your life path is completely different and incomparable to them. The combination of these two experiences made it easy for you to feel connected without comparison or competition. 

In everyday life, most people don’t describe their internal experience unless you know them really well (and ask them about it with curiosity and acceptance). One way to understand the urge to compare and compete is that it’s a misunderstanding that everyone is on the same or a similar path. That’s not true. Once you start to see the subtle differences between your path and that of those around you, comparison isn’t useful or relevant. 

Hopefully, you have friends and family who share their ups and downs of their internal process in a way that gives you a genuinely positive feeling when you see them grow. Children often naturally provoke this feeling in us. You know the baby not walking, so walking is just miraculous. You know the child not talking, so reading is miraculous. 

I’m trying to provoke this same type of experience in you, towards yourself. You know yourself stuck in anxiety, OCD, and depression. I feel proud when I see you taking steps to get out. If you let yourself interpret that experience the same way — with pride — you’ll have natural motivation to keep going. 

When we share what we are proud of in Community time, we are celebrating progress. We are giving each other ideas for how to respond to anxiety, OCD, and depression effectively. Most importantly, we are learning to accept ourselves exactly where we are. We are developing self-trust, self-esteem, and self-confidence from owning our own process. 

So, what are you proud of this week?

Hi there, Huddlers. Great week. This week, we’ll discuss Strategies Module 6: Redirect rumination.

We’ll discuss rumination and how it compares to worry this week. Here are some dimensions about which you can think about rumination to get us started.

• Ego-orientation: Ego-syntonic, meaning that ruminative thoughts seem believable to the thinker.

• Time orientation: Past

• Content: Churning through memories to figure out why you feel helpless, hopeless, worthless, sad, guilty, lonely, or angry.

• Beliefs that maintain it: “If I feel hopeless, helpless, or worthless, that means that I am.” “Feelings mean something. I wouldn’t be feeling this if it wasn’t true.”

• The function that maintains it:  Helpless, hopeless, and worthless feelings arrive and the thinker buys into and expands on the thoughts that come with it.

The Huddle.care schedule this week is: 

• Community Time - Mondays at 8pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 4 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Wednesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Thursdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Fridays at 2 pm CT

• If you try to sign up for a group, but the sign-up is closed, email me so I know that there is extra interest in that time. 

Content for review: 

Donate to Get Peace, Give Peace

Listen to my interview on The OCD Stories Podcast

Review the Huddle.care Core Values

Review the Huddle.care Curriculum infographic

Review the Huddle.care Self-monitoring infographic

#MoreEffectiveMoments When you click on the button below, you'll be redirected to a secure form where you can share your moment. Follow the prompts when you submit your moment and explain how what you did was effective. I'll give you an animated character and post it to Instagram. 

Edited transcript:

Rumination as a repetitive negative thinking state is triggered by pervasive negative beliefs. It is a sticky thinking pattern that shows up habitually when triggered by certain environmental or internal states.

Pervasive negative beliefs and rumination

High anxiety isn’t the consequence of lots and lots of anxiety, but rather an anxiety state plus a secondary interpretation of the state as a threat itself (also called second fear). Similarly, depression isn’t lots and lots of sadness, but rather an uncomfortable feeling (like sadness, guilt, loneliness, anger) plus an interpretation of that feeling that you are hopeless, helpless, or worthless because of it.

As an example, everyone feels lonely sometimes. Loneliness can be a clean or clear emotion if you notice it, and think “Everyone feels this way sometimes. It’s painful to feel isolated and disconnected.” If you don’t add any more to that, the feeling is likely to peak and pass or to give you information on an action that might be beneficial for you, like reaching out to a friend.

A more common experience of loneliness is that when the feeling of loneliness shows up, you think “what is wrong with me? why do I always feel this way? I’m such a loser for feeling like this…” These thoughts are likely to trigger feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, or worthlessness. Specifically,

Helplessness – “There’s nothing I can do to make this better.”

Hopelessness – “Things will always be this way.”

Worthlessness – “This is because of me. I am worthless and unlovable.”

Behavioral activation is the main intervention for these types of thoughts and feelings because we want to give your body and mind the opposite experience. We want you to experience behaviors and feelings that make you think: “Things in my life change. My life can change based on my action. People like me and I feel connected to them when I take effective action.”

That said, I am aware that worthlessness often feels like a blanket. If you are starting to or have lost interest in activities you usually find pleasurable, it is the feeling of worthlessness that is clouding your interest. You often have to act as though you aren’t feeling hopeless, helpless, or worthless over and over until those feelings actually fade. Think of it like doing lots of anxiety exposures before a trigger no longer gives you anxiety.

What can we learn about rumination from worry? 

Rumination is to your past what worry is to your future. When anxious, you are prone to ask, “what if?” When hopeless, helpless, or worthless, you are likely prone to ask “why?” You will have the urge to replay past memories in an attempt to figure out why you feel the way you do, and whether or not you deserve it. This is called rumination.

Worry is a repetitive negative thinking state triggered by anxiety sensitivity and intolerance of uncertainty (and often other mechanisms too). When you perceive a threat, your body experiences fight-or-flight sensations and catastrophic future-oriented thoughts. To overcome worry, you have to predict that it is coming and then be ready to get distance from your catastrophic thoughts. If when a “what-if” thought shows up, you engage it and keep it going, you are going to fall into a worry spiral.

We want to learn to use the same skills with the urge to ruminate. That is, we want to try to predict the triggers that provoke feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, and worthlessness, and then have a plan for redirecting your attention back to the present moment, rather than ruminating about the past.

What’s the difference between rumination and introspection?

Introspection is a chosen thinking state. Like choosing to be in a conversation with a friend and choosing to either discuss a certain topic or change the topic, introspection is a chosen conversation with yourself. You can keep it going or choose to think about something else. You don’t need to figure out whatever you are thinking about at the moment. Reflective introspection starts and stops based on your decision.

Reflective introspection is different than rumination the way that problem solving is different than worrying. During both reflective introspection and problem-solving, you are choosing to bring your attention to the relevant topics and your attitude towards them is one of curiosity and hopefulness. Put differently, attempting to problem-solve or reflect assumes that your action will have positive consequences. It is an assumption of hope.

Overcoming rumination

Here’s your plan for overcoming rumination. Let’s discuss where you get stuck in Community Time.

• Self-monitor to figure out what triggers feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, or worthlessness.

• Use behavioral activation to redirect yourself to the present moment when depression zaps your energy.

• Write out the memories that your mind often uses against you when you are ruminating.

• Make a plan to discuss content about which you actually feel hopeless, helpless, or worthless in therapy.

We can’t prevent feelings like sadness, loneliness, guilt, or anger from arising, but we can work on how we respond to those feelings. You are on your way towards overcoming depression if, when you feel these feelings, you challenge the urge to ruminate in both your thoughts and your actions. If you’re having trouble consistently challenging the beliefs that maintain rumination, group is a great place to discuss where you are getting stuck.

Hi there, Huddlers. Great week. This week, we’ll discuss Strategies Module 5: Mental compulsions function like behavior.

Once they learn about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), most people can immediately tell that how they think impacts how they feel, how they feel impacts how they behave, and how they behave impacts how they think. OCD treatment, in particular, has a heavy emphasis on exposure and response prevention (ERP). The goal of ERP is to expose you to anxiety-provoking stimuli and get you to refrain from doing anything to manage the anxiety. Instead, you wait for the anxiety to pass. That moment of ERP is uncomfortable, but in the future you will get relief. You, Huddlers, know this and have already worked on it with physical compulsions. Let’s talk more about this so you understand how to use the same technique for your mental compulsions.

The Huddle.care schedule this week is: 

• Community Time - Mondays at 8pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 4 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Wednesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Thursdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Fridays at 2 pm CT

• If you try to sign up for a group, but the sign-up is closed, email me so I know that there is extra interest in that time. 

Content for review: 

Donate to Get Peace, Give Peace

Listen to my interview on The OCD Stories Podcast

Review the Huddle.care Core Values

Review the Huddle.care Curriculum infographic

Review the Huddle.care Self-monitoring infographic

#MoreEffectiveMoments When you click on the button below, you'll be redirected to a secure form where you can share your moment. Follow the prompts when you submit your moment and explain how what you did was effective. I'll give you an animated character and post it to Instagram. 

Edited Transcript:

The nature of obsessive thoughts is that they are unwanted and intrusive. They arrive with a spike of anxiety or uncertainty and the urge to do something that makes them stop. Behavior that you feel compelled to perform, against your conscious wishes, with the sole intention of ending a thought, feeling or sensation is a compulsion.

Let’s discuss the nature of compulsions in greater detail so that we have shared language to understand mental compulsions.

What is a compulsion?

Here is a list of common physical compulsions: 

• Excessive hand washing or bathing

• Checking locks or appliances

• Checking that you haven’t made a mistake

• Checking that you did not or will not harm yourself or others

• Checking your body for sensations or your mind for thoughts and feelings

• Rereading or rewriting

• Repeating routine activities like moving a chair up and down

• Counting

• Excessive list making

• Needing to tell, ask, or confess what you are thinking

• Needing to touch or tap

• Needing to arrange or order objects

Hand washing and all other behaviors listed above becomes excessive and problematic when the function of the behavior transitions from problem-solving to anxiety reduction. When your hands are visibly dirty or your body is sweaty or smelly, washing is problem-solving. When you have the thought that you are contaminated and the feeling of anxiety and you feel compelled to wash until the anxiety is gone, washing is a compulsion. Some people follow rules like “It’s okay for me to stop washing after I repeat my ritual 3 times or after a certain amount of time.” Other people wait for the just-right feeling to stop washing. Many people who engage in compulsive behavior have rules for some situations and use their feelings as criteria for when to stop in other situations.

Here are some common misunderstandings about obsessions and compulsions:

How do I know I’m having an unwanted intrusive thought? If you have been stuck in a particular content for a long time, you may feel confused by the “unwanted” part of the definition of an obsession. For instance, those suffering from OCD with sexual orientation content might think, “how do I know if this is unwanted? What if I want to be having this sexual thought and that’s why it’s so frequent?” This can make it challenging to take the leap of faith and label the thinking pattern as OCD. If you are stuck wondering whether or not your thought is unwanted (and what it means about you if the thought is or isn’t unwanted), try asking yourself, “Did I choose to think about this? If I could think about anything in the world right now, would I direct my attention at this? Would I purposely choose to talk about it and google this rather than all other things that interest me?” If your answer is no, you wouldn’t choose to think about it, then you are suffering from unwanted thoughts. Everybody sometimes has unwanted thoughts, but not everyone has unwanted thoughts that trigger anxious sensations, create preoccupation, steal time and energy, and compel them to act in ways to make the thoughts go away. It’s really challenging to get out of this type of mental trap. I hope you don’t feel self-pity, but you do feel self-compassion about suffering in this way.

What is problematic about rule-based or feeling-based compulsive behavior? We talk a lot about flexible behavior in Huddle.care. People who don’t engage in compulsive behavior have “flexible” behavior in the sense that the function of their behaviors are problem-solving and the solution is different every time. As an example, in some bathrooms, you have access to soap and paper towels. At other times, you don’t. Can you problem solve with whatever the situation calls for and redirect your attention to the present moment if you aren’t able to use your rules for getting clean? The problem with using rules or just-right feelings to make decisions is that unless you rigidly narrow your life options, you will face situations where your rules don’t apply or your just-right feelings feel more and more elusive. You also miss out on the opportunity to become confident in yourself and your ability to adaptively problem solve, if you are drawing your sense of security from rules.

What’s the difference between compulsive feeling-based behavior and intuition?Some people believe strongly in making decisions based on feelings and intuition and don’t like the idea of giving up “feeling-based” decisions. The problematic form of feeling-based decisions is when you are rigidly trying to achieve a certain feeling state, specifically the certainty feeling state. When you are open and accepting to all feeling states, then your feelings can actually be data and you can make intuitive decisions based on the information you receive from your feelings. For instance, if you befriend the feeling of anger without judging, resisting, or fueling it, the feeling of anger can give you important data about your environment and your relationships. If you are trying to control your behavior to achieve certain feeling states and calling that intuition, it will be hard for you to develop a deep confidence in your ability to respond well to all feeling states.

What’s the difference between addictive behavior and compulsive behavior? Compulsive behavior is differentiated from addictive behavior based, per usual, on its function. Addictive behavior may also eliminate or reduce thoughts, feelings, or sensations, but its primary function is to achieve the state to which you are addicted. Just like compulsive behavior, addictive behavior is defined by impairment and distress. Washing your hands is workable until your hands are dry and sore and you are late for other commitments. Eating sugar or drinking alcohol can also workable behaviors, until they are not. In both compulsive behavior and addictive behavior cycles, you will feel an urge to engage in the behavior. When you have an addictive urge, you typically want to engage in the behavior, although you might not want the consequences of the behavior. For example, you want the drink or the cigarette, but you don’t want the health or social consequences of drinking and smoking. Comparatively, when you have the urge to compulse, you don’t want to engage in the compulsion. You feel compelled to either out of fear of the potential consequences of not compulsing or because of the anxiety you’d have if you didn’t compulse.

What do you mean by flexible, adaptive problem solving, rather than compulsing? How do you know when to stop washing your hands? Stop washing your hands when your hands aren’t dirty, as opposed to when your anxiety is gone or after you followed your rule. Fear of contamination is an easy example to explain. Can you see the parallels to other content areas like fear of harm to self or others or perfectionism about performance, emotions, relationships, and life choices? In all cases, we’re trying to problem solve, rather than reduce anxiety.

How do you know whether you made a mistake or hurt someone? Well, did you hurt someone? Make a decision about this question and live in it, rather than replaying it until you have certainty. In group, I asked everyone about this one, including those that don’t have OCD about it. “How do you know you won’t hurt a kid?” Think about your answer for a second. Your answer —  like everyone else who doesn’t purposefully hurt kids — is “I don’t know.” You just don’t fear and resist the fact that you don’t know and in turn, your body doesn’t give you the feeling of uncertainty. You feel like you know only because you don’t resist against feeling like you don’t know.

How do you know whether you are spending your time, energy, and resources correctly or with the right person or people? First, there isn’t a right answer to this question. Second, any answer can be workable. Are you willing to accept your actual life choices in the presence of uncertainty? Notice how many opportunities for happiness open up when you give yourself permission be present in your actual life rather than trying to figure out whether that is the right decision.

Mental compulsions

Now that we’re on the same page about compulsions overall, a mental compulsion is a compulsive thought pattern that you feel compelled to engage in with the function of reducing your anxiety or uncertainty, just like physically counting or checking.

The texture of mental compulsions is uncomfortable, sticky, and anxiety-provoking. You don’t really choose to think like this, although it may feel like you want to keep doing it, because of how you’ll feel if you don’t do it. It’s different than worrying, where you’ll notice more what-if thinking about the future. It’s different than ruminating, where you’ll notice negative self-beliefs, self-criticism, and guilt and shame. When people who engage in mental compulsions describe their experience, it sounds like this, “I’m afraid of this very specific possibility and I’m going to think about it in a really specific way to make my fear and uncertainty go away.”

If you mentally compulse a lot, you probably have rules for it to cut it short. An example is replaying your drive or some other experience quickly and in a certain way to get the feeling of certainty that you didn’t hurt anyone. Even if this doesn’t take up a lot of time or energy, every time you engage in this type of compulsive thinking, you miss an opportunity for more flexible problem solving and you miss an opportunity for an increase in self-confidence. Plus, you reinforce the idea that you have to think like this in similar situations in the future.

To overcome it, go back to the basics with exposure and response prevention. Once you figure out what triggers your mental compulsions, you’ll want to expose yourself to that trigger on purpose and then specifically refrain from your mental compulsion by redirecting your attention. If it feels anxiety-provoking to distract yourself away from your mental compulsion, you’re doing the exposure correctly.

In Community Time this week, we’ll discuss your examples of mental compulsions and how to design an exposure and response prevention strategy to overcome it. Can’t wait to see you!

Hi there, Huddlers. Great week. This week, we’ll discuss Strategies Module 4: Play with worry.

What if hanging out with your mind was fun? What if it felt like playing? You can get your mind back. Your thinking process is made up of beliefs and habits. Some habits are automatic. Some habits are functional. Worry can be a habit and it can function as a way to reduce uncertainty and painful emotions. We’ll talk about all of it, so you and your mind can go back to playing.  

The Huddle.care schedule this week is: 

• Community Time - Mondays at 8pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 4 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Wednesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Thursdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Fridays at 2 pm CT

• If you try to sign up for a group, but the sign-up is closed, email me so I know that there is extra interest in that time. 

Content for review: 

Donate to Get Peace, Give Peace

Listen to my interview on The OCD Stories Podcast

Review the Huddle.care Core Values

Review the Huddle.care Curriculum infographic

Review the Huddle.care Self-monitoring infographic

#MoreEffectiveMoments When you click on the button below, you'll be redirected to a secure form where you can share your moment. Follow the prompts when you submit your moment and explain how what you did was effective. I'll give you an animated character and post it to Instagram. 

Edited Transcript:

Hi there, Huddlers. Thanks for your time. I appreciate the chance to spend time with you. Today we are going to play with worry by sorting through all the ways it is maintained. 

Let’s talk cognitive process. Your process for any task is your series of steps to achieve your end. Your process for brushing your teeth or cleaning your kitchen may seem to you like “that’s just how you do it,” but if you surveyed the next 10 people you encounter it is very likely that their process for those tasks are not as similar as you were expecting.

For worriers, the mental process of worrying might otherwise be described as thinking. Where does your worry end and your thinking start?

To sort this one out, first off, bring attention to and get control over any functional worry that you experience. 

Worry as a function is a cognitive form of experiential avoidance, similar to thought control or thought suppression. In thought control and thought suppression, individuals make active attempts to stop thinking about the stimulating topic and distract themselves. When worrying as a cognitive avoidance, you might feel like you are thinking a lot about the topic and even feel completely preoccupied with it. This form of worry is problematic when you don’t feel like you get to choose to think about it and when the thinking you are doing is not becoming problem-solving. If you have fallen into the habit of worrying as experiential avoidance, you probably don’t know what you feel about the content that preoccupies you. Another clue is that you can’t stop thinking about it, but you don’t want to talk about it. You feel an aversion to anyone asking you about it, you don’t want to discuss it in psychotherapy, and if you were to try to write out what you are worried about, it would either be very hard to do or feel very uncomfortable for you.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are experiencing worry as experiential avoidance:

• If I didn’t feel anxiety, what would I feel? (examples: sadness, anger, guilt, fear, regret, jealousy, embarrassment, NJR)

• If I was going to take action on this topic, rather than worrying about it, what is my next step?

• Is there anything I can actually do differently?

We’ll also discuss mental compulsions, rumination, and post-event processing over the next several weeks. These are triggered thinking patterns. There are external circumstances or internal thoughts, feelings, and sensations that make these responses more likely in your thinking. To overcome mental compulsions, rumination, and post-event processing, observe what triggers it, what keeps you fused to the content when it arrives, and what you feel. We can work together to challenge the beliefs that keep you fused to the content and to stay present to the feelings. You’ll need to be ready for trigger, ready to get distance when the fused thoughts show up, ready to show compassion to your feelings, and ready to bring yourself back to the present moment.

Finally, let’s sort through what maintains the rest of your worrying. This part is some combination of habit and belief in the utility of worry.

Here are some possible beliefs that maintain worry:

• Worry reduces painful emotions. (This is functional worry.)

• Worry increases my self-esteem, by making me feel in control.

• Worry prevents catastrophe, because I have control over what I worry about.

• Worry helps me solve problems.

• Worry motivates me, because it makes me aware of everything that could go wrong.

Her are some workable functions of worry:

• Short-term reduction in painful emotions.

• Short-term reduction in uncertainty.

• Short-term increase in self-esteem.

• Short-term increase in self-efficacy.

Here are some unworkable functions of worry:

• Long-term increase in painful emotions.

• Long-term increase in sensitivity to uncertainty.

• Long-term reduction in self-esteem.

• Long-term reduction in self-efficacy.

• Long-term narrowing of options.

To break the habit of worry, you have to work at it and you also have to have compassion on yourself during the process. If your teeth-brushing process did not involve flossing and your dentist told you to floss, would you think, “Well, that’s your opinion…” or “I’m just a bad person for not having this step in my routine?” I hope not. The more helpful response would be, “That seems like it would be helpful, and it will be challenging to change this habit. But, I care about my health, so I’m going to try. What can I do to help myself be most likely to change this habit?”

Try to think about your mind and your mental habits this way too. There is nothing inherently wrong with you if your mind happens to worry a lot. But, it is a habit that causes a lot of suffering and sensitizes you to other suffering-inducing response mechanisms, like avoidance and rumination. The habit or process of worrying can also just make life feel more urgent, less safe, and more stressful than it needs to be.

Worry can occur when you have the feeling of uncertainty about an unanswerable question and you try to make the uncertainty dissipate by answering the question. Worry is productive when the question is answerable and the attempts to answer it result in problem-solving. Worry is not productive when the question is unanswerable and the attempts to answer it creates more questions plus worry about worry (that is, “what if I can’t stop worrying?”). Read more about productive and unproductive worry here.

Scheduled worry time is the most of effective intervention for worry as a function. 

When the main function of your worry is to avoid or suppress uncomfortable sensations and feelings (that is, experiential avoidance), the best thing you can do is go towards it until it is boring. Write out all of your fears and then say them over and over until it is no longer distressing.

Notice the dimensions above. Scheduled worry time should challenge the idea that worrying is reasonable. The time orientation and content don’t matter. If your worry is not also maintained by actual problems to solve or beliefs about the utility of worry, scheduled worry time should challenge the function of your worrying and break your habit.

Scheduled worry time involves setting aside 10 minutes per day twice per day to worry aloud. During this exercise, you should plan what you will worry ahead of time, writing down everything you worry about in the format:

“What if _(catastrophic thought)__?”

Do not problem solve or answer the question, just write a list of the things you worry about. As an example, the list might include:

• What if I don’t get where I need to be on time?

• What if my car breaks down?

• What if my child gets sick?

• What if something terrible happens to me?

• What if there’s something wrong with my mind?

• What if I feel embarrassed at the upcoming event?

• What if I’m not prepared for the thing I need to prepare for?

• What if ____ is mad at me?

• What if I do something that causes people to dislike me?

• What if I fail?

• What if I make a mistake at the thing I’m trying and maybe I don’t fail but it has some other catastrophic consequence?

• What if worrying so much means something bad about me?

• What if anxiety isn’t my problem?

• What if I’m anxious forever?

• What if this technique doesn’t work?

Your list can be as short or long as you want it to be and you can add to it over time. It’s important that you continue to worry out loud, in a mirror for 10 full minutes, even if you only have a minute or two of worries. By repeating the worries over and over you will likely start by feeling anxious, but finish the task feeling bored.

The point is four-fold:

• Contain the worries to one part of the day and have a place to “put” worries that pop up in the middle of the day, thinking “Oh. Let me get back to whatever I’m doing. I’ll worry about that later.”

• Desensitize yourself to the thoughts themselves, by hearing them out loud in your own voice.

• Learn to see your worries as chatter, that just pops up when you feel anxious, not as content that is important to respond to.

• Cue yourself to respond to the thoughts as worry when they intrude in your mind at other times, not as content that is important to respond to.

When you’re ready to commit to breaking the habit of worry:

1. Start with scheduled worry time and observes in your experience over 5-7 days.

2. Identify the beliefs you have about worry and the workable vs. unworkable functions it has in your life.

3. Once you are tracking your worries, differentiate between answerable and unanswerable questions, in order to turn unproductive worry into productive worry.

4. Take action on answerable questions that have solutions.

5. In everyday life, notice worries as they arrive and redirect your attention back to the present moment.

Hi there, Huddlers. Great week. This week, we’ll discuss Strategies Module 3: Embrace fear of evaluation.

That’s right. Don’t challenge it. Don’t restructure your thoughts. Embrace your fear of evaluation, like it’s an adorable puppy. You might be judged. Great! It might be embarrassing. Awesome! Welcome to humanity! Sounds like you’re following your values. Go after stuff you care about and live with the chance that others don’t like it.

The Huddle.care schedule this week is: 

• Community Time - Mondays at 8pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 4 pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Tuesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Wednesdays at 8 pm CT

• Any and all content - Thursdays at 7pm CT

• Any and all content - Fridays at 2 pm CT

• If you try to sign up for a group, but the sign-up is closed, email me so I know that there is extra interest in that time. 

Clinicians, I’m hiring group leaders at a competitive hourly rate. Interviews begin in October. Email me at maggie@huddle.care for more information. 

Content for review: 

Donate to Get Peace, Give Peace

Listen to my interview on The OCD Stories Podcast

Review the Huddle.care Core Values

Review the Huddle.care Curriculum infographic

Review the Huddle.care Self-monitoring infographic

#MoreEffectiveMoments When you click on the button below, you'll be redirected to a secure form where you can share your moment. Follow the prompts when you submit your moment and explain how what you did was effective. I'll give you an animated character and post it to Instagram. 

Edited Transcript:

Hi there, Huddlers. Thanks for listening. I appreciate the chance to spend time with you. Social anxiety is maintained by resistance to the possibility of judgement and rejection, due to  intolerance of the feeling of embarrassment and shame and/or catastrophic thinking about the consequences of judgment. Let’s call this fear of evaluation. 

Notice my focus on the possibility of judgment and rejection. It’s always a possibility. Remember from our discussion last week that one form of inflated responsibility is trying to control what other people think, feel, do, or say. One thing none of us can control is how other people perceive and respond to us. All the time. It’s always uncertain. We never have any control over it. 

Some of us persistently having the feeling of certainty about relationships. What a gift. My sense is that a lot of people don’t have the good fortune to persistently feel safe and certain about all of their relationships across their life. As you reflect on it, can you tell that in some relationships, you do feel persistently comfortable? Do you have any relationships where you feel like you always know the type of interaction you are going to have and in that relationship you will feel safe? I hope you have that template somewhere, if only at Huddle.

I’m constantly thinking about the interaction between your biological vulnerabilities, your life experiences, and your present day cognitive and behavioral patterns. Your biological vulnerabilities make you vulnerable to sensitization. Your life experiences will make some situations more sensitizing than others. Your present day reactions to your biological vulnerabilities and your current life circumstances will play out as cognitive and behavioral patterns that either maintain and intensify your suffering or alleviate it and reduce it in the future. 

Let’s apply this to fear of evaluation. Biologically, if you are sensitive to the feelings of embarrassment, shame, and loneliness, the possibility of those feelings is going to seem like a threat. Everyone feels embarrassed sometimes and everyone sometimes feels lonely. If, when you feel those feelings, you criticize yourself, these feelings become bigger threats. If you avoid experiences that might make you feel embarrassed or lonely at all costs, situations that could trigger those experiences will give you anticipatory anxiety and begin to feel like triggers. 

Thinking about life circumstances, fear of evaluation can be prominent for both people who have been judged and rejected a lot and those who have never beeen judged or rejected. 

Notice that your reaction to your own history of rejection matters more than your actual experience. 

You could think, “I’ve been rejected so many times that I just can’t bear it again.”

OR, you could embrace it as an opportunity:

“I’ve been rejected so many times… And, here I am! I can handle it! Rejection doesn’t scare me!”

Similarly, you could think, “I’ve never been judged or rejected in a significant way before. If it were to happen, it would ruin my life. I can’t make mistakes because I can’t risk being rejected.” 

OR, embrace that as an opportunity:

“I’ve never been rejected, so I wonder what would happened if I tried? If I tried something uncertain, where I might not success, would something catastrophic actually happen or would I just handle it?” 

The important message here is that your response to your present life circumstances is more important for overcoming social anxiety than “processing” the emotions from your history. And, social anxiety is common for those without traumatic interpersonal histories, too. 

That said, if you’ve lived through traumatic interpersonal experiences — including but not limited to persistently critical, rejecting, or emotionally neglectful parents, bullying, ostracization,  shaming, and discrimination due to factors like gender, sexuality, race, religion, nationality or political beliefs — new experiences where you might feel judged might, understandably, give you some anticipatory anxiety. Before, during, or afterwards you might have memories of previous experiences and ruminate about them. 

It’s still important for you to notice your catastrophic thinking about being rejected and the sensations and feelings that show up as the consequence of those thoughts. Allow the sensations while getting distance from the thoughts. If you automatically ruminate or start building a case, you are likely feeling angry. Let’s talk more. If you automatically have memories that are intrusive to you, let’s talk more about all of the different feelings you have about those memories. As you identify and accept those feelings, those memories will start to feel like memories, not intrusions that can attack you at any time. 

Let’s discuss some of cognitive and behavioral patterns that maintain or intensify social anxiety. 

When you notice that you feel sensitive, insecure, or embarrassed about something that someone else could judge: 

• Don’t minimize and don’t hedge. Refrain from making a joke about yourself, your appearance, or your performance at the task. Making fun of yourself before others due does not protect you from embarrassment. 

• Don’t try to figure out what other people are thinking. Whether through the questions you ask or the replay in your head, it might feel like you have more control if you think you know what others are thinking. You don’t know. You can’t know. Act how you want to act and let go of trying to control how others respond. 

• Don’t ask for reassurance and don’t check messages or social media. You can tell by the feeling in your body whether the texts you are sending or what you are posting on social media is a preference or a compulsion. If it feels urgent, and like you need to do it, slow down. Observe what you are thinking and feeling. What do you fear? Is it actually happening? If it happened, what skills do you need to access to handle it? 

Fear of evaluation is a complex mix of your biological sensitivity to embarrassment, shame, and loneliness + your reactions to your previous experiences + your cognitive and behavioral responses to your current life. Let’s talk more about all of it.