Information you need to stay on The Journey. Articles and insights on anxiety, panic, and mental health recovery.
change your story self help cbtSep 22, 2025
Change Your Life Story And Change Your Life
In this video I explain the process by which we develop and grow chronic mental health problems. I know saying 'grow' seems like a strange phrase to use but the reality is that serious mental health problems don't just appear out of nowhere. We have to nourish and develop them to the point where they have enough strength to live on their own and then they take you over. One of the ways this process happens is that we develop stories about ourselves that, while they may feel 'valid and true' they only emphasis where you are NOW and how you feel about yourself NOW. They do not address what you can achieve and what you can become. They are stories of vulnerability and even weakness. At best they are a pale shadow of the totality of your being. At worst, they are a gross underestimation of who you are.
The Raw Chaos of Experience Opens The Door For Anxiety
Perception, action, and intention don't just passively receive reality; they impose structure on it: Perception filters incoming stimuli into recognizable patterns. Action gives a sense of agency and continuity ('I did this, now this happened'). Intention projects us into the future, linking present choices to imagined outcomes. All of this creates the experience of a coherent, mostly ordered world. What happens if the structuring is 'bad' or 'random'? If instead of organizing experience with useful, reality-tracking concepts (e.g., cause–effect, self–other), one imposes maladaptive or chaotic concepts (e.g., catastrophizing, self-blame, constant threat perception), the whole 'narrative' of life gets distorted.
Three Daily Practices That Help You Break Free from Anxiety and Depression. If you live with anxiety or depression it can feel as if life is happening to you rather than with you. Thoughts, feelings and behaviours appear on autopilot, leaving you exhausted, worried or flat. Yet there is a way to begin shifting these patterns from the inside out. In my work I call this approach Awakening, Growth and Control – three simple practices that together create a foundation for better mental health.
Self-confidence is a critically important element in a successful life. Without it life is much harder and with it life is much easier. From many years experience in helping people to become more self- confident I have collected the fundamental rules that govern how self-confident you are.
I recently visited Venice and it's just impossible to be there and not absorb the remarkable history and uniqueness of the place. All art is about creating something from nothing, from your imagination. Sure you can start with something you see in external reality but this is not essential. Art is creativity in action. The Art of Anxiety is also a story about creating something from nothing. But with The Art of Anxiety, you are not using your creativity for good, you are using it for ill.
Everyone I have ever spoken to about anxiety seems to think it has legitimate reasons to exist. I don't!. Anxiety is the experience of fear without a threat. Your brain can imagine a threat and this can make you feel anxious. But, the question you need to ask is this:- do I actually have a threat NOW that warrants my fear response NOW? Or, am I imagining something might happen in the future that would be horrible but has not actually happened!
How long does it take to recover from panic, anxiety and depression
It can be oh so easy to become engulfed in negative unpleasant symptoms of depression and anxiety. And it can be oh so easy to look for a quick and easy solution. So I looked into the science of how long it takes to recover from anxiety and depression and I show you what the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) have to say. NICE is the definitive opinion on matters of health and wellbeing so it is worth taking their assessment of the science seriously.
Anxiety is created by your brain and can only be solved by your brain, but here is the problem. Anxiety is a mistake made by your brain. So unless you do something different it is quite possible that nothing can change. The first mistake creates others and you get trapped in a loop of mistakes that feed on each other. To be free of anxiety you must learn what these mistakes are and then teach your brain to stop making them.
There are few thing more unhelpful than a self destructive mindset. I am sure we can all agree about that. But, what might a self destructive mindset look like. Well, it looks like self limiting beliefs in action. In this video I talk about how self limiting beliefs are formed, how to recognize them and then how to transform them.
Don't slide or sleepwalk it's just a very bad idea.
Our lives are mostly run on autopilot. And thank goodness, because the simplest of human tasks is often far beyond the most complex robot so far constructed. Also, a huge benefit of having things run on autopilot is that we don't have to spend any of our precious consciousness to manage it. Consciousness can be left to manage more complex problems such as where to park the car or what to eat for dinner. But Zombie programs can also cause serious problems.