Welcome to another important episode of the Health Anxiety Podcast Show. I’m Dennis Simsek and this episode is brought to you by Something Special, a brand new health anxiety university platform dedicated to providing long-term relief from health anxiety. No longer complication around health anxiety healing, no longer the noise and distraction of social media, no more ads, no more bombardment of private messages, a safe and healing community of people that will inspire you to reach your health anxiety recovery once and for all. So check out the link in the description and we’d love to have you there.
The Golden Key to Long-Term Relief from Health Anxiety
In this episode, we are just going to touch on one word, very simple but very powerful. The word comes from someone very, very special to me. And that is Dr. Claire Weeks. Dr. Claire Weeks has some amazing books around panic, nervous suffering, healing those sensitive nerves. And Dr. Claire Weeks talks about the word accept. And we are going to dive deep into the word accept today because it really does hold the golden key towards your long-term relief from health anxiety recovery.
Mental Acceptance: Separating Conscious and Unconscious Thoughts
Now, when I mean accept, I’m talking about a few different words. Ways of accepting. Okay, let’s dive into those.
Understanding Mental Acceptance
Accept mentally, which means we need to learn how to separate an unconscious thought from a conscious thought. And provide focus and energy to the conscious thought more often. So people that don’t accept mentally experience an unconscious thought. They wake up in the morning and front and center. That idea that is usually there is there again in the morning. And they start to give focus and energy to that unconscious thought. Related to symptoms, future catastrophe, staying within your comfort zones and so on.
Embracing Conscious Thoughts
Now, in that very moment, if we can really just accept the thought for what it is. An unconscious way of trying to keep us safe from anything new. Anything unexpected. Uncertain. Any of the unknowns of the future. If we can just see it for what it is. Rather than give focus and energy to it. Then what tends to happen? If we don’t give focus and energy to something. It starts to go away. And naturally, something else takes its place. So our job here around the word accept is to accept mentally. To differentiate between a thought that you are creating. And a thought that has a purpose. And a thought that has been so automated within your mind.
Emotional Acceptance: Permission to Feel Without Judgment
Now, when we talk about accept, we’re also talking about accepting emotionally. Emotional acceptance means to give yourself permission. Permission. A very important word. I use this word very, very often. In my main podcast on YouTube. To give yourself permission to feel negative and positive emotions without judgment.
Understanding Emotional Permission
A health anxiety sufferer will have a moment of feeling a negative emotion. Feeling down on themselves. A heightened level of anxiousness around something. And automatically go down the rabbit hole. And that rabbit hole can take you to places where you never thought you’d be in. Maybe the emergency room. Maybe crying on somebody’s couch. A good friend. Maybe just bewilderedly. Walking around in public. Maybe stuck in your room. Maybe lying down and confused and overwhelmed mentally and physically.
Embracing Negative Feelings
So accepting emotionally means you need to understand that it’s okay to experience negative feelings and emotions. It’s not that you have to fall for the interpretation around the emotion that is coming from your lower self. Or your little me. Because your little me will say, no, no, no, we have to be happy, happy, happy. We cannot experience a negative feeling or emotion or else we will be judged or else people will think we’re crazy or we won’t be a part of the herd. And whatever other excuse that little me is giving you.
Allowing Yourself to Feel
However, once you start respecting, once you start allowing and giving yourself permission. I’m feeling sad right now. Good. Feel sad. I’m feeling angry. Feel angry. I’m feeling anxious about a symptom. Is it a potential this or a potential that? Go ahead. Accept it for what it is and feel it. Feel it fully. But whatever you do, don’t act upon it. Because once you act upon it, you are justifying the original fear. So this is. You can consider this as a practice opportunity, my friends.
Progress Through Acceptance
Anytime something comes up emotionally, all you have to think of, okay, this is great because now I get to practice. You don’t heal health anxiety by feeling good all the time. You heal health anxiety based on how you deal with your internal challenges. And that separates people that are still suffering from people that are in a much better place. And we talk about this in the Health Anxiety University. So when you get that challenging opportunity, you need to understand that your progress, tons of progress, is supercharged depending on the way you handle that challenge. Will you accept it or will you feed into it?
Physical Acceptance: Honoring Sensations and Responding Mindfully
Now the third and final acceptance idea comes to us physically. You need to accept physically. And physical acceptance means to feel into sensations. And to guide them physically rather than succumb to the irrational idea around them.
Understanding Physical Acceptance
So yes, when we talk about emotions, we’re talking about body. When we’re talking about the physical aspect, we’re talking about symptoms. We’re talking about effects. Effects based on a cause. And cause is the interpretation of danger or the chronic experience of overwhelm, exhaustion, right?
Responding Mindfully
Physical acceptance means, okay, I got the sensation. I have the symptom. And if I’m getting some kind of a physical reaction, I need to respond physically. I don’t want to engage in a tug of war between my higher self and lower self in terms of thinking. So you go to the physical body and you release the tension. You relieve yourself of tension in specific parts of your body. And you start using your hands.
Embracing Physical Actions
Because when you’re afraid, you’re afraid of what’s going to happen to you. You don’t use your hands when you’re speaking, right? When you’re free and at ease, just like the Italianos do, they use their hands. They move their hands. What about your facial expressions? Are you frowning? Can you put a smile on your face even in that moment of experiencing some element of health anxiety? Of course you can.
Embracing Inner Dialogue
Little me will say, no, you can’t. You can’t do that. You can’t do this. You’ll never heal. You’ve suffered for too long. It’s your job to go, hey, little me, I don’t hate you. I’ve hated you for so long and I’ve tried to distract from you and get rid of you and it’s not working. So I’m going to start working with you. I’m going to start appreciating you. I’m actually going to start loving you. Thank you for all the protection, but let me guide you in a new direction. And you do that in a physical manner.
The Journey Towards Long-Term Relief: A Path of Transformation
So the word accept, must be front and center in terms of our mindset going forward. And if you can adopt acceptance in the mental area, in the emotional and the physical area, then you’re going to get there.
Embracing Acceptance
You’re going to heal this once and for all. Don’t expect to do it tomorrow, next week, next month. However, as soon as you put the time pressure away, you start to go, well, there’s a part of me that actually enjoys this experience of development, this experience of personal growth.
Breaking Free from Victimhood
And if you can just tap into that level of enjoyment around this, then I promise you, you’re no longer going to circle around victimhood. Victimhood, right, is something that can become very, very patternized. It can be a habit and it can become an identity. I’m just a victim.
Embracing Change
And even when something good happens to you, you don’t believe you deserve it because your identity is connected to victimhood. But that’s not a place where we want to live anymore. We want to move. And when you move from one country to another, there’s all sorts of new challenges.
Finding Empowerment in Choice
They can be looked at as setbacks and challenges, or they can be exciting. You can be playful around them. And I promise you, this is just like moving from one house to another, from one country to another. And it is up to you to understand that you have choices in relation to how you unconsciously think and feel. You always have a choice. And that’s powerful, my friends.
Join Us on the Path to Long-Term Relief
As mentioned in the beginning of this podcast, come on over to the Health Anxiety University. We are waiting for you. Just click on the link in the description of this podcast. And I can’t wait to get to know you better in our weekly live meetups. I love you all from the bottom of my heart. Have a wonderful day. And I’ll see you in the next episode. Bye, my friends.
