“First fear” is the natural response to danger. “Second fear” is our reaction to the anxiety itself. Second fear is the food that anxiety lives on. If we starve it of this, anxiety slowly dies, and we recover.
By learning how to stop adding second fear when we feel anxious, we stop adding fuel to the fire. This allows our sensitization level and anxiety level to drop.
This isn’t something we can grasp instantly. It takes time and practice to change this ingrained habit of reacting to our anxiety.
Adding second fear can be seen in our thinking. It is the “Oh, no!!” reaction we have when the anxiety feelings come back. This is a fear reaction to our anxiety (second fear). We can change our thinking by reminding ourselves that anxiety is not dangerous. It is just a feeling, albeit an unpleasant one. With practice we can learn to reduce our reaction to one of just shrugging and saying: “So what?” when anxiety happens.
Another type of thought that comes with second fear is the doom and gloom thinking: “What if _____?”, and the attempts to work out why we are anxious and how to feel better. We can change this thinking by accepting how we feel, allowing those feelings without resistance, and just letting it all happen.
Written by
CarlJames
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I had a day class on the relationship between emotions and feelings that showed a very similar picture.
Hi. The way I understand it is they are essentially the same, but there is a subtle difference. We have emotions, then we have feelings about those emotions.
In no small measure thanks to your posts, I'm getting better at accepting anxiety and not generating second fear. I am grateful to you for that. Since anxiety is not as big an issue anymore, depression has resurfaced with a vengeance. I have more problems to not adding a second layer (and staying in bed, thinking I'll never get out of it) with initial depressive cognition/feelings/thoughts. I'm having a couple of bad weeks after two weeks that were rather good. I can rationally recognize that this is likely a temporary setback, but the feelings of being back to square one are difficult to shake. Any tip would be welcome. Thanks Carl, and have a nice day
In general, depression can be tackled in the same way as anxiety - by practicing facing and allowing all those unpleasant feelings. The key again is to do this as willingly as possible, not with the goal of changing them, but experiencing them as fully and deeply as you are able to.
It's definitely not easy to do this. I mean who wants to feel their depression. But it is on the other side that the peace lies.
You will come out of this depression period anyway, since it is temporary like all these setbacks and episodes are. But if you can practice on this one, the benefit is that you will reduce the frequency and severity of the setbacks in the future, and eventually you can recover completely.
The feeling of being back at square one is almost guaranteed with every setback. Our mind seems to be determined to convince us we are doomed each time. Convincing, but it isn't true; it is just part of the bluff. Try to face and accept the feeling of despair too, without buying in to its bluff. Ignore the thought, feel the feeling.
Thank you for your response Carl. It makes all the sense in the world, and the fact that it has worked on anxiety makes me believe it can work on depression. It just is, well, difficult for the moment. Your words of encouragement make a difference. Thanks again and be well
Nice post. Another way of looking at it. This is pretty much the lesson learned in the Claire Weekes book. My battle has turned to fighting whatever causes the first fear, maybe I'm trying too hard.
Yes, it is the same as Claire Weekes' books and approach.
As for fighting the things that cause anxiety, that is better than fighting the anxiety itself, but ultimately it won't cure the anxiety condition because there will always be people, circumstances, and events in life that trigger anxiety.
The only true way to recovery that I know is to make peace with the anxiety symptoms and feelings. When you achieve that, then only a normal amount of anxiety is triggered, and since you don't react to it with fear anymore, it subsides quickly once the issue is resolved. In other words, anxiety becomes a non-issue. You experience it just as non-sufferers do - just another feeling, of no more concern than say hunger, tiredness etc.
Excellent posts, CarlJames. All forms of 'fighting' anxiety disorder are counter productive because they cause more stress, more adrenaline when sensitised nerves need less if they are to recover. We win not by the punches we give but by the punches we take. This is true Acceptance.
Exactly, Jeff. It is a really hard thing to surrender when we feel like we are under attack from our anxiety. But giving up the fight is the path to recovery.
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