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Dr. Z.

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10/28/2026

Full article here:

https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/a-chapter-i-wrote-in-the-middle-of-my-worst-anxiety-episode/

10/26/2026

👋 FREEBIE ALERT! The Overthinking Interrupt is a two-minute reset for when your mind is replaying the past or rehearsing the future. It walks you through five questions, each with a short worksheet and one episode of the Playing-it-safe Podcast behind it.

👂 Go through the five questions in order, then listen to the episode behind whichever one was hardest to answer.

➡️ TO GET YOURS: Comment the word "interrupt" and the audio guide will arrive in your inbox.

10/25/2026

Some people learn a grounding practice, and then, use it as another way out.

Every time something uncomfortable comes up, they ground: feet on the floor, breathe, back to the room. That discomfort goes away, and it feels like the skill is working.

Look at what happened there: you used a present-moment practice to leave a feeling. That is the same move as scrolling, but done with better technique.

So, here is how you tell the difference: coming back to the present should bring more in, not less.

If you land in the room and the tightness in your chest is still there, and the awkwardness is still there, and you stay anyway, then that is contact.

If you land somewhere and everything uncomfortable is gone, check what you did on the way.

What are you calling a practice that is actually an exit?

Listen Here
Apple: https://apple.co/2ZJH7GE
Spotify: https://bit.ly/4wpXgiJ

10/24/2026

Pre-writing the worst version of a social scene before you've even walked in is a playing-it-safe move.

I'd invite you to let the script run without treating it as a preview of what will actually happen. That's defusion, the script gets to talk, it just doesn't get to drive.

Where do you write the whole scene before you've even walked in?

Subscribe to the Playing-it-safe newsletter: https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-newsletter/

10/21/2026

You are not failing at staying present. Nobody stays present.

Your attention will leave, probably in the next thirty seconds.

What you are practicing is coming back, over and over, without being annoyed with yourself about it.

That is the whole skill: attention goes, you bring it back, attention goes, you bring it back. That is not you doing the exercise badly. That is the exercise.

And two questions help, which you ask inside your own head:

What is my mind saying is happening? Usually something like: this is going badly, they are annoyed with me, Thursday is going to be a disaster.

And what is actually happening, right now, in this room? Usually something like: we are eating, she is telling me about a lizard, nobody has said anything unkind.

Both of those are real experiences, and only one of them is happening.

Listen Here
Apple: https://apple.co/2ZJH7GE
Spotify: https://bit.ly/4wpXgiJ

10/20/2026

Your mind doesn't always calibrate for stakes, it can treat picking a sandwich with the same urgency as picking a career, running through every option twice in case there's a wrong answer hiding in there.

That's a playing-it-safe move regardless of the size of the decision.

Try asking yourself this workability question instead: is more deliberation actually useful here, given how little is genuinely at stake? Not whether the urgency feels true but whether acting on it helps.

What's your version of over-deliberating the menu?

Subscribe to the Playing-it-safe newsletter: https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-newsletter/

10/18/2026

Quickly saying yes to everything that lands on your desk is a playing-it-safe move. Each reactive yes is a moment of not being the person who said no.

Which yes this week took the biggest bite out of your gold strip?

One playing-it-safe move and one ACT skill, in your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the Playing-it-safe newsletter: https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-newsletter/

10/17/2026

Try this for about twenty seconds: say one thing you notice right now.

My shoulders are tight. Fine.

Now ask: who noticed that?

And now, notice that you noticed.

Go around two or three times, and then, stop because here is the useful part: The noticer never shows up as an object. You can never catch it, put it on the table, and look at it. It is always the one doing the looking.

That is not the exercise failing, that is the exercise.

It is also why you cannot turn this into an identity. The moment you say “I am the observer,” you have made a new description, and you are back in content.

It is not a thing you are, but where you are looking from.

Listen Here
Apple: https://apple.co/2ZJH7GE
Spotify: https://bit.ly/4wpXgiJ

10/16/2026

A single-leg deadlift works specifically because you're not fully grounded. One foot. The stability you'd normally rely on isn't there.

What I see in people who are searching for certainty is the opposite approach: both feet on the ground, conditions confirmed, before anything that matters gets attempted.

Your mind offers this as prudence, waiting until you know enough, until you're sure enough, until the ground is stable enough to trust, that's a playing-it-safe behavior ... because the certainty you are waiting for doesn't arrive on the schedule your mind is banking on.

The ground offshore is never as predictable as the ground you're standing on now. The answer doesn't come back with enough guarantees. And so the thing stays on one side of the decision while you keep both feet planted and wait.

Balance doesn't come from having both feet on the ground. It comes from learning to work with one while doing what matters to you.

What have you been waiting to feel stable enough to try?

🔗 If this resonates, my newsletter, Playing-it-safe, goes deeper every week - subscribe at thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-newsletter

10/14/2026

The elliptical is a machine designed to give you the motion of going somewhere without any of the friction of actually getting there.

No terrain, no incline that catches you by surprise, no point A or point B. Just movement, contained, measurable, predictable.

Postponing and delaying is a playing-it-safe move.

It often borrows this same structure: staying active enough to feel like you're making progress while staying safely inside a loop that doesn't require anything new.

Your schedule fills up with things that keep you busy. Your inbox stays managed. Your workout happens. And the thing that actually matters to you - the conversation, the decision, the direction - keeps getting positioned for later, when there's more room, when you feel different, when you have the right conditions to take action.

Your mind offers your the activity as forward motion; but looking down at where your feet actually are, nothing has changed.

Moving in place is not the same as moving forward; moving in place is not the same as moving towards your values.

What have you been staying busy with instead of doing the thing that actually matters to you?

🔗 If this resonates, my newsletter, Playing-it-safe, goes deeper every week - subscribe at thisisdoctorz.com/playing-it-safe-newsletter

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Saturday	9am - 5pm
Sunday	9am - 5pm

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https://www.thisisdoctorz.com/

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