keeping his anxiety going, to which he replied:
“What new problem”?
I replied:
“Anxiety, these feelings have become your new problem and this is
the reason you stay in the cycle”.
I further explained that initially he may have worried about his job
and the problems at home, with which he agreed. “Right”, I said,
“You put your body under too much stress and worry and it sort of
broke down and you ended up with anxiety. Now what you are doing
is worrying and stressing about how you feel and this is the reason
the anxiety stays around. It has a new worry to feed on. I did exactly
the same; in fact my initial problem did not matter. This anxiety was
far bigger than what brought it on. I worried daily about it, fought it
and tried everything to make the damn thing go away. How could I
ever recover putting this much stress and worry on myself? I could
not”.
He said “I really understand what you’re saying here and I realise
that I am doing all of the above so why I am getting nowhere”
So I told him that he could not hope to banish these feelings, so why
not live with them the best he can for the time being. “If you decide
to do this then you will not add any more fuel to the fire. You will
begin to break a cycle. Anxiety is like a fire that you throw petrol on.
It won’t dampen down until you take away its fuel. It may burn for a
while, but it will begin to go out if you stop feeding it. I did the
opposite for 10 years and it got me nowhere. I now understand
completely why I got worse and not better. If my body could speak, it
would have said ‘Paul just leave me alone and I will heal myself’”
This post was entitled “Moving forward with Anxiety”.
- 69 -
A lady whom I knew from a couple of years ago got in touch with me
last week. She sent me a lovely email saying how well she was
doing and now realised what really held her back in the old days,
and this was that she realised she had wanted to get better before
she lived her life rather than go out and live it while she had anxiety.
The fact is she was right
The whole point of this post is to help you to stop seeing anxiety as
the enemy. Don’t wait or demand to feel well before doing things you
want to do.
Trey sent the following reply saying that he had just about recovered
and these are his words:
I finally “got it”. I understood what everyone has been saying and I
let everything go. I did whatever a normal person who didn’t have
anxiety would do. I travelled, hung out with friends, anything, no
matter how bad I felt. I do feel normal again after years of anxiety
and depersonalisation.
What he has done is gone towards his feelings of dread and not let
them stop him living his life. Not only that, but he kept believing that
this would work in the long run. Too many people think “Well I have
been there today and I still feel bad. I just need to get rid of these
damn feelings. That’s the only way I can get on with my life again”.
The trouble is this is why so many stay in a cycle. Anxiety will always
be the enemy if you spend your time trying to get rid of it, as it
always has your fear and respect to feed on. Let me show you how
the anxiety loop works in many cases.
Feel awful - spend all day trying to rid yourself of these symptoms-
feel awful - worry about how long this will go on - feel awful -
avoidance - feel awful - feel a failure - feel awful - get frustrated - feel
awful - fight - feel awful - again start to Google - stay bewildered.
The way to break this loop is to stop seeing anxiety as the enemy
and truly allow yourself to feel this way, so then it goes:
- 70 -
Feel awful – nothing - there is no avoidance as you are going
everywhere at will. Pride that you did not let anxiety rule your life -
there is no going round in circles trying to rid yourself of the way you
feel as you have not allowed yourself to feel anything. There is no
worry as you no
“What new problem”?
I replied:
“Anxiety, these feelings have become your new problem and this is
the reason you stay in the cycle”.
I further explained that initially he may have worried about his job
and the problems at home, with which he agreed. “Right”, I said,
“You put your body under too much stress and worry and it sort of
broke down and you ended up with anxiety. Now what you are doing
is worrying and stressing about how you feel and this is the reason
the anxiety stays around. It has a new worry to feed on. I did exactly
the same; in fact my initial problem did not matter. This anxiety was
far bigger than what brought it on. I worried daily about it, fought it
and tried everything to make the damn thing go away. How could I
ever recover putting this much stress and worry on myself? I could
not”.
He said “I really understand what you’re saying here and I realise
that I am doing all of the above so why I am getting nowhere”
So I told him that he could not hope to banish these feelings, so why
not live with them the best he can for the time being. “If you decide
to do this then you will not add any more fuel to the fire. You will
begin to break a cycle. Anxiety is like a fire that you throw petrol on.
It won’t dampen down until you take away its fuel. It may burn for a
while, but it will begin to go out if you stop feeding it. I did the
opposite for 10 years and it got me nowhere. I now understand
completely why I got worse and not better. If my body could speak, it
would have said ‘Paul just leave me alone and I will heal myself’”
This post was entitled “Moving forward with Anxiety”.
- 69 -
A lady whom I knew from a couple of years ago got in touch with me
last week. She sent me a lovely email saying how well she was
doing and now realised what really held her back in the old days,
and this was that she realised she had wanted to get better before
she lived her life rather than go out and live it while she had anxiety.
The fact is she was right
The whole point of this post is to help you to stop seeing anxiety as
the enemy. Don’t wait or demand to feel well before doing things you
want to do.
Trey sent the following reply saying that he had just about recovered
and these are his words:
I finally “got it”. I understood what everyone has been saying and I
let everything go. I did whatever a normal person who didn’t have
anxiety would do. I travelled, hung out with friends, anything, no
matter how bad I felt. I do feel normal again after years of anxiety
and depersonalisation.
What he has done is gone towards his feelings of dread and not let
them stop him living his life. Not only that, but he kept believing that
this would work in the long run. Too many people think “Well I have
been there today and I still feel bad. I just need to get rid of these
damn feelings. That’s the only way I can get on with my life again”.
The trouble is this is why so many stay in a cycle. Anxiety will always
be the enemy if you spend your time trying to get rid of it, as it
always has your fear and respect to feed on. Let me show you how
the anxiety loop works in many cases.
Feel awful - spend all day trying to rid yourself of these symptoms-
feel awful - worry about how long this will go on - feel awful -
avoidance - feel awful - feel a failure - feel awful - get frustrated - feel
awful - fight - feel awful - again start to Google - stay bewildered.
The way to break this loop is to stop seeing anxiety as the enemy
and truly allow yourself to feel this way, so then it goes:
- 70 -
Feel awful – nothing - there is no avoidance as you are going
everywhere at will. Pride that you did not let anxiety rule your life -
there is no going round in circles trying to rid yourself of the way you
feel as you have not allowed yourself to feel anything. There is no
worry as you no
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