Joshua Fletcher Podcasts
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On the last day of every month, I ask one of my friends or collaborators to guest post on The Anxious Morning. This month we have a guest post from Joshua Fletcher, AKA Anxiety Josh. Josh is one of the people I collaborate with most often. He’s a qualified anxiety therapist in the UK, and a friend of mine. Josh did a great job of addressing what happens when anxiety “comes back”, so let’s hear what he has to say.
I speak to many people. Many clients, many members of the Instagram community, readers of the book, whatever. I speak to them a lot.
One of the common phrases I hear is,
“It's come back, I was having a great week, but it's come back.”
Obviously what they mean is anxiety. “My anxiety has come back”.
What I'd like to communicate to people is that it's really important not to anthropomorphize your anxiety. It is not a gremlin that crawls through your window to annoy you when you're having a nice time. No, if anything, it's a very overly protective mechanism that thinks it's doing you a favor when you're super stressed, or there's a potential threat.
A very important reframe is this. You may be someone that says, “Ah, my anxiety, it's come back!”. That may be followed by disappointment, annoyance, a fear of failure, frustration, or feeling like you're back at square one. Instead, reframe that as, “Here's a chance for me to willfully tolerate my anxiety”.
That is recovery.
Recovery isn't the occurrence of anxiety. Recovery is your willingness to experience it.
I still now as a psychotherapist struggle with anxiety now and then. But actually, I don't struggle with it. I always see it as a chance for me to tolerate it. My skill and all the skills of my clients and what I what I propagate is, “I’m good at tolerating this”.
My initial reaction if I get anxious is of intrigue.
“All right, okay. Well, okay. I'm gonna see how well I can do. I'm tolerating this.”
I've spent many years going, “Oh, no, it's back. This is awful. I've lost and waved the white flag. Go back to square one. Start doing rumination and safety behaviors.”
No. Here is a chance for me to perfect a skill. To start a skill and see the willful tolerance of anxiety as the same as learning guitar, practicing karate, learning a new language. You start off, it's tricky and it's difficult. But the more you practice it, the more proficient you get.
So go away and willfully tolerate your anxiety. Stop beating yourself, getting sad, or saying you're back to square one because anxiety has arisen. It hasn't.
You are safe. You are normal. You're okay. It's time to tolerate that anxiety.
Joshua Fletcher is a psychotherapist who specialises in working with anxiety and panic disorder. He is best known as Anxiety Josh across social media and has quickly become a renowned and reputable figure in the industry. You can find Josh online at schoolofanxiety.com.
“Just take it easy, man.” - Jeffery Lebowski (aka The Dude)
Every Friday I’ll share one of my favorite quotes. They’ll often have direct application in recovery, but sometimes they’re just generally funny, inspiring, or thought-provoking. I hope you enjoy them.
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