Your Anxiety Toolkit

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 193. Hello, my loves, how are you? So, recently, I’ve been having lots of conversations with my patients and my clients around one really helpful metaphor around managing mental compulsions. Now, before we go into this, let me just do a quick overview. We have obsessions, which show up in the form of intrusive thoughts, intrusive feelings, like anxiety and uncertainty and doubt and guilt and disgust. There’s intrusive thoughts, there’s intrusive feelings, there’s intrusive sensations, which is whatever physical sensations you experience that are intrusive and repetitive, and then intrusive urges. Urges like this urge – you feel like you’re going out of control and you’re about to hurt someone or you’re about to harm someone or do something that is ineffective or not helpful in your life. We have these intrusive thoughts, feelings, sensations, and urges, and sometimes images as well. It might be a quick flash image of something scary. In effort to either solve that or rem

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 192. Welcome back, everybody. I am really excited to do this episode with you. It’s a little bit different to episodes I’ve done in the past, which might be why I’m really excited about it, but it is a skill I have been practicing for several months. No, maybe more than that. I would actually say closer to six months to a year, and I was reflecting on, what are the things that... I took a lot about mindfulness skills and a lot about therapy skills and cognitive behavioral therapy skills, but is there something I haven’t really talked about in terms of just lifestyle? And I thought this, of all the topics, is probably one of the things that helps me manage my anxiety and depression the most, literally the most. In fact, I would go as far as to say it has been probably one of the most important things that has helped me recover in my recovery, and I’m really excited to share it with you. Today, we’re talking about how activity scheduling and managing your schedule can be

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 191. Well, welcome friends. How are you? How are you doing really? I want you to reflect for a second on just that... on just that question. How are you? I have not prepared for this episode. I just thought I would sit down and take some time to reflect some of, I’m sure, what I reflect on will be the first time I’ve reflected on it and not just that for reflecting with you. So what I wanted to talk with you guys about is life with a chronic illness or a disability. This is something that has shaken me a lot over the last, I would say two to three months. A lot of you have the background story with me, but if you’re new here, welcome, and I’ll tell you a quick background. In 2019, I got very sick. Through that process, I also got very... not just medically, but mentally struggled because of the symptoms that were incredibly debilitating. After pretty much every single medical test under the sun, I was diagnosed with a lesion in my brain, that they still don’t know what

This is Your Anxiety Toolkit - Episode 190. Welcome back, everybody. Hello, Happy Friday, for those of you who are listening on the release day, and happy day to you who are not. Okay. Well, how are you? How is everybody doing? I am sitting in my bedroom. We’ve actually had to completely rearrange because our life is changing so much here at the Quinland house. Kids are at school and people are in and out of the house, and it’s very, very different. So I’m coming to you from my room, and life just continues to change. Have you guys noticed that? It does continue to change. I cannot keep up with it. We embrace. We adapt. We are flexible. We keep trying. We are gentle with ourselves, and that’s the best we can do. Today, I wanted to talk with you guys about questions. I have been sort of... What I would say is ‘reflecting,’ but I would actually say, a better word is ‘studying’ the art of asking better questions, and this has been life-changing to me. It has been a practice that I have adopted as per advice of

Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I’m your host, Kimberley Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals. The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn’t get to decide how you live your life. And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, because experiencing anxiety ain’t easy. If that sounds good to you, let’s go. Hello friends, you are going to love this episode. Holy smokes, I just recorded it, so you’ve got me fresh, and I’m so excited. I just had such an amazing conversation with Mike Heady. He is an LCPC and he treats OCD and anxiety disorders. We talked about shame and shame and shame and shame, and he brought so much wisdom. You guys are going to love this episode. It is packed full of all the good stuff. So, I’m not going to waste your time. I just want you to get straight there and listen to it. Before we get started, if you haven’t left a review, please do so

Welcome to Your Anxiety Toolkit. I’m your host, Kimberley Quinlan. This podcast is fueled by three main goals. The first goal is to provide you with some extra tools to help you manage your anxiety. Second goal, to inspire you. Anxiety doesn’t get to decide how you live your life. And number three, and I leave the best for last, is to provide you with one big, fat virtual hug, because experiencing anxiety ain’t easy. If that sounds good to you, let’s go. Welcome back, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me. I know your time is very valuable and precious, so thank you for spending your time with me. Oh goodness, I have so much to reflect on with you today. I’ve had a few aha moments, which I wanted to share with you because I wondered if I’m having these aha moments, maybe you are too. Let’s just actually get straight to it. Shall we? Because it’s funny for me to say this to you. I’m sort of embarrassed to say this, but I also think it’s very hilarious. I consider myself to be a very mindful person. I rea

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today we have on Christian Newman, the Health Anxiety Coach, to continue our discussion on health anxiety.  Christian was on the podcast a while back and because we get so many questions about health anxiety, we decided it would be great to have him on again to answer some of your questions.  On this episode, Christian answers “How do I know if my symptoms are anxiety or something else?”, “Is there anything other than CBT and ERP that I can use to treat health anxiety?”, “How do I stop googling my symptoms?”, “How do I stop focusing on sensations?”, and “How do I learn to accept a doctor’s diagnosis?” Christian also shares a bit about his 30 day detox program to help you recover from health anxiety. Follow Christian on Instagram @healthanxiety.coach If you get a moment, please go over to wherever you listen to podcasts, whether that be Apple Podcast, Stitcher, Spotify, Podbean, and leave an honest review. Tell me how you feel about it, whether

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit podcast.  Today, we are going to talk about BFRB’s. Now, a BFRB is body-focused repetitive behavior. Many of you know, I am an Anxiety Specialist; I specialize in OCD and OCD-related disorders. Those related disorders can involve body-focused repetitive behaviors including hair pulling, skin picking, and nail-biting. Today, I want to give you eight tips to help you manage your BFRB. This is also really helpful if you have any behavior in your life that you want to adjust and change. It is also helpful if you are a family member or a loved one of someone with a BFRB. The eight tips we are going to discuss today are: Identify specifically where you’re engaging in your body-focused repetitive behavior. Identify when you engage in your BFRB. Identify what emotions trigger your BFRB. Identify what thoughts you are having. Find alternative behaviors. Block the behavior specifically related to the body part. Find support. Practice self-compassion daily. Abo

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today I want to talk to you about a question that recently was asked by one of my awesome Instagram followers.  This person asked me "Kimberley, how do I relax and be self-compassionate when I suddenly find myself with extra time on my hands?" This is such a fantastic question and a really timely one as well.  So today we are going to discuss the skill of sitting still.  Ask yourselves "When was the last time you allowed yourself to sit still?" and "When was the last time you allowed the discomfort you may be feeling to just be there?" Maybe you are thinking to yourselves that you have done nothing but sit still since COVID began, but even if this is true when was the last time you sat still and created space for your emotions to rise and fall? When was the last time you allowed yourself to experience your emotions and feelings without judgment?  This is key.  You may have been sitting still, but you may have been judging yourself at the same

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today we have on the amazing Joshua Fletcher who some of you may know from Instagram as Anxiety Josh.  Joshua is a psychotherapist in the UK as well as someone with lots of lived experience with anxiety disorders.  He is here today to talk to us specifically about panic attacks and panic disorder. Joshua shares his lived experience with panic, derealization/depersonalization, agoraphobia, and anxiety.  He tells about his first panic attack and how that led to multiple panic attacks per day. This led him to planning his days around how to avoid having another panic attack.  He shares the importance of psychoeducation for people who are experiencing any kind of anxiety disorder including panic.  This is not for reassurance purposes, rather it is important to demystify the experience of anxiety.  Once you learn what is happening, the anxiety loses some of it's grip.  We know that anxiety thrives in the uncertainty and the unknown so becoming educ

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today I want to share with you the 5 mindfulness tips that I use with my clients to help manage symptoms of anxiety and depression. The first tip is to observe. Instead of taking thoughts as fact, try simply observing your thoughts. An example may be "I am having the thought that bad things may happen." The second tip is to be curious. If you are able to be curious, you can actually change the narrative. Instead of being rigid, try being open to other possibilities. The third tip is to leave judgment behind. We often make the statement that our thoughts and feelings are wrong. Instead leave out the judgment and try "I am noticing this feeling is making me uncomfortable." This brings you back to a place of objectivity.  The fourth tip is to be present. Bring your attention back to the present moment. Try to not focus on the past or the future.  The fifth and final tip is to catch the stories you tell yourself. Be very careful when you say thing

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today we are discussing Exposure and Response Prevention or ERP.  So what exactly is ERP?  Well, many years ago a psychologist created exposure therapy, which is where we expose people to their fears. If you were afraid of dogs, we would expose you to pictures of dogs and then videos of dogs and then we would probably ask you to go pet a dog, that is exposure therapy. This was found to be highly successful; however, over the course of time, more research suggested that doing exposures alone is good, but it doesn't completely address the whole picture of OCD because OCD does not just involve obsessions, it also involves compulsions. Exposure therapy did not really address compulsions. So a different method was added on and that is the response prevention. You expose yourself to your fear and then you would do response prevention, which would mean you would not engage in the compulsion to remove the discomfort, uncertainty, or  anxiety that you are feelin

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today we are so lucky to have Dr. Jonathan Grayson on with us again. Dr. Grayson is a psychologist who has been specializing in the treatment of OCD for more than 40 years. He is also the author of Freedom from Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder and founder of The Grayson LA Treatment Center for Anxiety and OCD.  He is here today to talk to us about magical thinking. I am actually getting asked a lot recently about magical thinking.  People have a lot of questions about what it is and how it relates to OCD and anxiety. Dr. Grayson starts off by giving us his definition of magical thinking.  He explains that magical thinking is really on a continuum. On one end you may have a person without OCD who engages in minor superstitions and on the far end you may have a person with OCD who has magical thinking that is actually interfering in their daily life.  He says that most of the time with OCD, the magical thinking does not seem to have an obvious conn

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. We have a lot to tackle in this episode!  We are going to be talking about a really important topic which has a lot of confusion surrounding it.  Today we are going to explore the difference between an intrusive thought and a mental compulsion. OCD starts with an obsession. This is an intrusive, repetitive, unwanted thought, feeling, sensation or urge that you cannot control this.  Once you've had that intrusive thought, feeling, sensation and urge, you usually feel anxious and uncomfortable because it is unwanted.  You then have this natural instinct to try and remove the discomfort and the uncertainty that you feel. This is what we call a compulsion. Usually we feel some form of relief from the compulsion, but this becomes a problem because it only reinforces to our brain that the thought was important. Your brain continues to send out the alarm that the thought must mean something. Now many of us are aware of the form that physical compulsion

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast.  Today I want to focus a bit on OCD treatment.  I want to share with you all 8 tips that I think will really help to fast-track your OCD treatment.  The first tip is to get support. That may people from people in your life or it may be from social media, organizations in the OCD community, or online support groups. The second tip is to pace yourself.  Find a pace that works well for you, not too fast, not too slow.  The third tip is to give yourself time to feel all the feelings about your OCD treatment. You are likely going to ride a wave of emotions and that is OK.  The fourth tip is to stop judging yourself for your obsessions and compulsions.  Being critical of yourself on serves to get in the way of your recovery. So go easy on yourself. The fifth tip is to embrace uncertainty.  Learning to live with uncertainty is key to recovery in OCD treatment. The sixth tip is to stare your fear in the face everyday.  Remember when we turn away from o

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. Today we have on an amazing guest and therapist, Menije Boduryan. Menije is an OCD specialist as well as a specialist on perfectionism. She is here today to talk to us about perfectionism and to give us some tips on how to manage perfectionism in our own lives. Menije defines perfectionism as a drive to do things perfectly with anything less than 100% being unacceptable.  It is a desire to want everything to be flawless and in that desire, comes a lot of expectations or rules that people set for themselves.  She explains that perfectionism becomes a mindset and you begin to operate in the world expecting yourself to be perfect, as well as your partner, your best friend, your clothes, your work desk, what you eat, and how you exercise to all be perfect. It becomes powerful because our self-identity becomes so attached to this idea of being perfect. It is not just about the desire to do things perfectly, but it also becomes a belief that on

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. Today I want to talk about a concept that is really important to long-term recovery or just life in general, which is this question: Does this bring me closer to my long term goals?  Now, human beings are very reactionary. When there is an event, we quickly do a little data check in our brain. Is it safe? Can we proceed? Should we run away? Should we freeze? Should we just freak out? We have the whole process that happens in a millisecond, and then we respond.  Now the fight-flight-freeze system of the brain keeps us alive. It’s a reaction we have to danger. So if there is a lion, we know to either freeze, run away or fight it. For those with an anxiety disorder, we often go into the fight-flight-freeze when there isn’t any real danger. The more we react, the more we enforce our fears and the more that we get stuck in a cycle of reaction. One of the most helpful things in life for me has been to step back and look at the cycle, look at

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit. Today we are going to have a hard conversation and it honestly is causing a little bit of anticipatory anxiety for me. I want to talk to you about the lies we tell ourselves. You might be thinking "I don't tell lies. What are you talking about? I am a good person." So I want you to hear me out for a little bit and I want to share an experience I had this week. I realized that I had been telling a lie to myself and to my family about my choice to continue working so hard. I really want to take the stigma, the judgment, and the shame out of lies and just admit that we do it. That’s my main hope for today. Let’s just acknowledge that we sometimes lie to ourselves. We lie to other people, and we do it, not because we’re horrible human beings, but because we’re trying to protect ourselves. It’s a safety behavior. We’re trying to protect the story we create, and I had created this whole story of why I had to work so hard. So I sat down and thought ab

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit Podcast. Today I want to talk about something that is so important to me. This is also something I think we all need a little reminder about from time to time and that is the importance of self-compassion. Today I want to share an exercise on how to practice self-compassion. I want you to imagine that someone you care about comes to you and says that they are struggling or having a hard time. What is your first reaction likely to be? You probably will say something along the lines of "Oh I'm so sorry. How can I help you?" Now I want you to try this same approach the next time you are struggling. You can learn how to practice self-compassion by treating yourself how you would treat a loved one or even a stranger who is struggling. Stop and say to yourself "Ok you are in pain. Let's tend to that pain." Our work is really to tend to ourselves the way we would tend to others. Respect ourselves the way we respect others. There is no exception to this.

Welcome back to another episode of Your Anxiety Toolkit podcast. Today I want to share with you all something that has been going on for a while now. For months, I have been harassed online by an anonymous troll who has been leaving really terrible, disgusting comments on my social media accounts. I want to share with you today some ways that I have dealt with this situation and to really give you some tools to manage the bully in your life, whether that takes the form of a real person or if that bully takes the form of fear and anxiety. Initially I tried doing what I would do when I am faced with fear. I simply tried not engaging. These are the same tools you would use to manage intrusive thoughts and anxiety, which is, you just don't engage with them. You set strong boundaries and you bring your attention back to the things that you value. So I was trying that for a while. Then I realized that I wasn't setting strong enough boundaries. I was keeping what was happening a secret because I was feeling a