Anxiety and The Illusion of Control (Episode 116)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 4 July 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
What If I Want To Control My Anxiety Holistically?
In this episode, Drew and Josh examine tension between wanting to control anxiety through holistic approaches and recognizing when that desire for control becomes part of the problem itself.
Key Topics Discussed:
- The difference between actual control and the illusion of control
- How the wellness and self-optimization industry can exploit anxiety sufferers
- Why treating anxiety as a threat teaches your brain to keep the alarm system activated
- The gray area between healthy self-care and anxiety-driven fixing behaviors
- How to recognize when "wellness" strategies become safety behaviors
Important Timestamps:
00:00 - A listener from Switzerland asks about holistic control strategies and when it feels like she can control things
02:30 - Introduction to the control illusion concept
04:20 - Drew explains the critical difference between knowing and controlling
5:45 - Josh's "why" question - examining motivations behind wellness pursuits
8:15- How your threat response learns from your control behaviors
11:45- Personal stories: Josh's magnesium bath experience and Drew's supplement journey
14:30 - The meditation paradox - using mindfulness as exposure vs. control
16:00- Drew's mini-rant about the billion-dollar wellness industry
21:15 - Did It Anyway: A listener's birthday triumph (train, crowds, and dating)
22:30- The Dr. Oz example of entertainment vs. medicine
31:45- The compatibility question: Can you pursue both control and acceptance?
35:00- Josh's "willful tolerance" exercise
39:00 - Did It Anyway: A listener conquers their emetophobia podcast fear
41:00 - First official announcement of the upcoming "Disordered Guide to Health Anxiety" book
Key Takeaways
The episode emphasizes that while basic wellness practices may be helpful, using them as anxiety control strategies often backfires. True recovery involves learning to be with difficult feelings rather than trying to eliminate them. The hosts stress the importance of asking "why" you're pursuing any wellness intervention - is it for general health or to avoid anxiety?
This episode offers practical guidance on distinguishing between healthy self-care and anxiety-driven control behaviors, helping listeners navigate the complex world of wellness marketing while staying focused on genuine recovery principles.
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Struggling with worry and rumination that you feel you can't stop or control? Check out Worry and Rumination Explained, a two hour pre-recorded workshop produced by Josh and Drew. The workshop takes a deep dive into the mechanics of worrying and ruminating, offering some helpful ways to approach the seemingly unsolvable problem of trying to solve seemingly unsolvable problems.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, Josh and Drew. Thank you very much for your podcast. |
| 0:05.3 | Sari here from Switzerland. |
| 0:07.3 | I suffer from anxiety and I didn't know for a long time because I'm a fixer and whenever there's a problem I like to fix things. |
| 0:14.7 | And I wanted to ask you a question about the whole thing with our generation or with our situation, our world, |
| 0:25.5 | that we, in countries like Switzerland, we have health care, which is very approachable, |
| 0:32.2 | and we can do everything holistically, like we can analyze our guts, our amino acid status, you know, |
| 0:41.7 | everything about your blood, how your brain works, basically can do everything. And my question is, |
| 0:49.3 | also related to what's in your control, control and what's not in your control, don't control. |
| 0:54.5 | I'm very drawn to these holistic approaches because I feel like this is in my control, |
| 0:59.5 | I can do something about it. |
| 1:01.5 | Therefore, I can supplement or do whatever and be very fixed about this. |
| 1:05.8 | But at the same time, I know this is also a fixation, but it's really in my control. So what do I do about this |
| 1:14.2 | or what's your recommendation for people who want to control things to things they can? But |
| 1:21.3 | it's not really clear if it's now about controlling or fixing. Yeah, and I was wondering what your opinion about this is, |
| 1:30.2 | especially about the whole holistic medicine approach and supplements and whatever there is. |
| 1:36.4 | Thank you very much. |
| 1:38.2 | And please continue to do your work. |
| 1:41.0 | I absolutely love it. |
| 1:42.5 | Bye. |
| 1:57.4 | Welcome to Disorder. This is episode 116 called Anxiety and the Illusion of Control. |
| 2:02.8 | I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist based in Manchester in the UK, specializes in anxiety and anxiety disorders. And I'm joined by my esteemed |
| 2:08.9 | co-host. Yes, I'm Drew Lin Salata. I am coming to you from New York, where I'm also a therapist |
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