Learn this Simple Concept and You Can Stop Living in Fear

The Core Concept of Moving Beyond Anxiety

In 2011, a good friend of mine, a Psychologist in Southern California, called me with a challenge.

She knew I was the guy other therapists would call once they had run out of options and hit the wall; the guy to call when one of their patients who was dealing with anxiety, or some other irrational fear, just wasn’t getting any better, I had become known as, “The guy to call.”

“Jack, I’ve got one I think you’re going to love. I’ve got to warn you, though, this kid is going to be one that I’m not sure that even you can help.” She knew me all too well. She knew that an opening comment like that would get me into that, “Let’s do this!” state of mind.

“Tell me more” I said. “I like the sound of this already.”

He Had Not Left His Bedroom in Three Years

“Okay Jack, here we go. This kid is seventeen years old. In the last three years, he has only left his bedroom four-times, and that was when he was taken by his parents to a clinician or M.D. This all started about four-years ago, when he was hospitalized with some kind of food borne illness.”

“A severe gastrointestinal issue. Physically, he recovered. Psychologically, though...things started heading south. Anyway, here we are now. He’s been through, six therapists before me. I was the seventh.”

(Most of those therapists had to be paid extra to come see him at his parents’ home. By then, nothing could get him out of the house.)

“He’s also been to countless doctors and has tried every alternative solution under the sun. He just keeps getting worse. Do you want to have a go with him?”

Deep down inside, she knew there was only one answer that she was going to get from me. “Absolutely. I can’t wait to get started.” I assured her.

Given that I lived some fifteen-hundred miles from her patient (who I’ll refer to as Wayne) all our initial work would be over the phone.

Prior to meeting me, Wayne had developed such a horrible case of anxiety and phobic responses (two different things, very different in nature, but also related) about just about everything you could imagine. It’s why he hadn’t left his bedroom in over three-years.

Just walking outside to get something out of the yard would send him into a tailspin.

I Had Them Put Wayne on a Plane All by Himself

Let me fast forward a couple years. In 2013, I had his parents put him on a plane in Los Angeles, California, where he would make the flight to Kansas City, Missouri...all by himself.