My guest this week is Dr. Joel Minden. He’s back for part 2 of our 4-part series on finding peace when we’re overwhelmed by anxiety. We’re talking again about the approach he describes in his excellent book, Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss. This time we focus on effective ways to face our fears to move through anxiety and conquer the anxious avoidance that can really shrink our lives. As always, Joel offers super helpful insights for conquering your anxiety. I’m especially a fan of his “do it anyway” mantra that we talk about in the second half. If you enjoy this conversation, be sure to check out the other three episodes in this series.

Topics we touched on included:

• Why it’s useful to address anxious thought patterns before taking action
• Why we avoid what makes us anxious, and what avoidance costs us
• Different types of avoidance, including cognitive avoidance
• Developing a habit of facing the things that trigger anxiety
• How we learn to avoid through operant conditioning and the consequences of our behavior
• Being unconsciously conditioned to avoid through negative reinforcement
• How avoidance can set us up for being punished later on
• Learning about my own habits of subtle, reflexive avoidance
• “Productivity” as a subtle form of avoidance
• Moving from knowing it’s good to face our fears to actually doing it—without undue strain
• Gradually working through our avoidance and anxiety
• The “Do it anyway” mantra, vs. the idea of “Just do it”
• The “Future Me” exercise for finding motivation to face our fears
• The important things we learn from exposure therapy

Joel Minden, PhD, is a clinical psychologist specializing in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for anxiety and related disorders.

He is the author of Show Your Anxiety Who’s Boss, founder of the Chico Center for Cognitive Behavior Therapy, diplomate of The Academy of Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies, and lecturer in the Department of Psychology at California State University, Chico.

Find Joel online at his website, follow him on Twitter, and read his blog on Psychology Today.