Today is a special day. Today I share the FIVE LESSONS LEARNED FROM HOSTING THIS PODCAST!
Today marks the 50th episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. I get a little sentimental during this one, but please stick with me.
Let me start by saying that I am so grateful for reaching 50 episodes. When I started this podcast, in my pjs in my kitchen with my sleeping baby next to me as I recorded my first episode, never in my wildest dreams could imagine what it would become. From this podcast came CBTSchool.com, and from CBT school came a community that I could never have imagined.
So Today, on this 50th episode, I celebrate YOU! And, today I want to talk to you about what I have learned and a few of my favorite quotes that I live by (and I promise this will apply to you).
In this episode, I share 5 lessons learned by hosting this podcast and I have lived by as I hosted this podcast. I have to be honest. I have learned SO much and I cannot wait to share the lessons with you. I won't pretend it has all been easy. It hasn't. There was a couple of time that this podcast nearly didn't get made. And, there were quite a few times it was made OVER AND OVER! All I can say is that I am so grateful for your support and compassion as I bumped along. If you missed last weeks episode 49 The Content of Your Thoughts Are Not Important Thank you again for supporting me with this podcast and with CBT Schools online courses. Please click here to find out more about Mindfulness School for OCD.One of the biggest struggles my clients have is when they get caught up in the belief that their specific intrusive thoughts or fears warrant LOTS of attention and moral weight.
This is one of the most difficult things to manage when you are struggling with significant anxiety. We can see that other peoples fears are irrational, but when it comes to our specific fear, we become unglued, confused and reactive.
Here are a few questions that I want you to ask yourself before listening to this podcast.
Have you caught yourself saying any of the following?
1. “It's easy for you to say to, "just accept the thoughts". You don’t have thoughts about hurting someone all day like I do (insert here whatever thought you are obsessing or ruminating on). This thought is WAY worse than other thoughts.”
2. “This isn’t any old thought. This would destroy my life if this thought came true.”
3. “I know I have to accept the uncertainty, but this isn’t just a thought”
These are all examples of getting caught up in our thoughts content.
When we get caught up in the CONTENT of our thoughts we can get stuck in a cycle of anxiety.
When we give our thoughts all of this attention and value, our brains become hypervigilent and get even more worked up about the presence of these thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Please note here, I am in NO WAY telling you this is your fault. This is just the way our brains work. We also have be to careful about our narrative about this thought. If we tell ourselves the thought is "bad", that triggers self-judgment, shame and self-doubt. Then we are off and running, judging ourselves more and putting ourselves down.
Listen to the podcast to hear my FIVE STEPS to help when you are getting caught in the content of your thoughts.
At the end of the podcast, I offer a little Challenge for you.
Observe your thoughts and ask yourself if you could start to make any of these changes in your life.
If you do notice that you are giving too much weight to a thought, try to practice Non-judgment (Ep 1) or Beginners Mind (ep 6) or What you say to yourself Matters (ep 17).
Thank you again for supporting me with this podcast and with CBT Schools online courses. Please click here to find out more about Mindfulness School for OCD.