Episode #16 - Interview with The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek

Malvin Young (00:00):

Welcome to Be x Do = Have a simple formula to Uncomplicate your life. My name is Malvin Young. I'm a speaker entrepreneur and brand partnership manager with a well-known TV production company. This show is about a straightforward formula that I've used to coach hundreds of people over the last 15 years to overcome many challenges. Personally, I don't like to coach on any area of life that I haven't improved on myself. So lucky for you. I've had to overcome big challenges in the areas of relationship, finances, health, anxiety, and depression. Then after a crazy car accident, I had to do it all over again. I'm really excited about this show today, because what I'm about to share with you is made a huge impact on my life. And more importantly, I've seen many others who have practices methods, breakthrough barriers that have been holding them back their entire lives.

Malvin Young (00:52):

Also, please subscribe to get the most value out of this podcast. As each episode, we'll build on each other. Welcome to episode number 16. I am so excited for this episode because today I have a special guest speaker, somebody that I have looked up to for many years now in the world of anxiety, health, anxiety, and depression, his name is actually The Anxiety Guy. His real name is Dennis Simsek and he's somebody who has been making a difference, a real difference in the world of anxiety and depression. He is a number one best selling author on Amazon with two books, one of them called coping and start healing, which is an amazing book that I'm deep into right now. And his other book is called me versus myself. He is a coach and somebody who coaches from a really authentic place. He has gone through anxiety, health, anxiety, depression, and he'll share a story with us here today.

Malvin Young (01:58):

It's an amazing story. And what I love about him is that health, anxiety and anxiety, depression is something really hard to talk about. He's opened himself up to the world. He has trained in so many different healing modalities, such as NLP neuro-linguistic programming, hypnotherapy, cognitive behavioral training, and he's brought them together within his own experiences and has created such great tools and content for people who are going through this nasty anxiety and depression that we go through sometimes. And he's really making an impact on the world. So without further ado, I'm so excited to have him here today. The Anxiety Guy, Dennis Simsek, Dennis, thank you so much for being on the show here with me today. It's really an honor and a privilege to have you here with me. I know my guests are going to really love this conversation that we're going to have here today. Just a little bit upfront here. I want to say that Dennis, you don't know this, but literally you probably saved my life, man. Like I found your information, your content probably when you very first started out in creating content around anxiety and depression. And I found that content and it was the first thing that I could relate to that gave me hope. So really thank you so much for being on the show. And yeah, I just want to say thank you, man.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (03:33):

You're very welcome. And thank you for trusting in the content and the information that's fabulous. I'm looking forward to this interview, my friend.

Malvin Young (03:42):

Well, that is it's you know, one of the things that really hit me hard when I listened to your content was a first that like I was like, wow, somebody understands me or somebody exactly like me. Like I was like depressed. Then I was listening to your stuff. And I was like laughing so hard because it was like so exact, there was no money that I've, I've spoken to doctors and psychiatrists and you know, there's so many people that really thought they knew this world. But what I realized is that you don't know this world until you go through it in this way. And so I, I would really love for you to share your story with our audience here, because it's an amazing story. I know it's filled with a lot of ups and downs but through that, it's the journey that's just so frayed, so much hope for people. And I'd love you to share your journey with us here to start off.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (04:40):

Sure. yeah. You know, the, the shortened version of the journey is basically my anxiety disorder. As I go deeper and deeper into this work. I find out that my anxiety disorder basically started while I was in the womb, you know, it's started with before I even got to this planet. And so I realized that juring this thing we call an anxiety disorder. It's, it's very common to, to think that the anxiety is coming from something recent or something situational or from some person or some experience that you've had recently. And I realized how early my anxiety started, which actually gave me a tremendous amount of insight and furthered my curiosity over what I was experiencing. So my story, you know, when it comes to my story, anxiety started very young. It was a pressure filled life, and it was it was, you know, two people, my parents trying to do the best they could with, with their only child and with great intentions, trying to guide them through this thing, we call life and providing the rules and providing the belief systems and such that would in their eyes would, would create a loving and a loving person.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (06:24):

Unfortunately, that amount of pressure led me to experiencing such deep levels of sensitivity, not only towards the situations I experienced and the people I came in contact with in my life, but also anything that symptomatically arose within my body, within my mind and such, because of anxiety. So there I was, you know, going through my childhood years and trying to figure this thing out and looking to fit in, in some way with other people, you know, kids in school and such and not really ever feeling like there was something concrete there with anybody really, you know, I, I didn't really fit in because I was the kind of person that over-thought everything. And most of my schoolmates were the kinds of people that were just, you know, I feel it and I want to do it and I'll go do it. Whereas I was the kind of person that was like, well, you know, this could go wrong or this could happen.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (07:36):

I better not do this. Or I could, they could see me this way. I could lose this, whatever it is. So my overthinking habit really started young and I got really, really good at it quickly. And so that anxiety and that level of pressure followed me into my teens, into my early twenties. I dabbled with the idea of committing suicide and I actually wrote out the plan and that was all going to happen. And on the day, and then there was just one reason. And I mentioned this story quite often. I, one reason that pulled me away from that bridge that one day, and that was the birth of my child who gave me the strength and, and the insight eventually to be able to look within and to heal what I wanted to heal. And that took some time. And that took a lot of patients.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (08:30):

But this story is, is really related to a compounding effect, my friend, where the, the, the, the feeling of being distraught and the emotional distress and all that sort of stuff, and the addiction to suffering, which really was what it was the addiction to suffering was in place in every single aspect of my life, because I sabotage relationships. I sabotage any happy moments. I felt like I didn't deserve it. And in the back of my mind I realized later on that I had merged with a parent, you know, my father, I had become my father in many, many ways. So this story really comes down to me realizing that I was a mold of one or multiple people and pulling myself out of that, and then applying certain exercises and new belief systems to be able to become who I was genuinely meant to become. And then that took a lot of honesty. And then that's a place that a lot of people have a ton of fear going, is that really honest place to look within and say, you know what, I really have to look at the dark in order to see the light. So, so that's what I had to do

Malvin Young (09:57):

That is you know, the thing that I relate to a lot in your story and, and just for our listeners to know here when you go to Dennis's website, The Anxiety Guy, and I'll, I'll leave all that information later. And I know you gave us the reader's digest version of your story here today, but within that, there's so many little pieces that like, you know, anyone dealing with things it, when they listen to those pieces, they're going to go me too. That's exactly me too. And the one part like, well, the bunch of parts that I really relate to in, within your stories, as you share them is the health anxiety side. Like I personally dealt with like really strong panic attacks, but it was the obsession that something was wrong. That was like, just killing me. I mean, it was 99.9% of my day was occupied by thinking that something is wrong with me and I'm going to die. And I, it was just, you know, to hear when I was listening to your stories about, you know, running to the doctors and, you know, checking out one symptom multiple times,

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (11:15):

I'm laughing, obsessive nonstop.

Malvin Young (11:22):

I w I would go to a doctor and they would say, everything is absolutely fine. And I'd be like, no, man, that doctor's not smart.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (11:30):

They don't know. They didn't find it. Someone else will.

Malvin Young (11:35):

It was things like that, that they're very hard to talk about. And you talk about them so openly, and I really relate to them, but I would love to talk about, you know, panic attacks in itself because people relate to that in so many different ways. For me, specifically, panic attack meant I was going to die right now. Like that's how strong my panic attack for. And it was so dark that I couldn't see anything else, but death. And it was a very scary place, but I'd love you. And some of the tools you shared with me really helped. One of them was allow it to happen, you know, really just allow us to run through rather than resisting that all the time. But if you could share your experience with health, anxiety and panic attack, like some of those stories were just blew me away.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (12:24):

Sure. I mean, when it comes to panic attacks I realized that the panic attack itself is nothing more than a reliving of a traumatic event from the past period. Now that event could have been directly connected to you, or it could have been something that you witnessed. It could have been something generational, right? A generational trauma. So the panic attack itself. And when we go through a panic attack and we realized that this is more so, or this is a reliving of a traumatic event, we can get to a place where we recognize that we have more options in terms of how to perceive the upcoming situation or the present situation that may cause the panic attack. So it's this level of insight, this level of depth that really takes people out of their suffering and into inner peace. Now, when it comes to health anxiety itself, I'm a big believer that health anxiety has a lot to do with an unconditional and everlasting love for life.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (13:32):

You know, when you look at a health anxiety suffering, you go, okay, well, they're dealing with something here. And we look at the symptom, we look at everything that we can sense that that I'm in at a conscious level, and what's right there in front of us, but we never take the time to peel the onion. Just a couple steps below what we see at the surface and health anxieties and unconditional love for life. We don't want to lose what we have. We love health. We love the people around us. We love being alive. We love experiencing every aspect of what this life is and the idea of losing it causes us to become so sensitized. So sensitized to the point where we'll find sensitivity within either the situation and that'll be generalized anxiety, or we'll find it within the symptoms and sensations within us and will misinterpret them to the point where they get so strong that we literally are convincing ourselves, that we have a physical illness.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (14:40):

Not only ourselves, we convinced everybody in our life. If we can write, we want to talk about this stuff as much as we can, because it's like a volcano. And if you don't erupt, and if you don't share this information with someone, you're going to go crazy. At least you're going to feel like you're going crazy. So health anxiety is an unconditional love for life health things. It is a symptom. Panic attacks are reliving of traumatic events that can be resolved and reframed notice in a lot of my work comes from this understanding that you have to clean up what happened and what's unresolved in your past in order to live the kind of life you want to in the present. Lot of people today do things like meditation. They do the exercising, they do, you know, they join groups and such, and they do all these things that are very great, but great.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (15:40):

When you're in the maintenance stage, right? So first and foremost, it's the idea of going through the, the, the resolving and the, the suppressed emotions and resolving those things and making peace with your father, making peace with your mother and making peace. And this was a whole nother topic, but making peace and building a new relationship with the inner child within you, which is directly connected to your sensations and symptoms that are connected to how things it, that inner child that is creating these feelings in the body that are creating these misinterpretations is coming from a loving place, is coming from a place of protectiveness and safety. The last thing this inner child wants is for you to change. It believes that the anxiety and the fear itself got you to this age, that is the very reason for your survival. So why would it want you to change anything?

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (16:49):

All of a sudden you present an idea of inner peace and freedom and all this stuff, and a new interpretation of love that doesn't connect a fear, and you believe a lot of people believe that the inner child is just going to accept it just because you did a couple of good things for yourself, it doesn't work that way. So when it comes to health anxiety, man, it was every day, it was relentless. It was, I need to talk to somebody about this. It was, I better go to the emergency room in order for me to make sure that my health is okay. I need someone to tell me things are going to be all right, like all the time, basically. And it's a very lonely journey, health things. I, it is so lonely. It is so debilitating. People don't understand how dark it is. They really don't. They don't understand how dark it is. They don't understand how consuming it is. You can't, you cannot be involved in what's taking place in the present moment at all, when you have health anxiety.

Malvin Young (18:04):

Yeah. I agree that that was the biggest challenge for me. Dennis is like, my life literally became, so I couldn't even have an additional thought on top of what I was thinking. Cause it was that strong and consuming and it is a very lonely place. And that is, you said one thing back there to that earlier about cleaning up the past. And I found that interesting because that's some of the work that I had to do. I wasn't getting anywhere, unless I really looked far enough back at where this was coming from, but also taking responsibility for, you know, how I played that out. My part of it, not that, like, not that the event itself was my fault, but how I interpret the event and then how I used it for the rest of my life was really my, my responsibility. And I had to own that before anything really changed.

Malvin Young (18:58):

But that is the hardest work to do, but yet the most rewarding. So it's like, I, I just got to a point where I was in backed up against a wall and I had no choice. I just had to do this work or there was no purpose anymore of living. So I got down to the hard work and it paid off. I mean, not everything instantly, but there was definitely a new opportunity to build a new life because I was able to kind of put that stuff to rest, kind of see it in a different way. So that was definitely helpful. And a lot of things you on that, cause I've heard your language around that a lot. You were growing through this and, and creating new content out there, but the panic part of being in such a dark place, and we talked, you talked about it being, so it's such a struggle for people. And when I think we both know it, you say it and I can completely relate to it. It's like, it's so dark that you can't see anything else, nothing, but when people are in that place and they don't, let's just say they have no tools right now, no concept, nowhere to go like, and you can give them one thing to do right now. What would they do? Like if they're in that place where they're so consumed in their mind, what is that one tool that you give people when they're in that place?

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (20:23):

Honestly, the one tool is, is just to simply stop because is stop pause not even reflect, just allow the reflection to be a natural by-product of you stopping the stopping part is the most difficult part because you know, when the fight or flight system is constantly activated and you're tired, but wired, you're going through your life with this idea of I have to do, do, do you know, I have to do something for myself. I have to take this supplement or this new herb I have to do this new technique. And the doing in fact is causing you to create so much an immense amount of willpower and to will yourself through this, rather than do the opposite of what your system and the organism wants you to do, which is stop. And honestly, the stopping part creates so much more clarity than any information that you'll find on the outside.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (21:23):

It's just the idea of stopping and that stopping could be sitting, stopping, could be walking in natures, stopping could be laying down, but just stop and come from a place of more. So curiosity and understanding as to what and why you're experiencing what you're experiencing. Because we live in this world where, you know, the moment we wake up, we are bombarded with information that says your healing is on the outside. It's this product is this tool. It's this person and the, the amount and the amount that people are making these days based on the self-help world. And the motivational world is a very tricky place that people need to be very aware of. Because when you're met with constant motivation, what tends to happen is you get this sudden burst of serotonin and dopamine hitting your system and you like it. And you feel that moment of progression.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (22:29):

You feel like I have hope here, you lose hope. And what do you do? You go back to the motivation, right? You start suffering and go back to the motivation. So we have to be very careful in terms of, you know, what we're applying for our healing and my advice for people out there that are healing is just stop. Do your best to find peace within that, stop and jot down and become curious over the clarity that you gained because you stopped. You know, honestly, this it's so important that that people take the time to, to do this as a, an initial step, because there's a difference between information and wisdom. Information can take you a certain distance along the path, and the information comes from the outside and other people and such, but the wisdom is the very thing that heals you and continues to heal you. And that wisdom cannot arise until you've given your system that kind of

Speaker 3 (23:41):

Love

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (23:42):

Care, attention, the kind of pause that it needs in order for it to absorb what's truly going on and to share with your mind what's the next steps may be. So instead of feeling like the next steps, come from the information on the outside, we need to understand that the next steps in your healing comes from the wisdom from the inside. And in order for that to happen, you have to make peace with peace. You have to make peace with silence. You have to make peace with the very thing that your organism doesn't want you to do. And that is to stop. So I would suggest that to be a place that people begin investigating a little bit more along this journey.

Malvin Young (24:30):

Yeah. And I appreciate that and I appreciate the part of, you know, stop, but look at it. You were saying more from a curiosity and an observer more or less rather than like

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (24:42):

Don't even think about it, honestly, because what's really interesting is is that anything can work for anybody at any time, right? I'm not a big believer that this program or this way is the only way this person's right, that person's wrong. No, everybody's right. Because you could come at anxiety from a spiritual perspective. And that could be the very thing that person needs in that moment. Right? You could come from it from a cognitive perspective and shifts, you know, the CBT and such, and that could work for a person, but there's one thing that will definitely work for everybody. And that is the ability to move from a place of looking to solve your anxiety from an intellectual perspective. And moving from that place towards an intuitive perspective to say, Oh my God, I don't just, I'm not just going to try something. I know what I need to do. Right. And in order for that, knowing to arise, we have to go against what our systems are telling us to do. And so that's why it's very valuable to dabble with and become curious over the side idea of simply slowing down your life and stopping and pausing and all that sort of stuff that goes against, you know, what the sympathetic system wants you to do. And it's basically just this go, go, go kind of feeling.

Malvin Young (26:09):

Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, you touched on a point there on a personal development world. And I, I pers like I was involved in a lot of personal development, mainly because of the nature of my work at that time, I was a consultant and I used to work with companies on developing their business culture. So a lot of that had to do with personal transformation as well. However, I found when I was in my deepest ruts of health anxiety, that personal development was actually bad for me in the sense that yeah, and what was, what I mean by that was that I got all these cool tools and strategies, but I wasn't capable of executing because I was so consumed. So it made me more depressed. It was like, I can't. So it was just like now my whole personal development time, I would say there were times that I went, where I got tons of value and it was transformational, but it was those times when I was really stuck deep in that health anxiety, I pay $1,500, $2,000, get on a plane and go somewhere and I'm sitting there and I'm not even in the course, I'm in my head, I'm worried about, Oh my God, I don't have health coverage here.

Malvin Young (27:26):

And I got to go see a doctor I'm starting to freak out. You know? So I found that, all that information, great. I was getting it. I was paying for it, but it was frustrating me that I couldn't use it at that time. So I really believe there is a, you know, kind of a, a process that people have to go through to kind of, you know, get to a stage where they can maybe execute other type of strategies. But at the beginning, I think stop is just a beautiful thing. Just stop, let it go. And try to maybe look a little internal rather than external.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (28:01):

Exactly. I mean, depending on when you ask me, I'll probably have a different answer and this moment it stopped. Right. And it's possibly tomorrow, it'll be a different answer and they're all right. And they're all right. And they all work. Yeah. And yeah, I mean, what we've, you know, when it comes to living with an anxiety disorder, I think I think we really need to deeply understand this, this addiction to suffering and this addiction to suffering is this idea that life is a struggle and I'm today. And in this moment, I must find unconsciously. I must find some way to live up to that suffering, right. And whether I do it through health anxiety, or whether I break up a relationship or whether I find something wrong in something or someone, whether I watch a dramatic movie or whether, you know, my car breaks down, I need, and this is all unconscious. I need to fulfill the goals that are written within my core beliefs that started at such a young age. This is everything, to be honest with you right now,

Malvin Young (29:16):

They're just going to say until I got to that level of understanding myself, I really struggle hard, but I did realize it was a lot of early events in my life that created a lot of the trauma. I do talk a lot about while I had a car accident, you know, in 2012, and I had to kind of restart my whole life and journey again. But the reality is that obsession and addiction and to health, anxiety, and sabotage that was really embedded and programmed at a very young age. I think the car accident just heightened it a lot for me, you know, and it really kind of put me in a place where, you know, I couldn't work. I was really struggling at that time. I felt like I lost everything. So therefore that old programming became very,

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (30:08):

Was that the starting point for your healing was that accident

Malvin Young (30:15):

Two starting points for me and healing because I was going through the healing process before the car accident, but I did call it arrive. I've reached this point in my life where I was flowing life was happening. Like I would get up on stage and I would talk, or I would be working with a corporation. And it was like, I didn't even have to prepare. It was like, God was talking through me almost, you know, like I was having these experiences where I wasn't resisting life, life was just working. And then here I go to my very first bass tournament, bass fishing tournament bought a brand new boat, ready to go to this tournament, fished on my way back. Car pulls out in front of me, head on collision. And my life changed again. I was like, Oh my God, none of this stuff works anymore.

Malvin Young (31:06):

Everything that got me here is a bunch of BS. I don't believe in this whole law of attraction anymore. I don't not anymore. I just, I totally went through this whole anger stage, you know, so I say it was a second time of restarting the process and this time was much better in the sense that it was harder, but I got more value from it because when I got through the anger portion actually got to a part in my life now where I turn around and say, thank you God, for that accident. Thank you. That, that happened to me. I'm very appreciative because if it hadn't, it wouldn't have shook up my life the way it did and it wouldn't have allowed me to get me connected to me. So I think it was the second time around where I took it a lot more serious than the first time. So yeah, it was very interesting, but what's great about your material is it's timeless in that sense because I went right back to your stuff again.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (32:05):

Oh, good. Good, good, very good.

Malvin Young (32:10):

Led me on to a lot of other type of looking and exploring a different healing modalities. And you know I did want to talk to you also about medications because I know a lot of people that go through anxiety, it's just so easy. You know, depression and anxiety. It's so easy to take the medication, but I personally myself know that maybe there's a time and place for medicine, but I personally don't think it helped me in any way I had to learn, get away from that and look at other modalities. But would you, would you be able to touch on a little bit about medications and I know you had experience with that as well.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (32:48):

I did just to give a little bit of background. My, my system completely rejected antidepressants, but it completely accepted at the beginning stages clonazepam. And so I took this pill and at the beginning stages and my God, the relief was, was sudden. It was like right away. I couldn't believe it. You know, my bodily symptoms weren't there. My, my thoughts were clear. There wasn't a cloud over me and I was functioning. Like I was functional in society. And so I said, Oh my God, this is it. This is it. Like all of that suffering, you know, comes down to this. This is what peace and calm this feels like. And so months went by and what tends to happen with my body was it got used to the dose. So I had to up the dose and went to the doctor.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (33:41):

Could you give me more, give me more. And I started to abuse it as most people do. And I'm looking for that initial, you know, high again, right. That calmness. And so I got myself to a point where I was in really deep trouble because not only was I dealing with an anxiety disorder, but it was compounded at this point by me being addicted to these, this drug that allowed me, or made me slur my words, which led me to losing my job and relationships and such. And now I wasn't a complete mess, you know, and here I am, I I'm going to have a hard time withdrawing from this and underlying it. I've got an anxiety disorder. And then, and so who was so dark and I was searching for anything and everything in order for me to find a path towards freedom and then a natural path.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (34:42):

So for me and my experience it wasn't, it wasn't a pleasant experience. I do have the feeling that, you know, benzodiazepines when used properly at the right time can give you the clarity that you need in order to, to implement the work that you're doing. But most definitely it should definitely not be the very thing you rely on in order to heal. And and, but the inner child, you know, when we talk about the subconscious mind, it'll do everything in its power in order for you not to to engage in this recovery work at a deep level, right? It will, it will come up with excuses. It will tell you it's not the right time. It will tell you you're not capable and such. So just to touch on this, like you mentioned beautifully, there is definitely a time and place for it.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (35:37):

I know the deepest and darkest levels of, of this distress. There's definitely a time and place for it, but just be aware of whether you are number one relying on us solely number two, if you're abusing it in some way. And I found a ton of relief once I investigated and researched herps. So I was like, I didn't know anything about hers and know the first thing about it. And so, you know, once the clonazepam and such were I was limiting it and I was getting off of it, and that was its own little struggle. I found myself being naturally brought towards nature and Herb's and such, and I don't know where that really came from, but but I, my intention was always to heal. My intention was always to, to be led not to, not to lead, not to go find that myself, but my intention was to be led source energy, God, you name it, whatever.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (36:38):

But everybody's got their own interpretation and was all right, but Herb's for me were the very things I needed in order to find mental clarity in order to be a very good sidekick to doing the inner work connected to my traumas and connected to how to respond to fear in the moment. So I can get very specific on certain Herb's, but the truth is, is that these Herb's will work differently for, for everybody. And it's important to do your own research on them, but but again, the open, you really have to be open on this journey. You cannot allow yourself to continue down a path that isn't working for you if it's not working and your not happy with your life and your life is getting smaller and smaller and smaller you need to look deep into what you're doing, cause it's not working and you have to admit that it's not working. So I hope that touches on it a little bit. Yeah,

Malvin Young (37:45):

Absolutely. I love how your caution about the medication because it is very easy. I, to when I had the panic attacks I got onto Adavan and very quickly first dose, I was like, wow, I'm healed. Yeah, like, I mean, I was literally healed and, you know but it was also the emotional pain went away, which I was really surprised of like the anger, emotional pain stress. I actually felt like this drug did its job and it was the greatest thing ever, but same kind of same kind of path, you know, I went down and I realized, you know, it's, it's not giving me the healing that I want. It's, I'm still limited. I mean, can take it. And I feel good in that moment, but I'm still not outliving my best life, you know, and I was kind of afraid medicines scare me in the first place.

Malvin Young (38:43):

I was kind of afraid to continue offering the doses or anything like that. I was kind of afraid where that would take me because it was just feeling so good. But I think a lot of people too are just so worried about medication. Cause I think we live in such a confusing time right now where people don't know what to believe and if we could, it was just too much going on. Right. And, and too much going on. I would love to hear from your view, like what do you think society is teaching about health anxiety? And we think the truth is about what they're teaching. Because I just see a big disconnect in, in the language that they use within let's call it the medical world around it and the language that you and I are using right now, talking about anxiety to people who have gone through it. What do you think that difference?

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (39:43):

I'll tell you the truth. I don't think, I don't think so. I don't think society, and I don't think the first line of, of, of treatments in my own personal opinion is teaching anybody, anything about health anxiety? There is nothing. There there's nothing you, you really, when it comes to health anxiety, specifically, the best place you can look is past health, anxiety, success stories. You know, you need to be surrounded with people that understand you and people will say they understand you with good intentions, but they don't really understand you. You have to be a part of groups and communities connected to an outcome focused way of thinking rather than a coping way of thinking, because the coping is so popular, you know, managing is so popular these days. It's like, you know, you'll go on Twitter. Someone will actually saw, I see this all the time and go on Twitter and you'll see people talk about their anxiety as if it's some kind of a fat as if it's something popular to do.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (40:49):

And so this subconscious takes everything very, very literally. So if you're going, you know, you've got some meme and it's talking about anxiety, you gotta make sure you understand that, you know, that's being interpreted as something that you want more of. So I don't think society is teaching us anything in terms of what health anxiety is. I don't think you can get the information that you need directly related to healing health anxiety just by looking at the commonplaces locally or even online. I think you have to do some deeper digging. And I believe that the success stories are a great place to start and continue the journey. But we have to be very aware of, of where we're spending our time, because really the truth is is that if you're in a community, if you're presented with information, if you gathered wisdom that makes you feel uncomfortable, then most likely that's the exact place that you need to be. Because the majority of information out there related to managing coping makes you feel comfortable, right? It's comfortable to know that other people are suffering like you, right? But it's a starting point, but it's not the healing points. So we need to separate coping and healing because it's two different planets. It really is.

Malvin Young (42:15):

Sure. And healing comes with being uncomfortable. You have to get uncomfortable to heal. There's no other way. I remember. I remember after my my chiropractor taught me that actually after a car accident I go to see this chiropractor I've been waiting on for a long time. Cause he was a quite famous person. He was a chiropractor and MD and he was the first person to say, Malvin, I'm going to resolve your pain with pain. It's going to hurt what I'm going to do with you. And I'm going to make you cry. I'm sorry, but everyone else is touching you so soft because they don't want to act and your spine and all of this stuff. And nobody's willing to hurt you the way I'm going to hurt you. I said, Oh boy, this is going to be something else. But literally had to, he knew something about the neurological system that other people didn't know, like Asher, he dug in and hurt me. Like I, every session I drove an hour and 45 minutes every week to go see this guy. And he literally took to make me cry in pain to go home. But every week I felt better. So I kind of related to that as well. Like in order to heal, you got to do the painful work, but there's rewards. I'd love to hear, like, what are some of your gifts that you get out of anxiety itself? Like what are some of the gifts that you've got?

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (43:43):

Well, man, you know, a vast majority of gifts that I have received because of going through the anxiety healing journey and coming out the other side and now being in maintenances is limitless. It really is. I mean, you can talk about everything. Like for example, this interview, I would never be able to do something like this. It's impossible back in the day, you know, I wouldn't be able to talk to you. I wouldn't be able to connect with someone. I would, I would be judging myself too much. I would be focusing on my symptoms too much and such, but you know, it's provided me the opportunity to more than anything. Look at life as a whole and say that on a life when, when life presents good and bad situations and experiences those so much good and bad experiences, as much as they are just life.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (44:35):

You know, we wake up every single day, you know, hoping that we won't run into any challenges or problems. Therefore, when they arise, we find ourselves back from the addiction of suffering. Like there it is, you know I guess this is the way my life is and I've done a very good job of interpreting the bad is just being neutral, honestly. Like that's really the biggest thing that's come from my healing. There is no bad. I mean, it's crazy to think about a little morbid, but someone in my, you know, in my circle or someone nearby could in fact even pass away and I would find some kind of a neutralness to it. I would allow myself to understand that, you know, they were an energetic being, living in a physical body and therefore they're, they're transitioning as such. I would find something that would allow me to become neutral. And I would allow myself to naturally grieve if I needed to, but I wouldn't create such a negative interpretation over something bad that happens to me. Right.

Malvin Young (45:45):

Framing it's almost all the time. Yeah.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (45:48):

All the time. And consciously until it becomes so automatic, that it's a way of life. It's your people. It is what it is. You could sit here, you know, someone could walk in the door, they could punch me in the face and that would go, you know what, maybe there's a reason for that. Maybe there's a purpose that I don't know, this person, they just came in, they punched me in the face, you know, and I would start to find the neutralness in that punch. It was just crazy. I, I go online, I go on YouTube. People are, you know, Oh, this guy is this. And he's an anxiety poach. And you know, you could call me whatever you want, but you know, I get called names. I get emails and such, you know, back in the day and such, and, and, and at this point it kind of drips off of me. And I say, I hope you make peace with what you need to make peace with and this story. And that's the end of it. You know, when people come to you and they criticize you and such, it has nothing to do with you, nothing to do with you. And so when you talk about gifts, that would be the biggest gift I can think of.

Malvin Young (46:57):

That's, that's amazing, you know, and other people that I know that deal with anxiety or how things it specifically, or general anxiety, there always seems to be something very special about them and their lives that they get from it. You know? And I, I, I used to hate, you know, knowing that I had this thing going on, but I'm, I'm finally at the point where I'm like, thank God, because I do look at people and I look at, you know, I don't know what's going internally, but I just see them kind of sifting through the world. And I, I sometimes feel bad, but at the same time, I struggled with so much pain that pain has allowed me to see the world in a more beautiful way and experience it in a more beautiful way. So I tend to be thankful for it as much as I can.

Malvin Young (47:51):

But I, you know, I'm not perfect at this stuff at all, Dennis. I mean, like, it's still, I could still have, I can get a symptom today and my brain can go from a to Zed. Like if I can't sometimes process it in the sense of like, okay, I gotta pay him because you know, I overworked my arm. It would go, I got to pay, I have cancer. I'm going to die. Like, it can go that quickly, but at least I know that now. And I can actually reverse that and go, no, it's a pain because I overworked.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (48:25):

Well, here's the thing, right? When you have that reaction, not you or anybody else. The biggest question is when I react in this fearful and sensitized manner, what does it do for me? What does this provide me with? What is the feeling I get right? Many times it comes down to safety. Overthinking for many people is a safety response. It's a defense mechanism, right? So we tend to go in that direction, thinking that this catastrophizing, these ways of irrational, fearing things and such are going to keep us safe in some way, when in fact it uses up a tremendous amount of time and energy that you'll never get back again. So the truth is, is that when you can begin to connect and new interpretation to that safety response of overthinking and realize how much pain that is producing then really you start to see beyond it and you actually find yourself stopping completely, you know, and that was a big thing for me. It was like, yeah, you know, the, the catastrophizing provides me with X and I never allowed myself to see the other side of it. Right. I never attached pain to it. Only. Pleasure, pleasure, pleasure, pleasure. This is who I am. This is what I have to do. This is the, what the world is telling me to do. So it's you know, sorry to jump in, but it's really, really important that people realize that they get something from suffering.

Malvin Young (49:55):

Absolutely. It's, it's funny. When I went through CBT training and I had a coach, you know, coaching me through these processes, I remember them getting me to write out on the board, what do I get out of all of this, like out of these emotions or behaviors. And then we finally got to a point in the program where they said, okay, if you get a panic attack, you're not allowed to use any of these actions or behaviors anymore at all. You literally have to be with panic attack. And that was like

Speaker 4 (50:29):

The most terrifying thing, like terrifying normally, yeah.

Malvin Young (50:33):

We want to meditate or breathe or take an out a van or jump in a cold shower or something to get me out of that state. She said, she said to not that you are not allowed to run to any of those coping mechanisms

Speaker 4 (50:51):

Anymore. So I said,

Malvin Young (50:53):

How am I going to do that? But by doing that over and over and over, I think what I retrained my brain was that I'm okay. I'm okay. Like, I don't need those things. I don't need those things. And that was quite freeing for me. But again, it's work like it's, you gotta be at work. Yeah. You have to be able to dig in and do it. And that's what I really appreciate about you, Dennis. I mean, you are somebody that not only went through it, but you're taking the time to learn these different modalities of healing research. You're taking the courses yourself that are out there, like the CBT, the NLP you're really taking it on, but it seems like you're, you're doing it in a selfless way that you're really giving back to other people. And you know, I just want to say thank you for that, because I believe without people like you, there'd be a lot more suffering in the world.

Malvin Young (51:51):

And I really think you're making a difference. I mean, you, you've spent a lot of your own time and energy taking care of yourself, but you're also giving a back your, your multiple books that you've released now. So you're an all on. And I just got into your book called F coping and start healing. And it's awesome. Like right at the beginning, I was like right into it. So yeah, I, I can't wait to share my feedback with you when I'm done the books, but I just want to say thank you to you sincerely for the difference that you're making in the world, because I know there's a lot of people doing their job out there to make a difference, but like, I feel that you consciously want to make a difference in you're using your energy to do that. So really honestly, thank you for that so much.

Malvin Young (52:38):

And thanks for being on the show here with me today. Again, anxiety's a weird thing to talk about. And most people don't know that one of my heroes is you in the sense that you know, I listened to you, well, you think you really make a difference and it's not even about me. It's about the difference you're making for other people. Cause I know the pain, I get it. I understand it. It hurts and it's scary. And for someone to do what you're doing, it's just a big thing. I see you doing it in a big, massive way. So really thank you so much for that. Can you tell our viewers how they can find you or work with you? I know right now you're where did you tell me you were valued,

Speaker 4 (53:21):

Right? Bali. Indonesia. Yeah. It's your new

Malvin Young (53:26):

Home out there. So I know they're not gonna come knock on your door out there online or how can they get access to your content?

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (53:35):

Yeah, absolutely. The Anxiety Guy.com. There is an area there where you can send me a message and an email. I'd love to do what I can to lead you in the right direction, whether that be through my programs or somebody else or any kind of information like that. The anxiety guide podcast is, is a, is a great resource to be able to use each and every day. And you can catch up on those episodes. There's a 270 of them as well, the YouTube channel, The Anxiety Guy, YouTube channels. So it's, it's a really good starting point that YouTube channel. And I do everything I can to be able to comment back when somebody comments and such. And if you send me a message, a personal message through any social media platform that I'm on I will do my best to respond. So if anybody needs any kind of guidance or anything like that, please reach out. And, and they, you know, the response will come straight from my heart and what I believe is best for you individually. So I'm looking forward to it.

Malvin Young (54:44):

Awesome. Thank you so much. One last thing I want to say is to the listeners, if, if anyone is kind of stuck in that dark place or having that experience of panic attacks or like like that, it says if life is just getting smaller and smaller and you're not heading in the right direction, I do highly recommend like, just from personal experience from a few years ago, I did find his course online. That course is still available. And, and the anxiety program

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (55:13):

The worse

Malvin Young (55:15):

Things actually will work for you if you try them on, you know, and really try them as an experience for yourself. I think you have another program called the inner circle and life match.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (55:28):

The inner circle yeah. Is a little bit more targeted and it's basically every single morning it gives you specific things that you need to work on related to anxiety, recovery, and transformation. And it's a 16 week course. So that one is a little bit more if you need the guidance, if you need somebody to tell you what to do every day, until you get to a point where you can figure it out yourself, that would be the program for you.

Malvin Young (55:57):

Awesome. Yeah. And that's, that's like a great program for me in the sense that I learned that I shouldn't be listening to myself because I give myself bad advice, but I should be listening to people who have gotten where I want to get to, you know, and who's gone through the experience in an authentic way. Right. So thanks so much for being on the show. I think we have, like, I feel like we have so much talk about, I'd love to have you go again. And I really thank you from the bottom of my heart.

The Anxiety Guy - Dennis Simsek (56:28):

Thank you.