Give up the struggle with anxiety and you will recover.

[Beevee]

It’s not your thoughts or emotions that keep you suffering. It is your constant struggle and rejection of your current state that does.

Non-acceptance of anxious thoughts and feelings is the same as resisting and the cause of so much extra suffering. You are constantly at war. Not only with anxiety and depression, but with yourselves by trying to push it away, trying to do anything to stop yourselves feeling what you are currently feeling. It’s exhausting and the reason why depression develops because emotional reserves become drained, the brain loses its elasticity. Sufferers can no longer think around a problem but only the problem itself. This struggle prevents the natural healing process whereby the mind and body reverts back to their natural default position of peacefulness.

The “war” is caused by sufferers not wanting to feel it but if you have anxiety, then you have no option but to feel its presence. Nothing you say or do can stop those feelings from being there. There is no method or technique that will make it go away permanently.

If you had flu, there is nothing you can do about it. You feel bloody awful and have no choice but to ride it out and allow it to pass. Gradually, you start to feel better, not by trying to fight it, suppress the symptoms or worrying about how you feel all day. Googling the symptoms doesn’t help either. In all probability, you would feel more exhausted and take longer to recover. So, fighting the symptoms is counterproductive but this is what most anxiety sufferers do every day and feel complete despair because they don’t understand why they are not feeling any better. They do not seem to realise that they keep themselves from recovering by fighting, instead of accepting how they feel.

When you give up your battle with yourself and allow yourself to fall into any state, your thoughts and emotions will change naturally. You don’t have to do anything. You don’t have to chant positive thoughts or feelings. They return naturally. You can’t force or create a particular state through struggle or will power. This will only create more suffering, physically and mentally.

Much of life’s struggles are caused by a refusal to accept things as they are. The same is true of anxiety and not allowing yourself to feel it all and the cause of so much pain. If anything, it is a lack of understanding which keeps people suffering needlessly.

It doesn’t feel great to experience emotions of anger, fear, irritation, anxiety, sadness or any other negative emotion. However, if you allow yourself to fall into your current state without struggle and resistance, the suffering is less intense.

An attitude of Acceptance allows your mind and body to start the process of healing. You are no longer fighting to feel better or different or trying to suppress it all. Your mind and body finally have the time and space to heal themselves, in just the same way you recover from that flu (man-flu is much, much worse, granted 🤢). The trick is to accept it all, step aside and allow Mother Nature to do its job.

I recovered when I realised I was creating all my own suffering and learned to let go. To let it all be there and do absolutely nothing to change it. Recovery wasn’t instantaneous. It took time for all those thoughts and feelings to disappear but it got to a point where they were still there but I just lost interest in them. I just let myself feel everything willingly, no matter how bad it felt.

This is how to recover. We all have it within ourselves to recover. No special powers or bravery. Just an understanding. Accept, don’t fight it.

Hope this helps

Best wishes

Beevee

[Jeff1943]

Thank you Beevee, you are so right. Anxiety is the only thing in life that we recover from by doing the opposite to what instinct tells us to do.

Surrender don't fight. Embrace anxiety don't hide from it. Hope that it comes today so we can practice the Acceptance attitude. I often quote something you once wrote here: Learn to live with anxiety and you'll be able to live without it.

Recovery through acceptance requires practice and patience. The focus must be on acceptance, not merely reporting long lists of the latest symptoms post after post: symptoms that are all fake illnesses.

Too many seek instant cures for anxiety and the depression that comes out of it. But they search in vain. Always. I have been dealing with anxiety disorder since 1974 and I have never come across any successful alternative to acceptance.

[Kevin160]

Look i would love to do that, but i feel our bodies amd brains are designed to solve and think of solutins, for me it was the fear of dying, i know the body has ability to handle stress, but at some point you can start suffering even worse physical symptoms , and start getting high blood pressure, heart diseases, stress changes the way blood clots, how can u accept that u r allowing this to control u , shouldnt we always try to calm ourselves and yes i agree we shouldnt hide but we should come up with solutions to end anxiety , because accepting it seems a bit odd, ofcourse no offense im sure you are very experienced and would like to hear your feedback because im only commenting because i dont understand your exact meaning because i suffer from anxiety and many people say accept it but i have troubke to because i still dont always see how it helps or how i will not die facing it because it is a thing that can damage the health

[Beevee in reply to Kevin160]

Anxiety does not damage the body. How can it when Anxiety is the body’s natural defence mechanism designed to protect you in face of danger and simply doing what you are telling it to do?

It is only excessive adrenalin being pumped around your body preparing you to run, fight or freeze. The danger in so many cases is simply a fear of the symptoms of anxiety. You said yourself that your fear is that anxiety can harm you. What happens next? Your fearful reaction sends messages to your adrenal glands to release adrenalin to prepare you to run, fight, hide etc. You fear these sensations so what happens next? Your adrenal glands pump more adrenalin into your system. And so it goes, a vicious cycle.

When people suffer from anxiety, they have anxious thoughts. It stands to reason. Those thoughts are only there because you have anxiety. When you recover, they won’t be there. It tricks you into believing those thoughts to be true so you worry more. Worry creates stress, stress creates anxiety, anxiety creates more worry. To break this cycle, learn to give up fighting and stop adding more worry and fear into the equation. The symptoms are completely harmless. Uncomfortable but completely harmless.

I have posted lots of information on this forum which you may find helpful.

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Thank you for this post, Beevee. I guess I don't know how to just 'be" with my anxiety. I just found & joined this site because I've had clinical depression in the past but suddenly I've gotten these racing, destructive &regret-filled thoughts & I am overwhelmed. I'm starting therapy again on Wednesday with a wonderful therapist I saw several years ago. I appreciate your insights.