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The Secret Technique Revealed to Get Rid of Anxiety and Panic Attacks Forever

Today we are beginning our book study group for the book: Dare – The New Way to End Anxiety and Stop Panic Attacks written by Barry McDonagh.

So it’s the first book that we’ve read that is not written by a doctor.

Personally I like this book a lot because it’s long enough for us to get through a few weeks of this. Actually, I have the experience of sharing this information and from there you decide how you choose to use it and how you choose to apply it.

A few important things before we start

Before we begin I would like to first clarify a few points.

The first one is that this section of the courses of the Ralph Fitness Club will not have a prerequisite, because there are some people that join the Ralph Fitness Club because they exclusively only experience anxiety.

They don’t have ankylosing spondylitis or chronic pain and so on.

For those of you that have experienced chronic pain in the past and you’re feeling a little better or you’ve experienced some relief and now you’re experiencing anxiety, that’s the usual path.

Usually when people start feeling better from their physical pain they notice their anxiety a little more.

Because as Dr Sarno says chronic pain is there to help mask repressed anxiety, repressed anger and repressed rage. There is no prerequisite for those of you that are listening to this in the future.

If you are someone that has a history of TMS, chronic pain or even a diagnosis when glowing spondylitis and you’re here for both TMS and anxiety I highly recommend going through the community course on the book, Healing Back Pain, by Dr. John Sarno.

It’s also a great book for dealing with when anger scares you. It’s like a whole course on anger and how that works. Reason being is that when you start here if this is the first course you’re listening to well…

You can experience relief from the experience of anxiety and the cycle of anxiety, depression as well as the cycle of chronic pain and so on.

However if you have not yet understood the relationship between anxiety, chronic pain and anger avoidance, then you might be doing yourself a great disservice. ANd the disservice you’re doing to yourself, is that you haven’t yet made the adjustments necessary to put an end to the chronic pain cycle.

So you can experience some temporary relief but if the chronic cycle is still there.

For example, if you’re still avoiding your anger, if you’re still not setting firm boundaries, if you’re still not even aware of what your emotionalsocialpsychological or even financial needs are or if you’re still completely clueless to all of the stuff we’ve discussed in the book…. when anger scares you, there’s a chance you’re going to experience relief and then use that relief to go deeper into those patterns.

It’s only a matter of time before you’ll learn what’s in this book.

How to get the most out of reading this the book: DARE

The book we are going to read is written by Barry McDonagh. It’s only a matter of time before this too doesn’t help you anymore. So be aware of the behavior, be aware of what makes it chronic and be aware of what’s useful to end the cycle altogether. Otherwise, this is all just a big waste of time.

So if you’re here exclusively for anxiety, Great. We can start here if you’re here for chronic pain and anxiety.

I would begin with Dr Sarno’s Book, then move on to When Anger Scares You and then you can come right back here.

So two more things to clarify; the first one is if you’re experiencing anxiety the first thing to do is to speak to a doctor and if possible speak to a mental health professional as well.

Chemical imbalance can be sometimes reason behind anxiety:

Why you want to make sure that this is what you’re actually dealing with is because there are other things that mimic anxiety.

You can look at it as anxiety but they end up being something else for example low levels of Vitamin D, especially nowadays with the whole COVID thing going on and some people are still practicing social distancing and they have the tendency to be at home more.

Want to make sure that your vitamin D levels are where they are supposed to be if you are a person with brown skin like myself chances of you being vitamin D deficient are significantly higher than those who have a lighter skin color.

So you want to make sure your vitamin D levels are where they are. You also want to make sure your levels of magnesium are where they are and the best way to do this is to go to a doctor, get some blood work done and have them check all of that good stuff.

If you’re gonna go get blood work done you may also want to throw it in there and ask your doctor, if they can check for any allergies.

Such as food allergies, celiac disease et cetera you want to roll out all of that stuff. You want to make sure that that’s taken care of and you’re okay and if you want to take it one step further hopefully you have health insurance… because these things can get expensive if you’re paying out of pocket.

If you want to take it one step further you also want to go see an eye, ear and nose specialist get your eyes checked, get your ears checked and get your nose checked.

Get all that good stuff checked because there are some symptoms that can be caused by that. If you have problems with your eyes it can feel like you’re off balance, your ears as well can feel like you’re off balance and some people interpret that as a panic attack.

Oh my God i have swaying anxiety it feels like I am on a rocky boat, it feels like the floor is leaving from underneath from underneath me and that can feel like something that it’s not. So you want to go to the doctor to make sure you’re not allergic to something.

Make sure that your ears are okay, your eyes are okay, your vitamin levels are okay, you’re good to go. Your vitamin B levels, specifically B6 are also where they need to be and everything’s fine then you can come here once the doctor says yeah everything’s good. All right, let’s get ready for this.

Throughout this course I intend to share some lifestyle adjustments that can help you get grounded and make this approach a bit more tolerable and a bit easier.

Because think of it as training for a fight. You’re going into a part of the journey that requires being able to stay present with what you’re feeling. In order for that feeling and that energy to move and there are some things that you can do to help yourself.

Getting grounded will help in the process of being able to stay grounded and stay present with what you’re feeling, otherwise it can be overwhelming and if you have a history of chronic pain that’s usually when the mind goes, yeah you know what screw that how’s that back pain yeah back pain there it is.

That’s that thing, any questions before we begin and get into the book.

We’re starting with the preface on page five there’s nothing worse than wanting to run away and escape your own self. When you want to escape your own mind and body it feels like there’s nowhere to run.

I know how that feels. I’ve also known that, right now you might feel like a small boat facing a storm of anxiety and that just trying to concentrate on reading this book is an enormous challenge.

The Dare Approach to Heal Anxiety

The first thing you must know is that it’s going to be okay, you’re going to get through this in fact not only are you going to get through this but with the help of this book you can journey to a place of full recovery and become a stronger person.

Because of it anxiety is not a life sentence it is absolutely curable.

All right a new era is dawning for people who suffer from anxiety and this book is part of that movement. I’m going to share a truly transformative way to heal anxiety. This approach called the dare response came about as a result of my own personal experience with healing anxiety.

How is Dare Technique Different From Old Techniques

Its roots are in the new wave of positive psychology and the mindfulness movement that has become so popular in the last five to ten years. It’s an approach that seeks to do away with the old model of simply managing and coping with anxiety.

It seeks instead to heal the problem for good, no matter how trapped and distraught you feel right now this process can really work miracles for you. As long as you commit to it your perseverance will navigate you through this storm and ensure you reach full recovery.

I’m not saying this journey is for everyone. I’m also not saying this will be easy; what I am saying is that if you stay the course the rewards will be worth it together we’ll fight to win back your peace of mind, your strength of will, your joy in life and a purpose.

Any questions comments concerns?

The Blessing of Emotions Against Emotions

All right now before we continue there’s another point that I would like to clarify when we read the book, anger scares you. There was a part in that book that, if we can pick out just one sentence and throw away the rest of the book, this would be it in the sentence.

I don’t remember the exact vote but I’m sure some of you guys know the sentence is “it takes energy to repress energy” and “it takes emotions to repress emotions.”

So when we feel something that we don’t want to feel the body will create some form of energy or some form of emotion which is the same thing in order to avoid that feeling.

So if you repress anger it is very possible for your body to create sadness as a way to push the anger down.

When we are reading about anxiety you’ll realize more and more that about 70 percent of the entire anxiety experience is designed to push away other feelings that you don’t want to feel.

All right and when you connect with the actual feeling that’s behind the anxiety then you’ll experience something more in a good way. You experience something more and that’s where the healing takes on.

A whole new meaning I want to mention because as we’re reading through this book we’re going to keep coming back to this point. So I like to think of anxiety as the lid on the entire problem; so we have Dr. Sarno he talks about chronic pain, tension, physical stuff going on.

The culprit is repressed anger and repressed anxiety then we read about when anger scares you we become more familiar with the personality traits become more familiar with the things that you do to avoid it. Then we read about the actual mechanism. So what is how do I actually repress emotions, how do I avoid emotions?

Sometimes it’s done through behaviors, sometimes it’s done through somatic experiences such as physical pain or something happening on your skin and other times it happens by scaring the crap out of yourself with this thing that we call anxiety.

The Strange Benefits of Anxiety

So we’re going to read about the solution to not feeling stuff. So you have something you don’t want to feel.

The solution is to create something else and that is what we call anxiety. So when we’re reading about anxiety just remember this is actually beneficial as weird as that sounds the whole thing.

About 70% of this book, it’s about the benefits of anxiety. For example steering the crap out of yourself in order to avoid feeling that other thing that you don’t want to feel but we’ll get to that later.

The Emotional Impact of Anxiety

Anxiety is unpleasant. It often feels as if you’re separated from ordinary life by a pane of glass. The doubt and confusion it causes are the hardest to deal with: “Why is this happening to me? Am I going mad? Is my brain damaged? Will this last forever?”

An anxiety disorder is difficult to understand unless you’ve experienced it firsthand. 

An anxiety disorder is not the kind of stress everyone loves to talk about.

You hear people remark, “yeah I’m so stressed too” and hey who isn’t anxious, why are you complaining? There’s a big difference between anxiety, that kind of stress and most people don’t understand how all-consuming anxiety can be.

They have no idea how terrifying a panic attack can feel or how uncomfortable a sensation like unreality can be.

Your doctor may have a sympathetic ear, but unless they have experienced anxiety they may never really get what you’re going through.

People who don’t understand can often lose patience. They might say things like come on, put yourself together or just snap out of it. You try to explain to your very best friend that you can’t make the wedding and they think you’re being selfish or you’re not thinking of them on their big day.

Your buddies want to go on a short hike but you know that it’s way too far out of your safe zone. They don’t understand that you feel so shaken by anxiety that it’s hard enough to think about leaving your house not to mention having to walk in the wilderness miles from a hospital.

All right and this is all anxious thinking about a house too far from a hospital. In these situations you want your companions to understand, you’re not avoiding them.  But unfortunately that’s how it comes across.

You need someone to understand how scary this damn thing feels. Someone who can reassure you that you’re not losing your mind. It can be very hard to admit you have anxiety.

How do you share with someone that sometimes you feel so out of control that sometimes your mind fills with bizarre and shocking thoughts. You worry that if anyone knows what was going on in your head they will call to have you locked up.

So you make another excuse to get out of a social engagement and in the meantime your sense of self-worth really takes a beating. You beat yourself up over it constantly. I mean really what the heck is wrong with me.

Why can’t I just get up in the morning and not obsess about this anxiety and the day ahead. I used to be so carefree and now I worry about having to sit still while getting my haircut.

I’m not going to go on about this, you already know exactly how it feels.

I mentioned it just to point out that it’s perfectly normal to feel this way. You’re not alone, you’re not losing it and you don’t have a serious health problem. Anxiety can play tricks on your mind.

Of course, if you do have a health concern please make sure you get all the necessary examinations, so that you can rule out those conditions – but chances are excellent.

You’re simply suffering from anxiety and just keep in mind that when you go see a doctor and everything turns out okay anxiety will tell you they miss something.

So the anxiety in your head will tell you hey what if they missed something you know what if there’s something they didn’t check.

You know just be aware of that but chances are excellent you’re simply suffering from anxiety. I know you wish the doctor could just find some subtropical disease to explain all these sensations at least then you can go about treating this or that disease.

If on the other hand you’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, then in all likelihood that really is what it is “trust” that diagnosis and don’t second-guess fearing it might be something much worse you feel the way you do. Because of high levels of stress hormones in your system.

We’ll go through this in more detail later on in this book. But basically our body’s fight or flight response has gone a bit trigger happy and is wrecking mental and emotional habits.

So trust that’s a big word you don’t have to trust me you have to trust anybody on this call, but it is necessary to at some point be aware that if you have just happened to be the hostile aggressive personality traitor you don’t trust anybody or anything you believe.

You know on the internet it’s very common to hear this mantra, that doctors only care about money, doctors only care about big quotas, doctors only care about etc. Just be aware that when you go see a doctor and your doctor tells you no there’s nothing wrong with you.

If you can’t trust the person that’s in charge of monitoring your health, you know if you can’t at least have just trust in them then there’s a good chance that the anxiety will come back. “Yeah no I don’t trust that guy or even if the doctor says, we find your vitamin whatever levels are pretty low why don’t you supplement on. No that’s what they want, they want me to be on those pills.

If you do not wish to unmute yourself all right you are not alone in this. I know you might think your anxiety is very unique and singular to you but I’m sorry to burst your bubble. It isn’t, it’s not one bit unique at all. In fact it’s as boring, ordinary and common as everyone else’s anxiety.

I want to highlight that point if you have the book highlighted in big bold letters, especially if you have a history of chronic pain. Because unfortunately some people, not everyone but some people, have a love-hate relationship with their physical ailments including their anxiety.

So just like you can post something on the internet about “Oh my God I went hiking and i have a closing spondylitis” and people comment “Oh my God you’re such a hero, you’re amazing, you’re so strong, you’re an inspiration” that can give what psychologists call secondary gains. So it allows you to feel some type of emotional reward.

The emotional reward of feeling loved and accepted and appreciated by those people that are commenting and rooting you on the same can happen with anxiety. So you can convince yourself at an unconscious level that your anxiety is special, it’s unique, it’s different and that can give you a feeling of being on a special journey.

This whole journey isn’t special, it’s just anxiety just like everyone else gets anxiety.

If we make it super colorful, super amazing and you’re getting those secondary gains that can be a potential shadow tendency that keeps you anxious. If you’re serious about getting better just be aware that those things sometimes exist, not always. But sometimes they exist and if you identify it in yourself it’s special.

It’s in fact boring, ordinary and common as everyone else’s anxiety. There are literally millions of perfectly sane normal people who have the exact same problem you do in The United States alone, approximately 40 million American adults aged 18 and older are estimated to have an anxiety disorder.

So if you suffer from anxiety you’re actually quite normal and that’s something no matter how deranged and shocking your anxious thoughts are.

I guarantee you there’s someone close to you who is also suffering in silence. No matter how bad your panic attacks are, there are millions of people that experience them in the exact same manner with the exact same unusual sensations as you. Millions of perfectly sane people suffer in silence.

Because stress hormones cause an over sensitized nervous system and you want to become familiar with that word over sensitized.

The roughness elite video I share that in the west there is the concept of moving through this healing journey even if you start all the way with the chronic pain the initial step is desensitization, which means get to the point where you’re not sensitive so that the word is desensitized as in less sensitive make you less sensitive to your triggers.

So if you’re at the point where everything pisses you off, everything makes you feel anxious, everything makes you fearful that’s because in the part of the healing you may be sensitized.

You may be sensitive to all of these triggers. It usually takes about six to eight weeks for a person to get grounded and no longer be as sensitive to those triggers. Once they sense that the desensitization period is successfully taken care of then you can move on to decentralization and decentralization is where this topic is no longer.

Focus on Better Things to Live a Good Life

The main focus of your life at some point is important to move on to something else. It’s important to let go of the healing journey. No more talking about the back pain, you know by that time it’ll be gone, no more talking about whatever.

If anything the one thing that may be still present in your life as you are decentralizing and moving your focus somewhere else would be anger avoidance, would be yours whatever is lingering, personality traits learning how to set boundaries, how to be more assertive, how to be more clear, transparent with your communication and your needs etc. But other than that at some point decentralization puts the seal of approval on your healing journey.

When you’re able to move your focus away from your back aches, from your anxiety, from your issues.

Then you’ve successfully made it somewhere, if you keep coming back to this then there is a chance that there is some emotional need that is being met through this mechanism.

So at that point it’s important to start exploring. How do I benefit from this, why do I feel the need to celebrate something as normal and regular.

As I’m going on a hike why do I feel the need to tell the whole world about this.  What am i getting out of this you know is it the likes,is it the pity, is it the feeling like someone loves me. Because I’m pretty screwed up. What’s going on here that’s a whole other topic.

So over sensitized nervous systems, that’s the first step and this book. We’ll get into that as we continue reading.

If you could flick a magic switch that caused an immediate reduction of all the stress hormones floating through your bloodstream you would suddenly feel a whole lot more normal again the sense of unreality would end.

So with the tornado of anxious thoughts tearing through your mind, have you ever heard the saying, If you think you’re going nuts you probably aren’t.

One of the goals of this book is to assure you that you’re perfectly okay and that you can indeed end your anxiety problem. The fact is anxiety is incredibly treatable but very few people tell you that. I’ve been teaching people how to end anxiety issues for over 10 years and I can’t stress enough that this problem is entirely curable.

All it takes is the right guidance and your commitment to get better. This book outlines exactly how you can end your anxiety problem and move toward a greater sense of personal freedom that sentence is gold.

Bringing Meaning in Your Life Does Better Than Affirmations

So what we just say about decentralizing this book outlines exactly how you can end your anxiety problem and move toward a greater sense of personal freedom that’s decentralized.

Move forward and go on now, find some extracurricular activity that brings you meaning, something beautiful, something fantastic in your life. If you’re doing positive affirmations to heal your anxiety you’re doing it wrong.

If you just happen to believe that you are fantastic then there’s no need to keep fighting this thing that isn’t really what you’ve been told. It is getting back to your old carefree self again is the goal.

Let me briefly explain how it happened for me. My anxiety problem started with a panic attack. If you’ve experienced panic attacks I bet you remember your first. Mine was on a Sunday afternoon in a church in Dublin, I was 18 years old and had been out celebrating my final school exams.

The night before I was desperately hungover sitting a few deep in the church pew, when a series of really intense bodily sensations suddenly overcame me. My heart was pounding through my chest.

I couldn’t catch my breath, pins and needles started to spread down the side of my chest and arms. It was the most alarming series of bodily sensations I had ever experienced.

My first thought was what if i’m having a heart attack as soon as i had that thought my anxiety spiked into a state of panic.

The fear I felt was like an electrical shock to my stomach. I needed to get outside so I excused myself and rushed toward the exit at the back of the church standing outside. The physical sensation lessened slightly and I thought the worst had passed.

Then  another wave of panic and fear hit me even harder. I wanted desperately to ask someone for help but what would I say to them? I looked for a friendly face but no one made eye contact when asking for help just made me feel more helpless and afraid. Would they even know what to do?

I paced up and down thinking about how far I was from the nearest hospital. When I felt the sensation less and slightly I decided to try to make it home. I got my bike and walked it slowly back home carefully trying not to aggravate the sensation again.

When I eventually got home I told no one and I hid in my house for days that was week one. What followed were about 500 more days of really high general anxiety as well as additional panic attacks.

I went from being a young man who could travel the world with ease to someone who became afraid to leave his house during that period of time. I experienced just about every anxious sensation possible; it was like a crash course and anxiety disorders. You name it I felt it from strange violent sensations to intrusive thoughts and depersonalization in the west.

Depersonalization is when you feel like you’re not in your body, it feels like you’re detached from your body almost as if your body is moving on its own. It’s freaky as hell but I promise you it can get better.

Derealization is another one. It feels like you’re looking at life through some glass window or something almost like if you’re detached from reality itself. The turning point came one evening.

I remember it clearly. I had really hit rock bottom and was lying on the floor of my bedroom wishing the anxiety would end. When this flash of insight came to me it was like seeing my thought processes from a distance.

For the first time I could clearly see how I had been approaching this all wrong. I was feeling my anxiety problem by the way I was responding to each and every anxious thought that crossed my mind. That one insight eventually led to the end of my panic attacks and constant anxiety.

It was like a complete retooling of my thought process related to anxiety from a wrong way to a daring new way. The illusion of fear that the anxiety held me under was shattered and from that point forward I started to win back my freedom. I wanted to share that insight with others so I eventually wrote it all down and posted it online.

The response was almost immediately people told me they were making massive improvements in their anxiety from the insights. I shared that now I had validation that this same approach would work for other people too. From there I wrote my first book “ Panic Away ” which later went on to become an international bestseller 10 years ago.

Since then I have had the privilege of coaching people for every walk of life. I have taught CEOs and soccer MOMs famous celebrities and military personnel. What makes my approach unique is the speed of recovery that people achieve.

The lessons and insights I share are simple and get results fast, for example people who could not leave their homes are now flying on holidays. Overseas people who could not drive to the end of their roads are now driving across the country. TV presenters and entertainers who were about to quit their jobs are now doing their best work.

Yet mothers and fathers who could not attend their kids’ school plays are now participating fully in their children’s lives. You name it, if anxiety is the problem I’ve seen it and helped someone. Somewhere overcome it has been a privilege to be able to play a part in thousands of people’s recovery from anxiety.

Helping them get their life back after years of unnecessary. It wouldn’t work over the course of the past decade.

The route to healing anxiety for good became clearer and clearer to me and motivated me to write this book. You’re holding in this book you’ll discover how to ready put an end to anxious and intrusive thoughts.

Stop the occurrence of panic attacks and general anxiety face any anxious situation you’ve been avoiding, driving, shopping, flying, socializing etc and regain your confidence and feel like your old self again no matter how long you’ve been suffering the insights, i’ll share with you really can undo years of anxiety and here’s what truly sets this book apart.

You’ll not only learn how to end your anxiety problem but you’ll also discover how to turn this problem into a personal triumph.

You’ll have the opportunity to discover the meaning in this struggle and develop a new hidden strength within yourself. People who eventually find me usually do so after they’ve gone through a wide range of therapies and treatments. Everything from alternative therapies to the more traditional route of anti-anxiety medications.

The Dare Response; Most Simplified Method to Deal with Anxiety

I’m sure you’ve tried an exhaustive list of things already because we lead complicated lives. We often expect the solutions to our problems to be expensive and complicated too. In fact we trust expensive complicated solutions over simple ones even when most approaches recovery.

The approach I teach called “The dare response” does the opposite for you. It simplifies recovery and I’m a big fan of that, a big fan of simplifying things.

One of my personal beliefs, the best things in life are free. they’re free and they’re simple and quite complicated. The reason that many of these other approaches fail is that they’re based on an old model of anxiety management.

Managing the Problem Isn’t an Ideal Solution

The culture of anxiety management is so pervasive in today’s society that medication and distraction techniques are the only solutions. People know how to manage anxiety. However is not a real long-term solution the name itself gives you a clue to its impact. You learn to manage anxiety but not to heal it.

Similar to chronic pain guys you learn to manage your pain and not heal it. I’m not a fan of that, I like to get rid of it. You might get temporary relief but the anxiety inevitably returns and you haven’t developed the confidence to deal with it. I don’t teach anxiety management, I teach people how to heal their anxiety so they can get back to living their life again to its fullest youth.

Anxiety causes you to become stuck in a stagnant state of fear. Learning how to skillfully move with the anxious discomfort that you feel removes you from the state of fear moving with anxiety places.

You go back into a state of flow which eventually frees you from an anxious state and you know how I like that word. So it’s moving with anxiety, so whatever you’re doing in your day take your emotions with you. That doesn’t mean you act them out and attack people or whatever. But it does mean you get to bring them with you.

Their response teaches you that simple movement. The unusual thing about the dear response to that is that it’s not  designed to get rid of your anxiety. It’s designed to get rid of your fear of the anxiety, it’s your resistance to and struggle with anxiety that keeps you trapped unless of course you have one of those shadow tendency things going on.

Learn to Master the Mechanics of Anxiety and It’s Fear

There’s a benefit: you know there’s something behind it. That is benefiting you a bit like quicksand. The more you struggle the deeper you sink. When you employ the deer response your anxious mind is taken out of the way allowing your nervous system to  desensitize. So allow your nervous system to not be so sensitive to the  sensations that you experience. I’m not suggesting that, once you master this approach you’ll never experience anxiety again.

That unrealistic life has its challenges that will cause anxiety to rise up again at times just like it does for me. The difference however is that you won’t get trapped in that anxious state any longer, instead you’ll pass through it with ease.

Although the insights I had during my own recovery were unique to me. I don’t for a moment claim to be the originator of this new approach. I call it the new approach for healing anxiety. Because up until just a few short years almost every therapeutic treatment for anxiety was based on the old model of managing the problem indefinitely thankfully.

The Evolution in Psychology: New Therapies and Theories

In recent years a quiet revolution has been happening in  psychology and now we’re starting to see new therapies emerge. That truly addresses anxiety and heals it as its core.

Some examples of these therapies include mindfulness-based cognitive therapy and acceptance and commitment therapy. So mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, acceptance and commitment there it’s not that.

These new psychological approaches were just developed. In fact many great doctors and psychiatrists in the 1950s and 60s such as the late  DR VICTOR FRANKEL and claire weeks advocated tirelessly for them as the only truly effective treatment for anxiety.

Unfortunately back then the dominant thinking was that anxiety was a permanent condition that had to be managed or medicated away. You believe that over the next 10 years this new approach will become the mainstream therapeutic approach for healing all anxiety because of the efficiency of results it achieves and the speed at which those results occur.

Why Dare Concept Is Better For you Than All Other Therapies and Approaches

My contribution is to help make this approach as simple and easy to apply as possible. You can read all about the hard science behind the dare response and the appendix of this book. You see when people are anxious or in the grip of a panic attack they need really simple and clear instructions.

The dare response is simple if nothing else it’s an approach that can be applied to all manifestations of anxiety. Be it general anxiety panic attacks OCD or social anxiety OCD is an obsessive-compulsive disorder. If those of you who are HLA B27 positive when those of you who are here with AES and chronic pain.

If you’re HLA B27 positive you are more likely to have OCD like tendencies. So OCD is a type of anxiety. I’m HLA B27 positive myself. It’s one of the things they found when I got diagnosed years ago.

But basically what that means is that during your healing journey you might discover the constant monitoring of your back pain. As soon as you wake up in the morning the first thing you look for is constant monitoring.

The constant checking in the constant trying different things, should I try the low starch diet, should I try that no starch diet, should I try the keto diet, should I try the aip, should I try this, all of these diets, all of these special exercise routines, all of these special stretches, all of this special support groups and researching on the internet and constantly looking for the next thing to fix yourself. Could be a manifestation of OCD. It could be a manifestation of the anxiety itself.

So just be aware that hopefully we’re getting through this book it may turn on that light bulb for you and you may realize. I wonder if this is so consuming it holds your attention. So well you know it’s so hard to shake it off. Because there’s something happening in the background.

So this book will help us get through any questions before we move on to the next section. So what if you’re HLA B27 negative but you still have a diagnosis. Are you saying that you have less of a chance of OCD? Is that even related because a lot of people don’t have that genetic marker.

A Better Way of Thinking to Overcome Anxiety

For me personally, my belief is that anxiety can create symptoms that are identical to OCD but that doesn’t necessarily mean you  have OCD. For people who are not HLA B27 positive you can still have OCD like symptoms.

But when it comes to genetic research HLA B27 has been found to be linked to not just ankylosing spondylitis but also OCD like tendencies. Now when we take a mind-body approach it’s beneficial to know that because it becomes easier to apply this approach in this book to the obsessive, compulsive tendencies that involve physical pain right.

So if you have physical pain and Dr Sarno says there’s nothing wrong with you.

This is how you distract yourself from your anxiety, this is how you distract yourself from your rage. The inflammation is normal, that’s normal degeneration in the spine, that’s normal, all of that is normal, there’s nothing wrong with you, it could be very hard for the person to accept that simply.

Because moving their focus to the pain is a compulsive thing. It’s one of the symptoms of the condition as a whole.

That keeps the person stuck in the condition as a whole.It’s bizarre but once the person knows they go, I see something interesting that’s why DR SARNO said to move your attention away from this thing.

Because moving my attention towards the back pain and towards the special rituals and the special diets is part of the condition as a whole.

Alright so that’s pretty much that.

So you can not have HLA B27 and still have some of that stuff and you can be HLA B27 and just be more aware that you’re more prone to this. But that doesn’t mean that you’re doomed. My OCD-like tendencies have disappeared for years. I haven’t had OCD like behavior in a long time. In a way I am extremely thankful because that’s the tendency that got me healed.

I became extremely obsessed with trying to understand the condition and it was just non-stop reading researching this etc and eventually the light bulb went on. Interestingly the disease itself keeps itself alive. Because of the behaviors, the patterns and the compulsions that it creates.

But what’s behind all of that and you go deeper into that. Oh really that feeling of trauma, that experience you can have your  healing from there, learn new life skills if necessary and things can take on a whole new meaning and they have private chat boxes.

My mom had HLA B27 no as but she definitely had obsessive tendencies and me too.

Those are the two comments in the private chat box, yes mom had OCD like tendencies. How can it manifest in the form of tension and physical pain in the children? Well if you have OCD like tendencies that puts a lot of stress, a lot of pressure and a lot of anxiety on children and as they get older that just becomes part of their personality.

So they may grow up to be perfectionists, they may grow up to be really anxious and very fearful of making mistakes and they don’t even know why they’re adults and they’re like, i can’t make mistakes this has to be perfect. It’s because as a child in the household you were not allowed to organize things in a certain way everything had to be a certain way.

So that’s pretty much that in the chat box we have definitely absolutely page 15 you can only take people as far as you have gone. Oftentimes the best insights and breakthroughs can come from outside the world of academia. While I have graduated in psychology I am not a clinical psychologist, therapist or doctor.

My unique understanding and skill in this area comes from direct personal experience of ending my own anxiety.

What I feel makes me more than qualified to help you is my 10-year track record of helping countless people end their anxiety disorders. Before we get into the details of the dear response I would like you to think of this book. As a journey worth taking together I’m going to be asking you to leave the safe haven of your comfort zone and travel with me to full recovery.

This won’t always be an easy journey. There will be times when you feel like quitting, but please don’t know you have what it takes to get there.

All right the same is true for everyone on these calls and about fitness clubs and those of you who listen to the audio afterwards due to your schedule restrictions. We’re all on this journey together you’re here because you’re ready, you’ve been dealing with this as bravely as you can and all you need now is someone to help you navigate your way to recovery.

You wouldn’t be reading this book if you didn’t have what it takes to get there. I know sometimes you felt like giving up but you didn’t. You kept searching. I salute your courage and thank you for placing your trust in me. These are not just words on a page.

I’m here rooting for you all the suffering in silence that you’ve endured, all the emotional pain none of it has been in vain. It serves a greater purpose in your life when you’re reading this book because you’re now ready for this bold journey.

Let’s be clear about one thing. This is the fastest approach I know to permanently heal your anxiety but your anxiety symptoms won’t vanish in a day. What you feel instead is a shift; it’s a bit like turning down the volume on an irritating radio. That’s broadcasting static; you’ll be able to go for longer and longer periods of time without even noticing this radio.

Eventually you’ll have to strain your ears to hear it and then silence beautifully. How will I know when I’ve reached a full recovery well before I read this part? I just know that most people don’t even notice.

They just forget the back pain, they forget the anxiety, they forget the panic attacks,they forget the depression and then a few days or weeks or months later “Oh hi Ralph hey, how you doing, how you been, oh i’ve been great, i didn’t even notice until i saw you post” that thing on instagram or some facebook group like i completely forgot about you rock but i’ve been great, i’m glad i feel better.

That’s usually how it goes. How will I know when I’ve reached a full recovery. You’re very near a full recovery when you’re no longer concerned with whether your anxious sensations are present or not. I’m not saying when you no longer feel anxious about incisions that will come later.

The most crucial point to reach right now is to get comfortable with your anxious discomfort that’s desensitizing. After that things get a lot easier you notice that you can go longer periods of time without thinking about anxiety.

You start checking in and the same applies, but if you have back pain you should just start checking in on the back pain. You forget all the time to see how you’re feeling until eventually you feel much less anxious.

In general the anxiety may pop back up from time to time to pay your visit. But you no longer fear it because you have the skill set to move through it quickly again. Before we begin, I want you to take a moment right now and imagine what your life will be like without anxiety issues.

So take a moment and imagine what your life will be like without your anxiety issue. What will that mean for you?

Maybe it will mean sharing more fun experiences with friends and family, maybe it will mean traveling to a new country or visiting friends far away, maybe it will simply mean being able to do everyday things, like drive, shop, move about without the oppressive feeling of being anxious all the time.

Whatever it is, I want you to think about what that will look like for you. We’ll come back to this exercise at the end of the book.

Now let’s begin your journey to full recovery. It really is a light at the end of the tunnel and no it’s not a strain coming, it’s not a tree coming at you and that concludes the introduction next week we will start page 18. I believe that’s the beginning of chapter one and we’ll begin the journey from there but so far it’s been a great introduction.

Does anyone have any questions or concerns that you would like to share? While we are still running the audio if you wish to answer your question after we’re done with the recording.

Then great, we’ll open up for our post recording discussion as usual. I always have a few minutes to just change and chat after the recording. Because some people don’t want their questions on record and if that’s you that’s perfectly understandable.

If you have any questions, comments that you are comfortable sharing with those who are listening to this later on in the future. Now is the time and remember you can use the chatbox.

So, we will end this topic here. I encourage you to share your thoughts and your comments in the comment section. Thank you for reading.

May you have a wonderful day.

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