The Anxious Truth - A Panic, Anxiety, and Mental Health Podcast

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When compulsions are behavioral, like hand washing or door checking, they are easy to identify. But when they are mental in nature, things get much fuzzier. In this episode, I’m joined by OCD specialist Lauren Rosen to take the mystery out of mental compulsions and explain why your "problem-solving" brain is actually keeping you stuck.
We break down the critical difference between having an intrusive thought (the obsession) and what you intentionally dowith that thought (the compulsion). Whether you are struggling with OCD, panic disorder, or health anxiety, learning to recognize internal behaviors like mental review, rumination, and self-flagellation is a vital step toward psychological flexibility.
What We Discuss:
Defining Mental Compulsions: Why internal behaviors like rumination, mental review, and rehearsing are active choices, not just "thoughts".
The "No Equipment" Sport: How the ease and invisibility of mental compulsions make them particularly consuming and re-triggering.
Thoughts vs. Thinking: Using the "square root of 17" analogy to identify when you have moved from a passive thought into an active mental behavior.
The Identity Trap: Why we often mistake worrying and "thoughtfulness" for a core part of our identity or a tool for safety.
Shifting Attention: How to stop compulsing without suppressing thoughts or getting into a perfectionistic battle with your own mind.
About Lauren Rosen:
Lauren is a licensed psychotherapist and the Director of The Center for the Obsessive Mind. She is the author of The Mental Compulsions Workbook for OCD and co-host of the Purely OCD podcast. 
Recovery is a journey of small, brave leaps of faith. You feel real fear, but you are not in real danger. Let’s get into it.
For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/337
Lauren's Instagram
Lauren's Website
The Mental Compulsions Workbook for OCD
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

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When a blizzard or thunderstorm is in the forecast, do you find your anxiety levels spiking long before the first snowflakes or raindrops fall? You aren’t alone. Many people struggling with anxiety disorders or chronic states of anxiety find themselves extra triggered by significant weather events. In this episode, we’re looking at why anxiety and weather often go hand-in-hand and why it isn't actually the snow or rain that is the problem. 

We dive into the two underlying processes that create the "bad weather trap." First, we explore the "trapped" or isolated feeling that arises when a storm might prevent help from reaching you—or you from reaching help. Second, we discuss how any major stressor, like an unprecedented storm, can quickly morph into an internal experience of fear and panic for an anxious person. 

I’ll explain why building metacognitive awareness is a critical part of the recovery process and how you can use these weather events as opportunities to watch the "anxiety machine" at work. 

Key Topics Covered:
Why bad weather feels like a medical or psychiatric emergency. 
The "rescue" myth: Why you feel you need saving, even when you aren't in danger. 
How stress and apprehension quickly turn into fear and vulnerability. 
Using mindfulness and acceptance-based approaches to navigate the storm - internally. 
Practical steps for building awareness when your brain insists on going into emergency mode.

For full notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/336
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.
When you have an anxiety disorder, it can feel like your list of fears and triggers just keeps getting longer. You might have started being afraid of one or two things, but now it seems like everything sets you off. Driving, being home alone, intrusive thoughts, physical sensations, even opening a new bottle of medication.

Despite what it feels like, you're actually only afraid of one thing.

All those different triggers lead to the same place, no matter how varied they seem. Whether it's a health worry, a fear of losing control, or an intrusive thought, they all create the same internal experience. Your heart races, your body floods with adrenaline, and you feel overwhelmed by fear and discomfort. You've learned to fear how you feel, and those feelings trick you into believing your thoughts must be accurate.

This is different from regular anxiety, where people worry about external things happening in their lives. In an anxiety disorder, the internal experience becomes the problem.

Understanding this might be helpful because it means you don't have to tackle 35 different fears one by one. You're working on one thing: learning to be okay with uncomfortable internal experiences, even when they feel terrible. You're experiencing real fear, but you're not in real danger.

I talk about why this happens, how it keeps you stuck, and what you can do about it.

As always, this episode contains suggestions based on acceptance and mindfulness approaches that may be helpful in your recovery journey. I'm not promising fixes or cures, just offering a different way to think about what you're experiencing.
For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/335
The Disordered Podcast (weekly with me and Josh Fletcher)
https://disordered.fm
Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.
If you've been searching online for ways to deal with your anxiety, you've probably noticed there's an avalanche of information claiming to be "science-based" or "evidence-based." But here's the problem. That isn't always true.

This week I'm joined by Dr. Birthe Macdonald, a research psychologist and cognitive neuroscientist, to talk about why online mental health information is so confusing and full of misinformation. We discuss why things that aren't actually science still look like fact when you're struggling and searching for relief.

We touch on polyvagal theory and vagus nerve claims, SPECT brain scans and their limitations, genetic testing for antidepressants, and why confident voices with credentials can be so convincing even when the science doesn't support their claims.

Dr. Macdonald shares insights on what makes good science (hint: it's humble and tries to disprove itself) and why you should probably be most skeptical of those who sound the most confident.

The goal here is helping you become a more critical consumer of mental health information so you can make informed decisions about your wellbeing. Be skeptical of everything you consume online, including me. If someone claims something is science-based, question it.

That said, if you find something helpful that's moving you forward and not hurting you, keep using it. You deserve information you can actually trust.
Useful Links:
Dr. Macdonald's website
Her journal club page
Her instagram
Episode 124 of Disordered

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.

Send in a question or comment via text.
If you're struggling with panic disorder, health anxiety, OCD, GAD, or other anxiety issues you've may have encountered online content that references Stoicism, warrior philosophy, and Marcus Aurelius. The message: master your emotions, be tough, control your fear through discipline and suffering.

But that's not what Marcus Aurelius was actually writing about.

In this episode, I dig into what Marcus actually wrote in his Meditations—his personal diary that accidentally survived 2,500 years. When you read his actual words, you see a man repeatedly struggling with the same issues: getting out of bed, dealing with difficult people, managing anger. The repetition isn't proof of mastery. It's evidence of practice.

For people with anxiety disorders, the modern misinterpretation of Stoicism can be harmful. Panic disorder, OCD, health anxiety, and GAD are all fueled by attempts to control internal experiences. The therapeutic approaches that work—acceptance and commitment therapy, exposure therapy, mindfulness—work because they teach psychological flexibility, not control.

Real courage isn't "I don't feel fear." Real courage is "I feel afraid AND I'm doing this anyway."

Topics covered:
- What Marcus Aurelius actually wrote (specific passages from Meditations)
- Why the "warrior approach" doesn't work for anxiety disorders
- The masculine shame trap that keeps men stuck
- What Stoicism really teaches about control
- Why flexibility beats toughness in anxiety recovery

Resources mentioned: The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius (Modern Library translation)
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The Disordered Guide to Health Anxiety is here
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For full show notes on this episode:
https://theanxioustruth.com/333

Support The Anxious Truth: If you find the podcast helpful and want to support my work, you can buy me a coffee. Other ways to support my work like buying a book or signing up for a low cost workshop can be found on my website. None of this is never required, but always appreciated!

Interested in doing therapy with me? For more information on working with me directly to overcome your anxiety, follow this link.

Disclaimer: The Anxious Truth is not therapy or a replacement for therapy. Listening to The Anxious Truth does not create a therapeutic relationship between you and the host or guests of the podcast. Information here is provided for psychoeducational purposes. As always, when you have questions about your own well-being, please consult your mental health and/or medical care providers. If you are having a mental health crisis, always reach out immediately for in-person help.