Doing ... And NOT Doing ... In Anxiety Recovery (Episode 107)
Disordered: Anxiety Help
Josh Fletcher and Drew Linsalata
4.9 • 665 Ratings
🗓️ 11 April 2025
⏱️ 40 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When working on anxiety recovery, sometimes we're DOING. Other times we have to focus on NOT doing. How confusing is that!?
This week Drew and Josh are chatting about how DOING things specific to anxiety recovery and NOT DOING things specific to anxiety recovery are related and how these two concepts work together.
In a nutshell, doing is about activating and engaging in behavior that anxiety says you should avoid. On the flip side, not doing is about refraining from the actions (including mental actions like rumination) that anxiety and fear will insist are good ideas.
This is subtle and nuanced, and will look a bit different from one person to the next. Things may change from day to day. So if you are confused by this - especially if you are dealing with GAD or health anxiety and want to know what you're "exposures" should be - this episode may help clear things up for you.
As usual the episode celebrates some wins from your peers - others struggling with the same issues you may be struggling with - and a healthy dose of humor and compassion. So listening is a good DOING thing. On the other hand, judging Josh and Drew for their continued insistence on talking about bologna sandwiches is definitely a NOT DOING thing. ;-)
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Disordered Roundtables are here! Think of it as "Disordered Live", a way for members of our audience to spend time with us in an intimate virtual setting (attendance is limited) to engage in real time sharing and discussion on specific anxiety disorder and recovery topics. To be notified when new Disordered Roundtable sessions are scheduled,visit our homepage and get on our mailing list.
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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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Want to ask us questions, share your wins, or get more information about Josh, Drew, and the Disordered podcast? Visit us on the web:
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, I just had a quick question. My name is Jessica. You can use my name with Did It Anyways and |
| 0:08.9 | enjoying time to yourself. In particular, I usually am a homebody. I like to be at home and watch movies |
| 0:16.3 | and stay in bed all day. But since I've been resensitized in my disordered state and I'm constantly |
| 0:21.6 | ruminating, I started to kind of throw myself into outdoor activities that, you know, I just thought |
| 0:27.6 | would help me stay distracted, but I was just curious if they did it anyways actually to be staying at |
| 0:33.3 | home and watching movies and trying to disconnect that way and get in touch with things that I |
| 0:38.0 | generally enjoy. So I was again just curious the difference between if it's did it anyway to be |
| 0:44.3 | at home, relaxed in bed all day, or if it did it anyway to go do stuff that I wouldn't normally do. |
| 0:50.3 | Thank you. |
| 0:53.3 | Welcome to Disorder. |
| 0:54.6 | This is episode 107 of the podcast entitled Doing and Not Doing. |
| 0:59.8 | Today we're going to talk about sometimes you've got to do things in anxiety recovery and |
| 1:03.8 | sometimes you have to not do things in anxiety recovery. |
| 1:06.7 | It's a good topic. |
| 1:07.6 | Thank you for the question. |
| 1:09.0 | I am Drew Linzalana. |
| 1:10.3 | I am a therapist practicing in the area of anxiety and anxiety disorders in New York, in the state of New York, in the country of the United States in the northern hemisphere. |
| 1:19.5 | Anyway, also a three-time author on this topic, a podcaster, social media dude, psychoeducator, former sufferer, much better now. |
| 1:27.5 | I am joined, as always, by my esteemed co-host in the UK. |
| 1:31.0 | Hi, everyone. |
| 1:32.0 | I'm Joshua Fletcher, also known as Anxiety Josh, and I'm a psychotherapist and author based in the UK. |
| 1:45.5 | I don't know. I know, yeah. |
... |
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