Don't be anxious about anxiety

Heeeyyy guys

Hope you are all well.

I just thought I would share this crucial first step in dissolving anxiety.

Don't fear anxiety

At first its kind of like standing up to it. Then it mellows into not minding it. And then it dissolves into I'm above it.

So I started by saying Hey I'm not going to live in fear of this. Then it kind of became like something that followed me around. Which was annoying and of course scary at first. But then I heard this idea of not being afraid of it and I began to see it as a nagging voice. ANd then I started to picture it as that nagging, stress-pot, killjoy aunt (but I called it the nagging colleague for some reason (but picture an aunt haha. Anyway...it helped). So each time I heard an anxiety what-if or felt the queeziness, I pictured it to be a nagging colleague, calling out to me in the office and I would ignore them or a nagging aunt poking a finger at me and saying But what-if...And I would picture myself saying yeah yeah and ignoring them (We spoke of the art of ignoring in my first posts).

So that's what I would do each time my anxiety flared. Whenever I felt the anxiety creeping up, the pounding heart or the squeeze in my stomach. I pictured them to be the nagging colleague calling out or the nagging aunt poking at me and I would say (sometimes out loud) yeah yeah and ignore them continuing with what I was doing anyway.

Eventually, it became second nature and the symptoms simmered down and I would smile as I said yeah yeah to myself. And sometimes I would even laugh picturing the aunt or colleague who always panicked about everything and I would even say to them its fine nagging colleague its not that big of a deal. And I would actually feel my heart and stomach ease. It was a wonderful feeling. And oh how relieving. I would inhale deeply because it felt as if I could breathe again.

My wish for is to feel that relief and freedom.

Happy day all :-)