sameBoat
02-03-2008, 08:55 AM
A way that helps me to deal with anxiety is to let go. This will seem strange but I just give in, and it works all the time.
So when I go outside I can imagine a million reasons to get anxiety like I have in the past, but now I just think "oh well, anything out of my control is...out of my control. if i [insert fear here] then that will happen anyway, so why get anxiety about it. if it happens it happens"
read "the power of now" by eckhart tolle.
his main jist is that if you focus on the now (this split second, this moment) and not any time in the past or future, you can never have anxiety.
Anxiety only exists in the future and past. never in the present.
it makes sense "what if ..." ," i wish i had just..." it is all just future and past.
so never think about the future or past. and you don't need to anyway. you can plan in the future but never assume you know how you will FEEL when the future arrives. That is the key. Projecting how you will feel in the future is the cause of anxiety.
Just go and do whatever it is that you have planned and while you are doing it, stay in the now.
I am walking outside, I am checking the letterbox, i am walking down the street to the shop (oh look a dog, he is cute), i didn't realize there was 154 slabs of concrete from my house to the shop, i need milk and bread, i am getting the milk first......."
if anxiety comes into your mind, then think " well, this is me and where i am in 2008 on 4th feb. I am right here, in the frozen food section of the market. this is right where i am right now. i am here and this is what i am doing right this moment. the future doesn't exist. the past never happened. it is only me here right now doing this.
see what i mean ? if you had thought, oh no i am away from my house, that is too far, i feared doing this and now i am going to panic because that is what i think is going to happen.......you are looking into the future. You didn't panic until you thought that thought of it happening in the future.
Ok, so what if you do panic. The worst is that you may feel really really scared or worst case for some people is they might faint or be sick or cry or whatever. But i mean, that's not bad. if you have any of these symptoms, then someone will comfort you and if no one is around, you will still live. and the anxiety will wash over you in a few minutes because your body can't handle that much adrenaline for long periods of time. and then you brain will give you ceratonin which will make you feel good and calm. so go sit down on a milk crate and focus on the floor or how many red bottle of milk there are compared to blue ones. ride it out. think to yourself, when this anxiety washes over me and i am still standing here afterwards, and i get that calm feeling again( well relatively calm compared to the anxiety attack) I will know that next time the symptoms will not be as bad, because i didn't give in and run home, i stayed here and accepted it.
your brain will see that it didn't get the reaction it wanted and will tone down the symptoms as it re-writes in its experience journal that the situation you were in obviously didn't require so much adrenaline because you didn't run anywhere after your brain gave it to you. So it will bring down the adrenaline dosage and ALSO the brain will loosen the connection it has between shop and panic until one day there is no connection and your brain doesn't give you adrenaline in shops because it learnt that it didn't need to. It is just trying to help.
I have done this and found it to work all the time. i only have 1 or 2 situations that make me panicy now. All the others are gone due to facing that fear. I know how scarey it is. I think the first day I decided to challenge the fear was becuase i was so pissed off and tired of it stopping me from doing things that i sat there and rode it out and asked god to give me more anxiety because the paralysing panic i had wasn't enough hahaha it's funny to look back on now.
I hope this helps someone.
So when I go outside I can imagine a million reasons to get anxiety like I have in the past, but now I just think "oh well, anything out of my control is...out of my control. if i [insert fear here] then that will happen anyway, so why get anxiety about it. if it happens it happens"
read "the power of now" by eckhart tolle.
his main jist is that if you focus on the now (this split second, this moment) and not any time in the past or future, you can never have anxiety.
Anxiety only exists in the future and past. never in the present.
it makes sense "what if ..." ," i wish i had just..." it is all just future and past.
so never think about the future or past. and you don't need to anyway. you can plan in the future but never assume you know how you will FEEL when the future arrives. That is the key. Projecting how you will feel in the future is the cause of anxiety.
Just go and do whatever it is that you have planned and while you are doing it, stay in the now.
I am walking outside, I am checking the letterbox, i am walking down the street to the shop (oh look a dog, he is cute), i didn't realize there was 154 slabs of concrete from my house to the shop, i need milk and bread, i am getting the milk first......."
if anxiety comes into your mind, then think " well, this is me and where i am in 2008 on 4th feb. I am right here, in the frozen food section of the market. this is right where i am right now. i am here and this is what i am doing right this moment. the future doesn't exist. the past never happened. it is only me here right now doing this.
see what i mean ? if you had thought, oh no i am away from my house, that is too far, i feared doing this and now i am going to panic because that is what i think is going to happen.......you are looking into the future. You didn't panic until you thought that thought of it happening in the future.
Ok, so what if you do panic. The worst is that you may feel really really scared or worst case for some people is they might faint or be sick or cry or whatever. But i mean, that's not bad. if you have any of these symptoms, then someone will comfort you and if no one is around, you will still live. and the anxiety will wash over you in a few minutes because your body can't handle that much adrenaline for long periods of time. and then you brain will give you ceratonin which will make you feel good and calm. so go sit down on a milk crate and focus on the floor or how many red bottle of milk there are compared to blue ones. ride it out. think to yourself, when this anxiety washes over me and i am still standing here afterwards, and i get that calm feeling again( well relatively calm compared to the anxiety attack) I will know that next time the symptoms will not be as bad, because i didn't give in and run home, i stayed here and accepted it.
your brain will see that it didn't get the reaction it wanted and will tone down the symptoms as it re-writes in its experience journal that the situation you were in obviously didn't require so much adrenaline because you didn't run anywhere after your brain gave it to you. So it will bring down the adrenaline dosage and ALSO the brain will loosen the connection it has between shop and panic until one day there is no connection and your brain doesn't give you adrenaline in shops because it learnt that it didn't need to. It is just trying to help.
I have done this and found it to work all the time. i only have 1 or 2 situations that make me panicy now. All the others are gone due to facing that fear. I know how scarey it is. I think the first day I decided to challenge the fear was becuase i was so pissed off and tired of it stopping me from doing things that i sat there and rode it out and asked god to give me more anxiety because the paralysing panic i had wasn't enough hahaha it's funny to look back on now.
I hope this helps someone.