Do you self critique yourself too much? Do you punch yourself for small failures? Do you find yourself overthinking and over analysing it? How did you deal with it?
I’ve recently failed my driving license exam and though I have a second chance in two weeks, I feel so beaten up about it. I tried telling myself that it’s just a license and it’s going to be okay, but I can’t get it out of my head. It’s like a monster sitting inside my head reminding me of how terrible I was and that I can’t do one thing right.
Thanks for reading! You people make this world a beautiful place. Lots of love
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Troubled95
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Truth be told, I don't deal with anxiety. I don't know how to, yet but I do know people that are capable when I see them. You're capable, friend and I beg you to quit blaming and punching yourself and prepare for next two weeks. You don't see it yet but you've got this. I believe in you, you should too. Kisses.
I think the best piece of advice I could provide is you just treat it like a "devil on your shoulder". It'll harp to think deep and hard about everything you're doing wrong, all the worries you should have, and all the things you should be thinking about. It sits there providing the sleek information with catchy "what if" or "but it could be" bits of information. Never is there a true fact, there's just a morsel of possibility. That's anxiety. In truth, anxiety is a product of your brain for survival. It had a larger purpose when we wore furs, clubbed animals with sticks, or had to run from a herd of said clubbed animals. It used to tell us useful things like: "Run like hell, idiot!!!" or "Swing with all your might!!" Now, our worries are situations like with your drivers license or dwelling on past and future issues.
Everything to do with dealing with anxiety really boils down to so many methods....and even then....it's neurological wiring that you have to reprogram for a lack of better wording. Change the behavior. Obviously, if it were easy, this website would be quite empty. Medication can or does help...but there are other approaches. CBT is one...and it's basically learning and teaching yourself a different approach to anxiety or panic. You slowly expose yourself to triggers to desensitize where you ultimately aren't, hypothetically speaking, unable to leave the house (if you were agoraphobic in this case). You might take a step out the door one day, two the next, and maybe get in your car in a week or two. It's slow but it retrains the brain....I'm okay and there's no reason I shouldn't be. It falls in line with coping which is reaction to symptoms of anxiety. Instead of looking at them and falling into a panic or anxiety attack, you experience the symptoms with curiosity. This would be like surfing the anxiety attack wave....and coming out of it and seeing you're okay. It's learning to be comfortable while feeling uncomfortable. Mindfulness and meditation also fall in this group because you focus on one thing while using deep breathing (which naturally reduces hormones that increase anxiety symptoms). Even if your mind wanders off to a thought...you recognize it...and bring it back to your one prominent feeling of your breath (maybe cold air in your nasal passages). This is one of the real ways the brain can be "retrained". You cope, desensitize, allow it to pass (fighting symptoms makes it worse), and begin to see....you're okay.
One of the final things I'll mention that I've learned from my experience is kindness. Self-kindness being important. In your experience, you're beating yourself up over a failure. Surely there will be a moment when you can get your license in the future perhaps. No matter, it happened and it's okay. Nagging at yourself will only make things worse, cause stress, and make anxiety increase. This is where we forgive ourselves and realize there is still value in our life. We are kind to our body and self because anxiety is fairly tough enough on us as it is. Practicing self-kindness allows us to be more open, caring, and understanding. It's happened to me....I might miss work and think something like this: "Darn, I have missed work, I have let my family down, I let myself down, and I feel like a total failure." Instead I try a little inner pep talk. "Yeah, it's been a bad day and I'm unhappy with the results, but I'm not a total failure. I've done [insert a positive thing here]. I am human. I am worthy of kindness." This is like where your overthinking and over-analyzing needs to take a vacation. Overthought and looking back at what we could do better isn't being kind to ourselves. It's hindsight....we cannot change it and we must be kind to ourselves while dealing with the outcomes....some of which are out of our control. It's restructuring negative thought into positive thought. Anxiety loves negative thought.
Sorry for the paragraphs, but I'll end here. There isn't a 125% great way to manage and deal. It's practice, discipline, knowing when/where to push yourself, coping correctly, knowing the moment you need to be kind to your own feelings, and perhaps following a path that helps you see that anxiety can be overcame. Some seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, and even months can seem better or worse than others. In those moments, regardless of positive or negative, it is seeing the positive and deflecting that "devil on the shoulders" telling you all the wrong things at the wrong time. If you continue to pick yourself off the ground after being kicked from the "anxiety horse" everyday, I do believe things get better. Sometimes it's just the most fractional amount, but it is more better than worse. Sometimes you'll feel like you've flown back 100 steps that you've climbed towards dealing with this better and you'll feel defeated. But if you look back and see how far you came, maybe it's been 10,000 steps forward from the beginning, you see that those 100 steps didn't really even put a dent from where you started to where you are. I hope this helps...just do your best each day to cope with anxiety, hang with it, and let it pass. Don't fight it, don't allow it much thought. I think that's the best anyone can do. I'm still working on it, but in the end, it's all about the light or perspective you see it in. Take care for now.
"punch yourself for small failures? find yourself overthinking and over analysing it?" YES, that's me, and a lot of other people too! At least you really care. Don't fall into the trap of beating yourself up. That's a defense mechanism against getting better. An athlete I admire once wrote "The only failure is an experience from which you fail to learn." People see me as successful, but I've failed at about half of the businesses I tried to start, including the last one. Keep learning and don't stop trying.
I agree that the overthinking is an ugly monster. I sometimes can distract myself, but now that I am older it is hard to break years of bad habits. Then I am told that you cannot really get rid of a bad though, so the trick is to keep it floating around and not reacting to it. I remind myself that I am not in charge of the world. Let it be!
I'm not sure how bad your anxiety is but the book "Hope and Help for Your Nerves: End Anxiety Now" by Claire Weekes is a very insightful book on how anxiety works and how to conquer it. It is an easy read also.
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