Anticipatory Anxiety Explained: With Martin Seif & Sally Winston (Podcast Ep 247)

Drew Linsalata: Hey there, I’m
Drew and you are listening to or maybe watching the anxious
truth. This is the podcast that covers all things anxiety,
anxiety disorders, and anxiety recovery. So if you’re dealing
with things like panic attacks, agoraphobia, OCD, or health
anxiety, this is the place for you and I’m happy you’re here.
This week on the podcast, we have two absolute legends in the
field of anxiety and anxiety disorders. Dr. Sally Winston and
Marty seIf are here to talk about anticipatory anxiety.
That’s that thing where you know you have a scary or challenging
the thing coming up, and you begin to get anxious panic or
worry excessively about it for even weeks before it’s going to
happen.

So let’s get to that right now. Hello, everybody, welcome back
to the anxious truth. This is podcast episode number 247.
Recorded in February of 2023. I am Drew Linsalata, creator and
host of the anxious true if you are a first-time viewer or
listener, and you just sort of stumbled onto the podcast
welcome. I’m glad you’re here. I hope you find it helpful. If
If you’re a returning listener or returning viewer, welcome back.
It’s good to see you. So this week on the podcast we have Dr.
Sally Winston and Marty seIf on to talk about anticipatory
anxiety, anxiety, that’s that thing where you have a challenge
coming up a big exposure, a family function, a trip a flight
with a doctor’s appointment, or a dentist’s appointment, and you
know that it’s going to be scary for you, you know, it’s going to
be challenging for you. So you begin to get really
anxious or you panic, or you begin to ruminate and think and
worry excessively about the event long before it even
happens.

That’s anticipatory anxiety. And it’s incredibly
common no matter what variants of an anxiety disorder you’re
dealing with at the moment. So we’re going to get into that
they just wrote a book called Overcoming Anticipatory Anxiety,
which we will talk about in the interview, the interview lasts
about 20 or 30 minutes. It’s chock full of great stuff from
two people who know what they’re talking about. But
before we get to it, just a quick reminder that the anxious
truth is more than just this podcast episode. There are 246
other free podcast episodes that came before it. There are
three books that I’ve written about anxiety and anxiety
recovery, there are courses workshops, and webinars, and all
kinds of free social media content, all on my website at
the anxious truth.com If you’re following my work, and you dig
it and you want to find a way to support it, all the ways to
do that are also on the website at anxious truth.com/support
financial support.

Buying something is never
required, but always appreciated. And no matter how
you support this work, whether it’s just writing a podcast
review, giving me a five-star rating, or hitting like on a
YouTube video, I appreciate it. Thank you so
much. So go over to the anxious truth.com and avail yourself of
all the resources. Now let’s get into the discussion with Marty
Seif and Sally Winston on anticipatory anxiety based on
the book that they have written, come back at the end afterward,
I will give you all of the links, the ways to get the book
and all the other books, and all the other good stuff that we
talked about in this episode. You can find everything by the
way at the anxious truth that calm slash 247, which is on the
screen below me if you’re watching on YouTube.

Anyway,
That’s enough of me rambling, let’s get to it right now. And
I’ll be back at the end to wrap it up. Okay, everybody, as promised,
here with me in the studio, which is the same office I’m
always in. And I guess their studios are doctors, CIF and
Winston is on this site, and they’re authors of so many of
the books I know you all love. I know I’m a huge fan. Today we’re
going to talk about this one. We’re talking about anticipatory
anxiety because it’s this is your newest, your latest, I
assume.

Yes. Yes, it is. It is called overcoming anticipatory
anxiety. And it is written by these two pioneers. And I know
most of you guys are heroes in the field, and I’m fanboying a
little bit here, so hang in there with me. But yeah, we’ll walk through the
whole anticipatory anxiety thing. It’s a huge topic in this
community for sure. It stumbles a lot of people stumble on it.
So if you guys are into it, we’ll just kind of walk through
the book, what made you I’ll throw it out to either of you.
What made you write this book? What was the impetus to write
this one? Martin Seif: Well, I can answer
that very easily.

But I’ve had considerable anxiety in my life.
And as I struggled to kind of overcome that anxiety, it became
very clear to me that there was a distinct component of anxiety,
which can only be described as anticipatory anxiety. And can I go on and talk a little
bit about anticipatory? I mean, anticipatory anxiety is really
the anxiety discomfort or distress that you felt before
you do something that makes you anxious or uncomfortable. And
although it’s not a diagnosis in itself, it’s connected to
just about every disorder that has anxiety or obsessive
compulsive disorder. It’s connected to lots of mood
disorders in some way. And it’s, and it’s it’s, it’s really
ubiquitous, and it is extremely common. So if you are
concerned about taking an elevator tomorrow and you’re
worrying about it, that’s anticipatory anxiety, if you
have to give a presentation, and you’re concerned that it may not
come out, and you’re thinking about it the day before, that’s
anticipatory anxiety, if you have intrusive thoughts, and
you’re worried about yelling something out in a classroom,
and you’re walking through the classroom, that is
anticipatory anxiety, there’s sometimes there’s a real big
cognitive component to it, where you’re worrying about it.

And
sometimes you can just wake up with a stomach ache and realize
that oh, my goodness, I have a test today that I didn’t study
for. That’s the concept of anticipatory anxiety. So I’ve suffered from it. And
I’ve experienced it a lot in my life. And it felt to me that it
was something that we should write about. Drew Linsalata: Yeah, I would
agree. That’s kind of a normal part of the human experience,
even outside the realm of an anxiety disorder, mood disorder,
everybody, like, you know, oh, my goodness, I have a
presentation to give.

I’m so nervous about it. That’s
anticipated. Sally Winston: Yeah, it’s a
normal part of human experience, because we have an imagination.
And we think about what’s coming up, right? The reason we wanted
to write a book is that if you think about it, anticipatory
anxiety is the primary driver of avoidance, avoidance behavior,
either behavioral avoidance, like canceling something, or
trying to get someone else to do it for you, or making excuses
all the time to not do something. Or before for
experiential avoidance, which is a way of being in the situation,
but also trying hard not to be there or
experience it.

So because avoidance behavior is so much a
part of what drives the disability of anxiety is the
things that get in the way of living. Well. If we felt like
this was a topic that was underrepresented, and we wanted
to address it. Drew Linsalata: I am amazed that
nobody has written this book before. Like, there. I don’t
know that anybody has written a book specifically on this, but
you’re right, it bridges all of the different diagnoses. You see
it all over this community, regardless of the struggle that
anybody has. They deal with anticipatory anxiety. So one of
the things that I loved about the book is the way you step
through a bunch of different things, which is great.

But I
would like to acknowledge the challenge that it presents,
right? So people that are listening today are dealing with
panic disorder, they’re dealing with agoraphobia, they’re
dealing with OCD, hypo … health anxiety. And in the end,
those challenges are hard enough. Anticipatory anxiety
always seems to make the challenge seem even harder than
it already is. Like it’s almost people interpret it as
confirmation that the challenge is, in fact, damn near
impossible. Does that … Sally Winston: If I’m as anxious
as I am now, and I’m not even there, and it’s three weeks from
now, what will it be like when I’m there? And so what
we do know is that anticipatory anxiety lies.

It
doesn’t tell you the truth about how things are going
to go or what’s going to happen. It’s not a predictor.
It’s not a warning. It’s not a sign, and yet it sure feels like
it. Drew Linsalata: Oh, yeah, feels
like … Martin Seif: So that goes back
to the idea that anxiety is a great bluffer. It’s a great
trickster. It kind of fools you in lots of different ways. It
also, but it’s also very helpful for people to be able to
distinguish the fact that there are there is the anxiety of
something that they’re concerned about, for example, I’m afraid of flying, okay,
there’s, that’s, that’s a good one because people often worry
about it for a long time beforehand.

And there’s the
actual anxiety or distress when a person is in the situation
that they’re concerned about. And then there’s a separate
component, anticipatory anxiety, and sometimes being able to
separate that between the two, conceptually, is really
transformative for people who say, Oh, this is anticipatory
anxiety. This is my imagination in some way. Furthermore, it’s a
good – once you get a person to focus on the fact that
they’re, that this is anticipatory anxiety – it’s a
really good way to help them focus on the method (and how can
I put it) the mechanism of anxiety generation because when
you’re sitting in your room, in your living room on a Tuesday
night, getting freaked out about the flight that you’re supposed
to take on Saturday morning, there’s no excuse? You’re
actually, in your Imagination, there’s no way that
you can say, Well, I’m afraid that the plane is gonna crack.
No, you’re really in your imagination now. And that’s a
helpful conceptualization of people, and helps us make the
point that we want to make that somehow we in some way with our
imagination and our thinking, and the way we perceive our
bodily reactions, that we somehow sort of generate the
distress that we feel.

W Drew Linsalata: This is super
powerful. I think you can get people to get on board with that
idea because so many people in the community we’re addressing
see the anxiety itself as the problem. So yeah, they’re
nervous about the challenge, because you wrote anticipatory
anxiety is being afraid of being afraid of being afraid which
I… Martin Seif: Yeah, that’s the
third. That’s that’s the it’s the fear of the fear of the
fear. It’s like third. And I think that’s pretty accurate. I
think that’s, that’s, that’s correct. Yeah. Drew Linsalata: Yeah, I mean,
would you Dr. Winston, do you have anything to add to that? Sally Winston: Let me give an
example of the fear of the fear of the fear just because it
sounds so weird when you just say it that way. But the example
that we use, I think we use it in the book is I’m afraid of a
bee. That’s fear. Then I’m afraid
that if I see a bee, I’ll have a panic attack and drop dead of a
heart attack.

That’s fear of fear. And then I have a camping
trip coming up in three months, I’m scared, I’m going to see a
bee and have a heart attack and die. It’s not worth it. I think
I’ll cancel. That’s fear of fear of fear. Martin Seif: And you may have
mentioned it, Sally just a minute ago, I don’t remember.
But certainly another way of thinking about anticipatory
anxiety. It’s the avoidant component of anxiety. It’s the
it’s the it’s the aspect of anxiety that says, Let me stay
away from it. Oh, yes. You mentioned it several times,
you avoided either physically, or, you know, just sort of
imagining that you’re not there in some way. Okay. I think it’s,
again … Drew Linsalata: Yeah,
experiential avoidance, I think people to what the mechanism is,
could be really helpful for them. Often I hear
people declare failure because they’re having anticipatory
anxiety already. Like that’s failing already. Because I feel
so I love when you say, Well, yeah, just recognize what’s
happening, you’re afraid, which is allowed, because you’re
afraid of being afraid, it’s not a failure.

Sally Winston: No. In fact,
when you get better and even can do all
these things, anticipatory anxiety is usually the very last
part to go. Because we can’t stop ourselves from thinking
forward into the future, imagining what might happen, and
also having memories of things that have happened, that intrude
into our awareness. So getting out that door, getting over the
hump, or pressing the submit button, or whatever it is that
the action is, is affected by anticipatory anxiety, even after
you’ve been doing everything pretty well.

It’s just our body
remembers our mind remembers, and we go through the same
mechanisms. You know, and we have, you know,
if you have an anxiety problem, and you have a sticky mind,
which is one of the things that we talk about a lot, you tend to
make the thinking errors and the looping kinds of round and round
thinking that sticky minds give you and that doesn’t necessarily
go away.

So you again, get tricked by your mind. Drew Linsalata: That’s just part
of that normal human experience also, like expecting
anticipatory anxiety to go away forever and permanently is not
realistic, because everybody Martin Seif: So that’s no as a
matter of fact, is the opposite. Gets nervous. There are people who comfortably
do things over and over and over again, and still experience
episodes or surges of anticipatory anxiety before do
that, and to some extent, if a person says, Okay, this is my
anticipatory anxiety, I know from experience, it’s it’s
a poor predictor.

I know from past experiences, that when I’m in
that situation, I do find it’s a way of managing that anxiety in
the present. I, you know, I tell people, anticipatory anxiety is
real anxiety, but it’s anxiety generated, and it’s anxiety
generated by your present thoughts. But the content of the
thoughts is about something in the future that is present
anxiety, and to pay attention to that when you’re in that
situation. Drew Linsalata: Yeah, I had a
question the other day from somebody exactly on that, well,
they have a problem with needles and they’re doing so much better
in their recovery. But if I know that I’m going to the doctor and
they’re going to stick me even though I’ve had it done 1000
times I am freaked out until they do it, and then I’m
cool.

So I think it’s a great illustration of that. Martin Seif: In this, there are
enormous numbers of illustrations of anticipatory
anxiety, partly because I’ve had so much influence to turn
anxiety in my life like and think of it. But for example,
one of the one of the issues that that people have trouble
with elevators who have panic in elevators in some way, it’s it’s
sometimes a difficult issue two, two, it’s a difficult anxiety to
manage in some way, part of the reason is that it’s mostly
anticipatory anxiety. If you speak to someone, they’re in the
elevator, and what they’re worrying about is, when I get
to the floor, and the elevator stops, will the door open? So
it’s all anticipatory anxiety.

And so the actual exposure is
just that one second when they wake up with a pause while the
door opens. Or another comment is lots of people, who are
afraid of flying. They have anticipatory anxiety about
turbulence. So they’re on the plane, worrying, and that’s
anticipatory anxiety, will we hit bumpy air? So it’s
it’s when you think of it that way. A lot of our anxieties are
in anticipation of what I think frightens me. Drew Linsalata: Yeah, yeah.
Which makes perfect sense living in the future. Yeah. Sally Winston: It’s not always
about fear, though, we should also add that sometimes it’s
about a situation that you think you might not be able to handle,
or something that you know is going to be disgusting, or
something that causes you to get angry every single time that
happens.

And if you find yourself unwilling to experience
the emotion, or the physical sensations, then you get
anticipatory anxiety, because you keep hoping that that won’t
happen. And you keep trying to do something in the present, to
make the fact that that is likely to happen or might
happen, go away. And so the struggle with the anticipatory
anxiety and the struggle, of whether or not to commit to do
the thing that you said you were going to do, that actually
increases anticipatory anxiety. And one of the things
that we know is that avoiding a decision about going or trying
to make a commitment, sort of maybe with a backup plan is
less helpful, than deciding you’re gonna go no
matter how you feel. Drew Linsalata: But that
waffling back and forth, the indecisive waffling … Martin Seif: You can call a
waffling, it’s reinforcing in our model, it’s
reinforcing the anxiety, the anticipatory
anxiety, avoidance. And Sally brought something up, you know,
when you write a book together because Sally and I co-author,
lots of things, sometimes, by the end of the book, you sort of
forget who wrote which part and who thought of these things.

But
I know that Sally, I mean, this is Sally’s input. You
know, at one point, because she brought, we say that commitment
is the antidote to avoidance. Okay. And I know that
Sally’s input, I’m pretty sure you. And I think that’s a
really important issue, because the fact is, avoidance is what
maintains anxiety and commitment, no matter how you
feel, is, in the long term, what is the therapeutic
process, the therapeutic ingredient that reduces anxiety
in some way, and I think, are a lot of what we talk
about in the body of the book are our subtle ways in which
people try to avoid, and then we give them an approach that says,
“Okay, here’s how to commit”, I think we maybe use the word,
therapeutic surrender and commit or something.

Yeah. But it’s the
notion of, I’m going to do it. I’m reducing my avoidance, and
that’s going to help me overcome this anxiety. Drew Linsalata: Yeah, I think
one question I think people usually have is, so are you
telling me that if I commit, and I see this all the time, like,
my family wants to go on vacation, but I’m still not
sure, because I’m just getting over my agoraphobia …

And so
they don’t want to buy the plane tickets. I’m gonna buy them. No,
no, no I’m not. And so people, well, if I hit the buy button,
are you telling me that I won’t be anxious anymore? Sally Winston: No! Drew Linsalata: And the answer
is yes. It means you probably will. But at least now you have
a path to move through it more productively with that. Sally Winston: Yeah, that’s one
of the brilliant pieces of the original Southwest model that
you could cancel anytime. And that was that’s a
problem for people. Because if you know you can cancel then you
don’t you don’t settle in your mind that you’re going and that
back and forth, actually escalates your anxiety. But the
minute that you do buy your ticket, what happens is that you
feel a sense of being trapped. And your anxiety does go up. But
the important thing about this is that if you understand what
anxiety is, you understand it’s not dangerous, that it’s
distress, but it’s not dangerous.

You’re not going
crazy, you’re not, it doesn’t mean you can’t go, it doesn’t
mean that you are in danger in some way, your body is giving
you false alarm signals. And you have to understand enough about
anxiety so that you don’t respond to the false alarms as
if they’re true alarms. Yeah, when you’re mentioning
that, it reminds me, of the two general suggestions that we make
for people is we’d like people to have a to change their … a
change in perspective, that’s what we talked about, but also a
change in attitude. There’s a natural … and what that means
is to lean towards anxiety, rather than to get away from
anxiety. So when you bought your ticket, I had a lot of
experience with that, because I ran this fear of flying group
for 19 years, and I have insisted that people buy their
ticket after the first meeting. And there was a lot of
resistance, but when people did it, they realized that they
we’re leaning towards anxiety, you know, it’s the notion you
can be silly about telling people what the day was that anxiety is
like a day without sunshine, you know, because the fact is, it
allows you to learn to practice exactly what you’re
talking about in some way.

So it puts you into that. And into
that mode, the real issue is people buy, buy a ticket, they
get anxious, but that in their mind is not a commitment,
because then they say, “Well, I can always go out and maybe I
can get a credit” and all these kinds of mental machinations.
These are many avoidances. Or as you would say,
waffling or back and forth, the notion that I’m leaning into
anxiety and I’m not going to allow myself to Martin Seif: consider the
possibility of not doing it. That’s a much more productive
therapeutic perspective.

Drew Linsalata: Well, that puts
a target beyond just the plane, that flight, and on to the rest
of your life. Also, like if I get better at this episode, it
helps me later, not just now, Sally Winston: The important
thing is to understand what leaning in means because
people think that it means that, first of all, that you have to
accept being miserable forever, which is not what we’re saying.
But also people tend to do something called white knuckle
or force themselves to do things that they’re scared to do with
the attitude of hoping that it’s over as soon as possible, trying
hard not to feel anxious, pushing it themselves
in some way that isn’t very helpful. And that’s what we
call paradoxical effort. One of the things that
we’re aware of is that effort inside the mind works very
differently from effort outside the mind, you know, if I want to
move a table, I will put my hands on it, put in effort and
push.

And hopefully, it’s not too heavy a table and I can move
it across the room. But if I have a feeling or a thought, or
a sensation in my body, and I put in the same kind of effort,
stop the thought get rid of the sensation, make this go away, it
works backward, it makes it all worse. And so
understanding that the inside of the mind doesn’t respond to that
kind of effort, that you need to be willing to feel what you’re
feeling, experience what you’re experiencing, and not feel like
you have to do something to make it go away.

Most of the
people that we run into, of course, are problem solvers,
action people, and people who want to figure out a way. And the
idea that the way is to not do anything, and to allow the
experience to unfold is extremely difficult. It’s not a
natural position to take. And so that is part of the training or
The message of the book is that it’s not natural for you
what’s going to be natural is to look for a solution, you know,
find an answer, analyze this. So it’ll go away, then all of the
ways that people problem solve in the real world, and it
doesn’t work for this. Drew Linsalata: One of the
things that you guys wrote in the book that I had a big, you
know, highlight on was, which I what I want to do is in our last
10 minutes want to connect it to GAD because you did and I had a
huge highlight there, because it seems like anticipatory anxiety
and the traits of somebody with GAD or match made in heaven,
like the problem solving that And then I’m gonna talk about
how you start to deconstruct you’re just talking about.

Some of the beliefs that justify
the worry. And then how are you going to get somebody to start
to practice? You know, moving through anticipatory anxiety. So
the GAD thing when you connected that I was that was one of those
fist pump moments like, yes, 100% Correct. This is your
experience, I’m guessing they come hand in hand, I would
guess. Sally Winston: We’ve believed
for a long time that Generalized Anxiety Disorder, can be
looked at as OCD light.

Because the way that it works is even
though the content may not be bizarre, it may be
things that other people worry about the way that it works.
Has the same structure as OCD starts with a what if? And then
that’s your imagination. And then there’s something at the
end of the sentence, what if something, and then the other
side of worry, is some attempt to make the worry go away? And
that occupies the compulsion place? Usually, the compulsions
in generalized anxiety disorder are all in your head.

So they’re
obvious. So when they’re not obvious, so that when people say
I want to stop worrying, they don’t realize that the worry
has two parts. There’s the pop-up “What if”, and then
there’s the attempt to make yourself feel better. Or make
the what if go away, or make the anxiety or the disgust or the
upset that went with the what if go away, and that alternates
just the same way as it does in OCD.

So it very much is part of
a continuum. Drew Linsalata: I think for
people like that, that gets stuck in those worry about
worry, thinking about thinking cycles, you also talked about
justified, anticipatory anxiety where people want to stand up
for it saying, No no! This is why I’m supposed to think about
this continuously and obsessively.” So I think that
sort of goes down the road where now you talked about
deconstructing some of those false metacognitive beliefs. Can
we go through those? Martin Seif: First of all that
worrying about well … backup a little bit. Worrying can often
start as what we call problem-solving, trying to solve
a problem. And we would say that real problem solving comes up
with some sort of solution or temporary solution or action
plan. And then that looping stops.

Worrying is really what
if thing about something that either doesn’t have an answer,
or you don’t have enough information to get an answer, or
it. Those are two of the major things that worry about. And as
a result, people will often believe that worrying has great
beneficial effects. Number one, it keeps them motivated. Number
two, it sort of makes sure that they’re not lazy and keep some
vigilant in somewhere something bad happens I’ll be, I’ll be,
I’ll be prepared for it when in fact, when bad things happen
most often they come from out of the blue and they blindside us
in some way. When you believe there’s some
benefit to it in some way. Some people believe that works I’m
sorry Sally. You’re gonna say something? I’m sure you have
more to say about this if you want. Sally Winston: Well… I think
we write together whatever you talk, I have things to say.

But I was also thinking about the
function of worry of people thinking that they’re loyal to
whoever if they’re worrying about someone that’s
somehow an act of loyalty or love to worry about them which
of course all it does is make you distressed it doesn’t keep
them safe or do anything for them. The other piece of it is
that because of the way that a worry is constructed with
a what if and a something people have a what if that’s about this
big, and then they have an IT IS CANCER!!! What if … IT IS
CANCER!!! And then their response is “Oh my god cancer?”
I’ve got to think about it.

What can I do? Instead of looking at
the what ifs which David Carbonell calls let’s pretend
it’s your imagination, and just being able to identify that lets you see that it’s the
the way that you’re thinking and not Martin Seif: I have one more
comment to make, about cancer. That’s the issue. worrying, which I think is sort of interesting,
because I’ve queried a lot of patients about worrying.

And
patients who I consider to be pretty solid. I mean, they’re,
you know, they that a lot of them say, you know, believe it
or not, I feel that worrying increases my
real-life chances of something good happening or protecting
myself or something, there’s a kind of almost magical
protection that goes on with worrying. So the way you think
about is people don’t like to worry, but they don’t like not
to worry, they feel too vulnerable. They don’t worry in
some way. So it’s a complicated process. Drew Linsalata: So when you’re
trying to work somebody through this, and you’re trying to get
them to the point where they start to take that more mindful
approach, and they start to do that therapeutic surrender, they
have to leave these faulty beliefs behind. Whether
it says sort of a GAD loop, or it’s anticipatory anxiety about,
you know, something else, or legitimate life stuff, you’re
dropping your beliefs on the floor, that I shouldn’t … Martin Seif: Look for
skepticism, okay? At least a questionnaire with some with
with that sort of skepticism in some way, because it’s very hard
for people to drop it.

And, and, you know, as Sally often says,
Our goal with patients is to reduce their suffering. And if
they can just not be so rigid, not hold on to those beliefs
quite so rigidly and they don’t worry as much their
suffering is reduced. And we’re helping them in that way. Yeah,
it’s not an all-or-nothing concept. Drew Linsalata: We could
probably go for another hour, I know that everybody’s gonna dig
this. But to sort of, let’s get to the part that I know
everybody’s gonna want to ask, so I am riddled with
anticipatory anxiety. What would these two people tell me to do?
Like how you know, and by the way, just read the book, because, there’s a lot to go over here that we can’t do in a half-hour podcast.

But what’s the general goal, you start to
deconstruct those beliefs start to look at them a little bit
skeptically understand what the process is, so you can start to
realize what’s going on. What do I do? How do we get out of this? Martin Seif: Four-part thing,
which I think she should talk about one Sally Winston: One two .. five. It’s a it’s an acronym – DANCE –
which is going to test my memory here. The first D is for
discerning or distinguishing or des designating labeling the
thought so that you know that you’re in anticipatory anxiety
land.

So you’ve got to figure out where you are. A is accepted, which means don’t
start pushing away at it and trying to get rid of it. N is NO. All kinds of no’s. No
engaging with it. Not struggling with it. No analyzing it, no
pushing on it. No, no trying to get rid of it. C is committed to
the action. And E is embraced whatever you’re
feeling along the way. And it’s it’s a very important … Martin Seif: And let time pass,
embrace the moment and allow time to pass, which is a very
difficult skill. But it’s a it’s it’s it’s sort of central to all
forms of modern anxiety treatment. Certainly starting
with Claire Weekes and going through all the different things
up to today. Drew Linsalata: Let time pass
…

Right out of the Australian grandma manual, everybody loves it. Yeah, yeah. So I appreciate you
guys taking the time here. I think that’s great Is there
anything else you want to add? I mean, we don’t have to end now.
I’m trying not to keep you guys. I know you’re busy. But you
know, those are sort of the five steps. But I would urge
everybody, if you want to know more, I will link this and I’ll
come back to wrap up at the end.

So you can go get the book. But
there’s so much great information. And the thing that
What I loved about it is this is not just old school. You guys are
not newly licensed. You’ve been at it for a little while.
You have a reputation and I love how you are right
here in 2023. In this book, it’s not. This is not old school
worksheet though challenging stuff. So there are so many great
concepts here. So many concepts in this book. Sally Winston: Yeah, it’s just
just to mention it is the third of a series. And if you read
one, two, and three, it might make a little more sense.

The
one is Overcoming Unwanted, Intrusive Thoughts.
Not just any intrusive thoughts, but unwanted ones. The second is Needing To Know
For Sure which is really about checking compulsions and
reassurance, compulsions, and subtle kinds of compulsions that
people might not realize are compulsions and this is the
third in the series and they do sort of fall off from each
other, although they each stand alone as well. One of the things
that has them that ties them together are these three
characters that we have in our minds that everyone has worried
voice, false comfort, and wise mind.

And we don’t introduce
that trio until quite far into the Overcoming Anticipatory
Anxiety book. But the illustrations of the dialogues
among these three voices are useful ways of being able to
observe your voices and then see what you’re doing. So I
would encourage people to, think about reading the other
the other books as well. Drew Linsalata: I will link them
I’ve read them all, they’re all outstanding. They are such
excellent ways to explain so many of the things you hear in
this podcast again and again. And again, like just another set
of voices that do a great, great job of explaining. So I
appreciate you guys coming out. It was great. I
appreciate your time so much. You’re welcome here anytime. So yeah, what I’ll do is, yeah, I
will come back at the end. If you guys hang out to the end,
I’ll come back, and wrap it up. I’ll give you a URL to go to
theanxioustruth.com/247 to get the books and any way that you
guys want me to send people to find you.

I will do that. So
thank you very much. Sally Winston: Nice talking to
you here. Drew Linsalata: Okay, well, that
was amazing. I have actually had Dr. Seif and Dr. Winston both on
the podcast before individually, having them together today was
really kind of a special thing for me, I will admit I was doing
a little bit of the fangirl thing for a little while there.
I’m not above that, by the way, don’t judge me. Anyway, there
was a ton of great information in this podcast episode that I
think would be helpful because like was mentioned in the
interview. Anticipatory anxiety is a common theme, not only with
all human beings, because all human beings get nervous about
scary and challenging things.

But especially across all
variants of different anxiety and mood disorders. I think Dr.
Seif pointed that out. So hopefully there was a ton here
that you can use. If you would like to know more about that.
And I’m not a fan of hawking people’s books here. Well, maybe
my own I guess. But this is the book that we talked about. It’s
called overcoming anticipatory anxiety, I did get to read it,
and they were generous enough to send me a copy.

It is a great
book, I would recommend it along with the other books that
they’ve written and Dr. Winston talked about in the app in the
podcast episode. So if you go right down here to
theanxioustruth.com/247 that’s the full show notes. For this
episode, I will include links to this book and their other books.
And I think they just put out a great blog article on Psychology
Today, I’ll link over to their Psychology blog, they are
a great, great resource.

So take advantage of everything they
have to offer. And they are welcome on this podcast anytime
they want to be. So that is it. That is episode number 247 of
the anxious truth on anticipatory anxiety in the
books, you know that it’s over because I have to hit the button
and turn up the music is Afterglow written by my friend
Ben Drake, who wrote the song, at least in part inspired by
this particular podcast. And he has let me use it for the past
couple of years. I’m grateful for that. Find more about Ben
and his music on his website at bendrakemusic.com. And if you
are listening to this podcast on Apple Podcasts, or Spotify, or
some platform that lets you rate or review the podcast, leave a
five-star rating if you dig it, and maybe take a minute and
write a review because that helps other people find the
podcasts. And then more people get the information in the help
that they need, which is kind of why I started doing this in 2014
to begin with.

Of course, if you’re watching on YouTube, I’m
going to hit you to hit ask you to hit the subscribe button like
the video, leave a comment at least twice a week, and circle back
around and go through my YouTube comments. It’s always a great
discussion there. Thank you guys for your support on YouTube. And
that is it. We are done. Share this with everybody that you
think might be helpful. I’m happy to support as many of you
as I possibly can with this type of information. I will be back
again next week to do another podcast episode and another
video. I don’t know what I’m going to talk about next week
but I will be here and remember as always, this is the way Ben Drake: that you go yeah,
you’re doing fine. Now in the city and you know looking back
at the past, you know you’ll never get another chance to go
and live your life.

 

𝗢𝗿𝗮𝗰𝗹𝗲 𝗼𝗳 𝗛𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲𝗻𝘀 ᶦˢ ʸᵒᵘʳ ᵍᵘᵃʳᵈᶦᵃⁿ ᵃⁿᵍᵉˡ ᵗʳʸᶦⁿᵍ ᵗᵒ ˢᵉⁿᵈ ʸᵒᵘ ᵃⁿ ᵘʳᵍᵉⁿᵗ ᵐᵉˢˢᵃᵍᵉ? ɪꜰ ʏᴏᴜ ꜱᴇᴇᴋ ɢᴜɪᴅᴀɴᴄᴇ ᴀɴᴅ ɪɴꜱɪɢʜᴛꜱ ɪɴᴛᴏ ᴛʜᴇ ᴘᴀꜱᴛ, ᴘʀᴇꜱᴇɴᴛ, ᴀɴᴅ ꜰᴜᴛᴜʀᴇ ᴡɪᴛʜ qᴜᴇꜱᴛɪᴏɴꜱ ᴀʙᴏᴜᴛ ʟᴏᴠᴇ, ʀᴇʟᴀᴛɪᴏɴꜱʜɪᴘꜱ, ᴏʀ ᴍᴏɴᴇʏ – ᴄᴏɴɴᴇᴄᴛ ᴡɪᴛʜ ʏᴏᴜʀ ᴀɴɢᴇʟ ᴛᴏᴅᴀʏ https://aef5aa-t-ztics23v7-ljxbw4j.hop.clickbank.net/