Acceptance is key to overcoming anxiety. - Anxiety Support

Anxiety Support

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Acceptance is key to overcoming anxiety.

Beevee profile image
8 Replies

I thought it might be helpful to post a few more lines about Acceptance to try and get the point across to those struggling with anxiety. There are all sorts of therapies out there with varying degrees of effectivenes which you may find useful, however, you will still be left with things as they are in the now. Acceptance has to happen to overcome your fears, otherwise, you leave the door open for fear to return, which it will, if you still fear it coming back.

To recover from anxiety you have to be fully accepting of your reality as it is. If your mind feels as if something terrible is about to happen, you must be ok with it. If you understand how anxiety plays its tricks, you will know that you are not in any danger and that nothing terrible will happen to you. The trick is to simply welcome those negative thoughts and feelings and not allow them to stop you doing anything. Make friends! In fact, you have a choice because they can't actually stop you, unless you make that choice. No matter how awful it feels, recognise anxiety for what it is; it is our body's primitive, automatic, natural response that prepares you to fight" or "flee" from perceived attack, harm or threat to your survival. It cannot harm you, it is there to protect you and just doing its job, albeit slightly misguided because of continuous use.

Basically, the simple message to cure yourself is to "do nothing" about the thoughts and feelings. Don't fight them. If they scare you, so what? Be scared. It's fine. If your mind starts to wrestle as to whether or not you properly accept the situation, allow it to do that too. Just give up the fight. Anxiety is not about fighting. You need a bit of determination to succeed but you don't fight it. Fighting it is a big no no.

It is easy to get bogged down in trying to work out if you're accepting "properly." Your mind just creates more stress around the issue of acceptance.

After picking up Dr Claire Weekes' book for the first time, I really didn't know if I was fully accepting. It's a simple concept that can be hard to grasp, especially when you are in the thick of it. Over time, I learned that the thoughts and feelings just weren't real and couldn't actually hurt me. With this knowledge I carried on living my life and took the anxiety with me and waited to see how things went.

Today, I found an old notepad with some entries I made whilst struggling with anxiety. I think a therapist suggested I keep a diary and managed to keep it up for a few months (never kept a diary before or since!). Clearly, my mind and body was in complete turmoil. I didn't know if I was coming or going, everything was scary, everything upset me, lots of small things made me feel very irritable, I was full of doubt too and trying too hard to understand the concept of acceptance which was becoming something of a technique because I was overthinking it. Trying to do something about my anxiety was getting me nowhere, fast.

I learned that Acceptance is just an attitude of living with things as they are, resigning myself to it, rather than fighting with myself to make things change. That change comes naturally so long as you are prepared to be ok about not feeling ok.

Stop striving to change the way things are at the moment, stop evaluating whether it is good or bad, stop battling, stop trying to rid yourself of "it" and just be whatever you are and where ever you are. Recovery will come by just "being" and observing and being aware but not trying to change anything. Worrying about it all (fear, thinly disguised) will not heal the worry problem. All that negative energy that has built up through worry and introspection needs to escape so just let it do it without looking at each symptom as good or bad and accept it all.

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Beevee profile image
Beevee
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8 Replies
LDS32 profile image
LDS32

Fantastic advice. Working out, eating healthy, meditation, medication, prayer all of these things help but acceptance is the only real way out. Until you can sit with it and let it pass without strong reaction you're still gonna struggle.

I know you keep saying but I haven't been able to stop being afraid of the fear. When I read dr weekes book years ago that's what scared me. If you keep fearing it it will get worse. Now that i have severe anxiety I can't stop being afraid of it. It's like an obsessive thought.

Peggy76 profile image
Peggy76

Hello Beevee . Thank you so much for all the good advice you have given. So hope & pray it works for me & any other suffers I'm so scared & Anxious all the time. Once again thank you .

Warm regards .........Peggy🌹

Beevee profile image
Beevee in reply to Peggy76

It will Peggy because acceptance gives your mind and body much needed space and time to recover, instead of fighting it which keeps the anxiety topped up. It isn't a quick fix. You are simply letting nature heal your sensitised nerves and build up resilience towards stress and stressful situations. Anxiety sufferers have very little resilience or a buffer and the reason why they fear everything. Over time, the nervous system will return to normal but the only way to de-sensitise is to go towards the feelings of fear and not shrink away from them. They may make you feel bad but entirely harmless. You have to feel the full force of anxiety and learn not to react to it by adding more fear. Just let the feelings wash over you and carry on, regardless. Feel the fear and do it anyway!

Peggy76 profile image
Peggy76 in reply to Beevee

God bless you & thank you I'm trying hard as my heart opp is on Wednesday so we will see. Thank you 😊 🎄

Beevee profile image
Beevee in reply to Peggy76

Hope all goes well for you. ❤️

Jeff1943 profile image
Jeff1943

Well said, Beevee, anxiety is a toothless dragon, it can frighten us but it can't destroy us. When it sees that our nervous symptoms no longer frighten us, because we know they are fake symptoms and hace the courage to Accept them temporarily, they give up and go away. And if perchance they should ever return in the future, well, we know how to deal with them again, don't we? Easy to say I know, not so easy when your stomach is churning or your heart pounding. But your doctor has told you it's not organic, it's because your nervous system that extends to every part of your body has become over sensitive, like an over strained muscle.

Small problems in our daily lives appear insurmountable, by just Floating through you can solve those o.k. When you feel the next spasm of fear coming just go limp, don't fight it, relax every muscle and the wave will break and pass.

Little is said about depression in our group, people with anxiety can understandably become depressed about their condition, but it is a type of 'secondary' depression that is a by product of our anxieties. It too will pass when we cease to be fearful of every new symptom we notice and dismiss them as imposters.

There is something about daylight and sunlight that relieves us of distressing symptoms and exercise, even a brisk walk, will burn up some of those 'fight or flight' hormones such as adreniline and cortisol that we don't need thank you because we're not fighting or flighting.

Yes, we really should get out more☺

Beevee profile image
Beevee in reply to Jeff1943

Excellent stuff Jeff!

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