So, what have you being doing today to stop yourself feeling anxious and all of the negative baggage that comes with it?
If your answer is "nothing," you are on the road to recovery. Recovery will only happen when you let yourself fall into any anxious state and do bugger all about it. Anxiety can only be switched off when you let it be there and do nothing to stop it. The brain will gradually learn that there is no threat and tone down the response to the perceived threat which is usually anxiety itself. In other words, you are scared of being scared and go around in ever decreasing circles, continually trying to fight your way out if it. Fighting anxiety has the opposite effect. It keeps you entrenched with no apparent way out because it is the natural thing to do. However, fighting does not work with anxiety. Doing nothing to change how you may be feeling or thinking is the way to recover.
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Beevee
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You are so right Beevee, we create more stress and tension battling against anxiety and that only produces more anxiety. And we wonder why we're not recovering!
Let it come in a great wave and do nothing, live in peaceful coexistence with your anxiety. And before long you'll be living without it as our nerves recover and revert to normal.
No need to fear it and all those problems you're worrying about which maybe triggered anxiety disorder, remember they seem ten times more formidable because we have anxiety. They are within our capability to deal with.
Thank you again Beevee for making the incomprehensible understandable.
It seems to me that the things we do to stop feeling anxious fall into two categories. First, there are the things that end up making our anxiety worse, such as engaging with it, struggling with it, fighting it, trying to make it go away. This sends the message to the brain that we are in danger, which just throws gasoline onto the fire.
Second, there are the things that provide some relief that is only temporary, such as tranquilizers or liquor, which are habit forming and/or unhealthy. Getting relief this way makes us unable to practice acceptance and so takes away an opportunity to move a step closer to recovery.
Very true teemo1. You have to feel "it," to go towards "it" shirking none of "it" and accepting it all, lock, stock and barrel. Like I keep saying, sufferers must learn to let themselves fall into any physical or mental state and do NOTHING to try and change it. Let those scary thoughts scare you, let those physical symptoms scare you but learn to let them go and not give them the respect they demand. It is just anxiety creating it all and being kept alive because sufferers continue to give those symptons too much respect and worry about it, adding more stress to the symptoms of stress. Those symptoms won't be there when you recover. All those scary thoughts and feelings simply melt away.
Hi Beevee!
I have been trying to practice acceptance and living my life (as I once would have without anxiety) for some time now.
At first I used acceptance as a technique and trying to ‘accept’ and ‘not react’ became an effort or something to do every time anxious thoughts and feelings would surface. I know this isn’t true acceptance as it just seems like my mind is in ‘analysis’ and ‘fix it’ mode habit 24/7. I have many bad habits and automatic reactions to anxious thoughts and feelings. I KNOW that the way I react and get involved is keeping me stuck but the habit to REACT this way feels so strong. It makes me worry even more about how far I’m straying from true acceptance and I feel like a failure because I simply can’t ‘let it be’. It’s not happening naturally and it doesn’t seem to get easier and I feel recovery eludes me for this reason. It makes me feel hopeless and beat myself up more (as I know the advice is an attitude. It’s a ‘do nothing’ which doesn’t come to me naturally)
Even though I have read Claire Weekes and Paul’s materials it seems like my habit to overthink things (especially sleep and recovery) just won’t quit. I try not to react to them (sometimes I feel I’m pushing them away, sometimes it goes on it’s own if I try not to engage) but essentially I’m not able to stay consistent with this.
I feel the fear and the negative emotions daily. I try to live my life normally regardless. I try not to force this acceptance. I try not to analyse or worry about my anxious thoughts (always the same thoughts) but inevitably I’m stuck ‘watching myself’ and ‘judging myself’.
I feel I haven’t progressed. It’s frustrating as I’m trying to fall into my suffering. But I’m still suffering if that makes sense. The old habits pull me in when I know I shouldn’t go there. Then I feel helpless and weak.
Having had some days of clarity and freedom I really want to recover. I don’t know how I can let go of the desire to be better. It’s like my mind truly doesn’t want to surrender even though it knows this is the only way.
I know acceptance works because I have had days where when my mind just went clear and anxiety was not there. That came about when I kind of gave up- then setback would happen and I’d go back to feeling full of despair and anxiety that I’ll never overcome this.
Even though I have known this path for some time, I haven’t been able to be consistent with it. I still have an urge to control and run away at times. Is time and patience the way out? I hope this makes sense. I’m afraid I’ll remain stuck in this loop if I don’t learn how to deal with this.
I hope you see this and perhaps shed Some light on how these old habits work even when we know the right way out.
Thank you for giving us hope and knowledge. It is the true understanding that I don’t feel I have 100% and I don’t have confidence in this approach as it has never lasted for me in the past.
Rkrip, my only advice is to let yourself fall into ANY state and simply go with the flow. As I think you already know, acceptance isn’t something you do. It is the “whatever” attitude you develop towards all those thoughts and feelings that will make the difference. In simple terms, it’s living life and taking the anxiety with you and caring less about how you think and feel. The symptoms will hang around as long as they need to.
Don’t question any of it, accept all of it. A lot of my symptoms were habitual but I learnt to accept that too. I’d go to work full of fear and stress. Gradually, I figured out it wasn’t work making me feel that way, it was just anxiety making me think it was work. So, I just stopped trying to figure out if it was or wasn’t work...and carried on going to work, taking my anxiety with me. What will be, will be, and move on with your day. Avoid nothing.
Over time, helped by those glimpses of normality, i could see more and more that it was all a load of bollocks and that the thoughts and feelings were false so I just stopped trying to do anything to change things.
Let the mind race, let it chatter away with all those (false) anxious thoughts. Your mind and body is an amazing thing and knows what it needs to do to recover. You don’t have to do anything about it except to allow it all. No half measures, as I always say. Allowing/accepting is the means to an end. It’s not the tool that makes you recover, it simply gives your mind and body the space it desperately needs to recover instead of continually beating yourself up over whether or not you are accepting, continually wrestling with those anxious thoughts and feelings and staying in the anxiety cycle. You literally have to stop interfering with the anxiety and let it run it’s course, which it will, eventually. Step out the way of yourself!
Don’t get hung up over whether or not you are accepting. Accept that too. If you feel like shit, shrug your shoulders and accept that too. There is nothing you can do to change it so just go with it.
It takes time to develop the passive attitude and a while longer before you start seeing the benefits as the mind and body find their way back to their natural default settings ( peace) and for normality to slowly creep back into your life. For me, recovery was slow and quite often would catch myself thinking that I’d not had a particular symptom for a while. It simply disappeared bit by bit without me noticing. You’ve had glimpses of normality which you probably accepted without question so have the same attitude when you are in the thick of “it.” Accept those setbacks too. You will have them. I lost count. I just kept on going and everything eventually settled right down.
I too thought I’d never be free from anxiety but that was just my anxious mind spewing out anxious thoughts because that is what an anxious mind does! It’s all lies, it makes huge mountains out of tiny mole hills. Take it from me. Learn to lose your respect for the symptoms. Let them all go. It’s just anxious energy being released. Nothing more. It wants to be released. It needs to be released because that is part of the recovery process. It is our resistance to this discomfort that keeps us feeling uncomfortable.
Recovery is not exclusive to a few super humans. Anyone can recover when they know that acceptance is the key. Recovery then becomes inevitable.
Hope this helps.
Beevee
Okay but what about like doing grounding techniques and other techniques to help? It’s pretty hard to sit through a panic attack & I have many times but it’s pretty hard to do and to calm myself down. Have you read the book “When panic attacks by david burns”??
Sorry, I’m not familiar with the book you mentioned. In my opinion, applying any technique in an attempt to quell a panic attack is not fully accepting. Accepting is about reacting freely and giving yourself a free rein to all feelings of panic and passing right through them with as much of a relaxed attitude towards the feelings that you can muster. In the words of Dr Claire Weekes, real acceptance ( as opposed to paying lip service to acceptance) takes the edge off the feelings and will eventually cure. It’s the reacting freely in the moment of panic, having an attitude of utter acceptance until the feelings subside that will eventually bring full recovery. I know from experience that it takes time to master this attitude and learning to cope with those attacks ( it’s just an energy surge) the right way until they no longer matter.
Tensing yourself in anticipation of a panic attack or whilst going through one might be the reason they continue to come. Your hatred or dread towards them is the opposite of acceptance. Like I said, utter acceptance is genuinely not caring whether or not you have a panic attack. It’s stopping using any technique designed to to stop the feelings coming or trying to calm yourself down, You have to feel it all in order to recover and do nothing to try and stop it.
Thanks for the reply! But how would you know if something is seriously wrong though? sometimes i can’t tell between the anxiety or if it’s something really wrong like for example a heart attack?
If your doctor has given you a clean bill of health then it is very likely to be a panic attack. If it is your heart, you would probably be dead by now, assuming you’ve had lots of these attacks. Sorry for being blunt. I’m also guessing that you are relatively young and in good health.
Just to let you know, it’s late here and I need my beauty sleep...lots of it, but will reply as soon as I can.
Worrying about the heart is probably the most common symptom of anxiety. It’s just Adrenalin, a natural hormone produced by the adrenal glands to prepare you to fight or flee from danger. All perfectly normal when you are continually scaring yourself. Makes it feel like your heart is going to leap out of your chest and bounce around the room. It won’t. It might also feel like it misses a beat or flutters but that is normal too.
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