When you have anxiety the last thing you should be doing is trying to force peace of mind and body, trying to fix yourself, worrying about it, analysing it to death or constantly searching for the answer that will make it all go away.
To find peace, you must do the exact opposite and start to feel everything that anxiety has to offer and do absolutely nothing to change the way you feel.
Please trust what I am saying; putting up any type of resistance means you are fighting a war with yourself which is utterly futile and will end in defeat, without a shadow of any doubt, keeping you stuck in the anxiety cycle. You have to surrender yourself to it all.
You have to go through all the crappy days and nights, stay in places when your instinct is telling you to run. Give up any techniques or mantras that you are using to try and get better. At best, they may provide temporary relief but that is all.
You need to stop trying to get better, stop trying to feel any different. You have to feel every single symptom that anxiety throws at you and still carry on with your day, feel detached yet still go everywhere willingly.
Once you accept that these thoughts and feelings you are experiencing are completely harmless (I'm giving you a helping hand here 😊) things will get easier. Just acknowledge the thoughts and feelings and leave them alone.
Recovery for me was a slow process so it didn't disappear overnight. It comes in layers and usually under the radar. It isn't linear either which means you may have more bad days than good days, then more good days than bad days but all the time your mind and body are healing themselves.
I made lots of mistakes along the way, mainly believing the scary thoughts and doing things to get rid of the anxiety. However if you keep moving forward, facing and feeling your anxiety and all of its symptoms, you will start to feel the peace you have been desperately looking for.
This method is not some sort of technique. It is the method used by Mother Nature that heals your mind and body in exactly the same way that it will heal a broken bone or flesh would, for example. You don't interfere with that healing process, it just happens. You need to have the same attitude towards your anxiety and not interfere with it in any way.
Best wishes
Beevee
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Beevee
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Hi Beevee great advice as always Just a little added tip that might help some people I do tensing and letting go If I'm trapped in a situation like a waiting room or passenger in a car or whatever where all the" what ifs" and the old flight or fight kicks in I push my feet as hard as I can into the floor it tenses my whole body No one can see I tense as hard as I can then let go I keep doing it as long as I can and honestly when I get into my appointment or whatever I'm so relaxed its a lovely feeling and it works even in the worst of situations
I know you might tell me off as its kind of fighting and a technique but I find there are situations where the anxiety is so overwhelming and I just want to run and get away from the situation It really works I do echo all you have said though
Hi Beevee great advice as always Just a little added tip that might help some people I do tensing and letting go If I'm trapped in a situation like a waiting room or passenger in a car or whatever where all the" what ifs" and the old flight or fight kicks in I push my feet as hard as I can into the floor it tenses my whole body No one can see I tense as hard as I can then let go I keep doing it as long as I can and honestly when I get into my appointment or whatever I'm so relaxed its a lovely feeling and it works even in the worst of situations
I know you might tell me off as its kind of fighting and a technique but I find there are situations where the anxiety is so overwhelming and I just want to run and get away from the situation It really works I do echo all you have said though
Accepting the symptoms wont harm you, yes i agree but totally disagree with everything else you said. May have worked for you but you cant say feeling it without resistance is a cure. Controling the anxiety with techniques is vital or you cant move on if permanently in fear and flight mode
I made loads of mistakes during my recovery but a lot of it is by trial and error.
So long as you stand your ground and be prepared to sit and let the panic sweep over you as willingly as you can manage, it will gradually decrease in intensity. This is acceptance. What you must not do is "run away" or withdraw in desperation and fear. The adding of fear to the panic flash keeps it going. Fear is the root cause of panic, anxiety, PTSD, OCD , GAD or any other label given to it by the medical profession. The treatment for cure is exactly the same. Removing fear from the equation and the only way to do that is to go through it with as much acceptance as you can muster. It will only hang around if you try and avoid it, if your continue to add more fear to it.
In the words of Dr Claire Weekes, you must Face, Accept, Float Past and then Let Time Pass. Time is the healer because it takes time to de-sensitise your nerves, it takes time for the feelings of panic to die down to the point you no longer care whether or not panic will come. it takes time to get to the point where you no longer crumple on the advancement of a panic attack. Time and acceptance is the key to recovery.
I did not use any techniques or use meditation. I took the view that before I had anxiety, I never bothered with them then, so why now? I admit to trying meditation a couple of times in the early days of anxiety but was using it to rid myself of the feelings. I wasn't accepting. Meditation did not stop the waves of anxiety crashing down on me, it only provided temporary relief. However, if you practice meditation or tensing/relaxing alongside acceptance, there is nothing wrong with that.
I just hit the whole lot head on, safe in the knowledge that I knew what the enemy was, what it could do and knew its weaknesses. I knew what it took to defeat it once and for all. Knowledge, or keeping with the military theme, intelligence. The main source of my intelligence came from Dr Claire Weekes. That lady (who is no longer with us) deserves a posthumous medal as her teachings have saved thousands, probably millions, including me. Her teachings will save you too, so long as to follow the advice. The same advice I am passing on now.
Jefner, controlling anxiety means it will still be there, lurking in the background ready to pounce. It means you are putting up with it. It means you still fear it. Fear is the root cause as I said earlier. The only way to overcome fear is to go through it. If you agree that the feelings are harmless, what have you to fear? By all means do what you need to do to ease the symptoms but if you want to find true peace and not be afraid that it might return, you have to go through through it with acceptance, even when the storm is raging inside your head and body. I suffered severe anxiety 24/7 for a long time but did move on. I kept the faith and carried on working, even though my fear was telling me not to go, even though I could hardly muster up the energy to drag my sorry arse out of bed over many months having spent all night battling scary thoughts. I just carried on because I understood what was happening to me and that it was the anxiety making me feel rubbish, not the job or my home life. I learned the way to true recovery was to keep moving forward no matter how rubbish i felt and slowly recovered. I had felt the very worst anxiety could throw at me but come through it.
Once you learn to recover the right way, the fear that causes anxiety and keeps you stuck in the cycle is completely banished. It has lost its power over you which means it can't drag you down to the same depths of despair again. You know how to get out of the hole by acceptance and that experience never leaves you. It's the same as learning to ride a bike.
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