General anxiety is not a mental illness.
You are not weak, abnormal or going out of your mind.
Anxiety is a lack of confidence in our own ability to handle our bodily sensations. Our symptoms are real but they’re not due to any physical illness. Our body is simply in ‘Fear Response Mode’ and we may experience:
Heart palpitations.
Nausea.
Muscle tension.
Breathing difficulty.
Sense of doom, etc.
These are all perfectly normal reactions and essential for self-protection when we are in real danger. We live in far safer times these days but our mind is constantly on the lookout for potential threats.
The latest research on anxiety describes ‘healing’, rather than ‘managing’ it. This is entirely possible with our commitment to a ‘Four Step Response’ to anxious thoughts and feelings. Here’s a very brief summary:
1. Notice the ‘What if?’ thought and respond with an ‘And??!!’ Acknowledging a thought and diffusing it, can immediately bring our anxiety down a notch.
For example,
Thought: “What if I get ill?!”
Response: “And?! I’ll receive treatment and support”.
We can always find a retort to all our worrying thoughts. Have a go now. You can add humour to lighten your responses, if you want to.
2. Allow your physical feelings to work their way through your body. They are only caused by energy and the same sensations we experience when very excited. It’s only our perception that makes them a problem for us.
We naturally want to avoid uncomfortable feelings in our body and it’s counter intuitive to allow them to be there, but the more we accept them, the quicker they will dissipate.
Dr Claire Weekes said,
“Give up fearing these sensations. Recovery lies in the midst of all the sensations you dread most”.
Anxiety is not a fear of specific situations, it’s a dread of feeling the uncomfortable sensations that we felt when we were previously in that situation.
3. If you can’t accept the sensation, which may be challenging during a panic attack, then face it head on and yell,
“COME ON, PANIC! Give it your best shot!”
Your body is designed to handle this energetic response to fear, and you will not cause yourself any harm.
I did this once in a hospital waiting room and silently said to my nervous, shaking legs:
“Is that the BEST you can do? Surely you can shake more than that?!”
Intensifying the sensation in my legs made it disappear, like magic!
4. As your feelings of anxiety start to calm down, take action to occupy yourself with an activity. This isn’t as a distraction, it’s just a way to move forward as your nervous system calms down.
Resisting anxious feelings is like fighting waves in the sea – we run into even more difficulty. When we stop splashing about and allow the wave to support us, we bob up and down with ease.
The biggest hurdle stopping us healing ourselves of our anxiety is ourselves.
We can remove hurdles.
YOU can heal yourself. x
If you would like help to apply Mindfulness to your personal situation or circumstance, drop me an email on: juliet@mindfulnessconsultant.co.uk or send me a message on Facebook.com/JoyArises