ANXIETY AND THE ANXIETY CURE
WIDELY FELT, BUT SIMPLY REDUCIBLE
SECTION CONTENTS:
WHAT CURES ANXIETY
DISCUSSION OVERALL
STEPS TO GREATLY REDUCING ANXIETY - A separate section for action.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO NO LONGER BE ANXIOUS - Follow this
learning program.
RELATED TOPICS - Read why they are related.
TESTS - Feedback and measures are the breakfast of champions.
MANAGING, MONITORING - The vehicle for making it all happen.
GOOD PRACTICES - Implement these to keep low anxiety in place!
RESOURCES, BOOKS
__________________________________________________________
However, in wise living, anxiety (and stress) should be very limited in life, to only the occasional situations (such as performances that matter) - each of your days should be virtually stress free and anxiety free. Anything less than being free of this is not acceptable, for the quality of life is more important than anything!
The "feeling" of anxiety is a sense of agitation, which further signals the brain to be on guard and even hyperreactively on guard. It is a feeling of being upset, off center, and not in charge (not powerful).
The keys to managing anxiety are: (We first do all the simple, easy to execute, very doable actions that make a very big difference and then we do what takes a bit more understanding and execution time, but also are very doable.)
1. Understanding the basics and function of anxiety and the basics of the mechanics of the body and mind (see Summary).
2. Implementing all of the very doable actions that reduce the causes of anxiety.
3. Implementing all of the very doable actions that reduce hypervigilance and hypersensitivity of the mind.
4. Implement a few basics very doable actions that provide relief of anxiety, in a healthy productive way.
5. We employ The Build strategy that creates a stronger psychological foundation, so that anxiety is stopped and/or not started in the first place.
Some of the strategies to better build of the psychological foundation :
1. Replacing (re-forming) self conversation about threats (deleting 99%, which are not real threats). (Have at least 10 definite true empowering sentences installed and available instantly - but jump off of some recommended ones.)
2. Developing a "knowing" that you can handle the essential life parts no matter what. ("Fearlessness")
3. Building high certainty, skills, definiteness, decidedness, establishing clarity, strong stands, a sense of safety (at the core). See Building "Sufficient" Psychological Certainty.
4. Absolutely being sure to stay in high functioning balance (physically and psychologically), so that agitation signals are eliminated. Much of this is simple physical adjustments that can be easily implemented.
WHAT CURES ANXIETY
The unremarkable answer is to do the opposite of what causes it. So, let's look at those first.
Intensity contributors
↓
Causes, causal chain → ANXIETY ← Lack of perspective, knowledge
↑
Hyperreactivity, misfiring
THE CAUSES AND THE CURES
Causes - Fear beliefs are the cause
False ideas of what to fear - See the piece, and its related pieces: I Am Safe.
Contributors Habits contribute, as they can be "anxiety-continuing" and "anxiety
causing" (fear related)
Develop new habits a little bit at a time
Hyperreactivity Repeated bad practices/habits create the hyperreactivity
Use practices that cause calm; eliminate/reduce bad practices
Change foods/intakes
Lack of perspective, knowledge
Learning, following the Steps To Greatly Reducing Anxiety
DISCUSSION OVERALL
Note that anxiety, depression, and fear are all from the same source, so, naturally, the solutions are similar. Understanding fear is, of course, the primary step to unraveling the whole complex of the habits you misuse and the untrue beliefs you operate from.
It is very, very difficult to operate when one has constant concern about being ok and safe enough, as the mind wants to fix the threat. The mind doesn't know it is a false threat, so somehow we have to get you to the point where you see that - and where you feel content with life and where you just go about harvesting it for all it is worth for you and for others.
Our objective here is to get rid of that constant concern and have you know that life can and will be handled so that things turn out more than ok overall.
Transforming one's whole life philosophy (viewpoint on life) is essential to creating ease and wisdom. Therefore, you would use the various life/philosophy trainings/workshops/seminars that we recommend to further your progress. (Where you really need to unravel severe anxiety and get down to the core of things you'd use the Hoffman Institute.)
Your erroneous beliefs are what create anxiety, not external situational things (people, circumstances, if you have or don't have something, etc.). That is why converting to "right thinking" relieves one of an incredible amount of needless anxiety. You can rely on the fact that if you "feel bad", other than physical maladies, you are engaged in thinking a false belief - guaranteed!
Anxiety thinking is what creates suffering and struggle, so you should understand how those two are caused.
The effects of anxiety on the quality of life are enormous - and very, very unnecessary. And it is virtually certain that your body and your health and longevity will be affected significantly. Correspondingly, the payoffs of finishing off your anxiety are huge - and well worth the effort, rather than an occasional dipping into ineffectual pieces of learning.
The only way TO peace and low anxiety is to go THRU the necessary steps. Read The Steps To Greatly Reducing Anxiety to see what you need to do.
The function of this site is to give you the core of what works and to provide the means to implement that. It could be helpful for you to read some of the recommended books. Read the Basic Readings, below, to give you the framework and foundation for understanding and solving anxiety and what underlies it.
DISCUSSION, CONTINUING, continuing, into more depth.
WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW TO NO LONGER BE ANXIOUS
These are basic readings that you'll need to know in order to correct your erroneous belief. There is no way around this, as there is no "instant panacea". People look for the quick cure, but they succeed in only being a dilettante about it, but never actually doing the completion necessary to achieve the desired result! (Read Completion in the also helpful Power In Life section.)
If you want to jump to the core reading, see "I Am Safe", below.
Prerequisite: Read the Fear section, as it is the basis for all of this, especially read About Fear - How It's Created and Disappeared.
Anxiety Process - Differentiating with regard to what negative living looks like versus positive living. Get clear on why you are creating anxiety and the alternative ways to think and act.
The Experience Of Life - Thru Filters - The source of your experience of life is either fear or "love" (actually positivity, progressiveness, etc.). It is one or the other; it can't be both at the same time. By recognizing and controlling those sources, the quality of your life will improve dramatically.
Your Choice - A Life Of Adaptation To Fears Or Be Free of Fears - Solve this sooner rather than later! The quality of your life is at stake!
Something's Wrong - Read this to identify and handle that underlying, ever-present "fear" that something is wrong (here or with me).
The Role Of Expectations In Life And In Relationship - Understanding this may open the door to happiness, and it will at least reduce unhappiness forever.
You As A Human Being - With Limits, But... - A perspective on why the negative side has no merit and no real use - and about what is actually true of us.
Victimhood - A viewpoint that creates the greatest degree of anxiety and lack of self-confidence, which is a (or "the") source of anxiety.
We Are Powerful Beyond Measure - Nelson Mandela's Inauguration Speech that recognizes
our great capability and encourages us to live a "large" life. This piece is one of the pieces
you might want to read fairly often, so you might insert it into a notebook, such as the ones
suggested under Lifebooks.
Choosing What To Control and Not Control - It is vital for good psychological health to be clear on those things you can control and what you can't. Finish this here and now.
Fear and Perfection - Perfection seeking is the path toward anxiety and defeat emotionally. Emotional Intelligence In Action - Handling Anxieties and Relieving Stress (an excerpt from The Intelligences, Life Basics section)
Self-Talk - A whole section
Coping Statements - Vital as a part of your conversation AND as an integral part of your
philosophy. These are "thought statements" that generalize about life, which are brought
into mind readily and frequently when things happen. They can be disempowering (identify
yours) or empowering. Examples of coping statements are provided to choose from or jump
off of.
Coping Statements For Anxiety - Link on a professional site for your use.
CREATING A BASE OF SAFETY - Do this and you'll offset alot of the unreasonable and useless "danger" signals - and it'll help rewire the brain to do alot of this automatically!
(F) Anxiety and Worry - Forms To Fill Out When In Them
RELATED TOPICS
GRATITUDE - When learned, this is the antidote to fear, worry, anxiety, depression, etc. A key understanding and a key skill.
PEACE OF MIND - Teach yourself how to have it. Leads also to Meditation section.
PROBLEM SOLVING - Helps prevent undesired or feared outcomes, plus it helps on making better decisions, for a much better run life! And alot more confidence!
MOOD MANAGEMENT - Manage "moods", of which you might say even that "worry" is a mood, that lower your vitality and make you needlessly more susceptible to worry and stress
WORRY, ANXIETY'S KISSING COUSIN - Reduce this substantially, getting rid of the useless and doing something more useful with the time and energy.
TESTS
EMOTIONAL MATURITY TEST - Where are you? - How well do you recognize and
handle fears and emotions?
(F) Rating of My Viewpoint of Life - A simple rating system to see where you are and to
decide what you are committed to enhancing in life.
MANAGING, MONITORING
(F) Daily Pre-Flight and Pre-Hangar Checklist - A small checklist, like a pilot's, on what
you need to commit to every day and the level of rest and relaxation needed to have
less anxiety and/or stress.
(F) Daily Monitoring For The Month - Anxiety/Stress Level - A sheet to track the anxiety
rating for the day and the practices and habits for the day. Valuable "feedback"
technique.
STEPS TO GREATLY REDUCING ANXIETY - A separate section for action.
Click on the link above and implement these!
RESOURCES, BOOKS - See related books under Psychology Resources. See Amazon link at top, to help pay for this site and for scholarships.
BARKSDALE MATERIALS - The road to being anxiety-free is through "straight thinking" or what is called "right thinking" by the Buddhists and "reality thinking" by others. These materials are key, in my opinion, to getting rid of alot of the causes of anxiety.
Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy Revised and Updated, David Burns - The update of one of the most successful handbooks ever published.
How To Control Your Anxiety Before It Controls You, Albert Ellis, Ph. D. - Really clear and really definite.
The Pursuit Of Perfect, Tal Ben-Shahar, Ph. D. - From the instructor of the largest class ever at Harvard, on happiness, helps get one out of the trap of the set up for unhappiness and anxiety: seeking perfection. He gives us practical methods of being "optimal" within a range that works for us.
Depressed and Anxious, The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Workbook for Overcoming Depression & Anxiety, Thomas Marra, Ph. D. - Depression and anxiety are kissing cousins, to be solved with a similar approach.
On specific types of anxiety:
Overcoming Social Anxiety And Shyness, Gillian Butler - Using the effective cognitive behavior approach, this guide should help you to get rid of 80% or more of that type of anxiety, IF you practice it!
SITES - Note their recommendations for resources, also.
Anxiety Network: From Generalized Anxiety Disorder through to Social Anxiety and Panic.
Reference directory
Find things, yes, but also use this as an order in which to read and learn things:
Strategies, to do
I Am Invincible - A perspective.
Available additions:
Worry, Anxiety's kissing cousin
Panic - Anxiety on steroids
Anxious: "I am afraid that I won't be able to handle this, that there is 'something awful' that I won't be able to handle either. I better try to think of all the solutions right now, frantically, and I don't think I'll find any solutions..."
Non-anxious: "I know that I am capable of getting what I want in life. I am not dependent on things I cannot control. No matter what happens, I will create a basis for my being happy. Things will work out. I am powerful! I am the creator of my life, I'm at cause over my life, and I shall prevail to create a great life."
The objective observer: There is nothing to be anxious about, unless a real tiger is chasing you... Otherwise, you're still physically intact with an unscathed core.
The zebra: Notice the zebra after being chased by the lion...all is well...and he makes up no story or projections, for he knows that next time he will run full out when needed....
(video, 2:57)
Anxiety is a form of fear, where one's body and primitive mind prepare for fight or flight based on something that might happen. Instinctually, the primitive mind "interprets" lack of definiteness as a threat to our survivng well, so it is "on alert" and even frantic, while searching in a chaotic manner for "the solution". As a result, the mind is sending out chemicals that don't feel good and which agitate the body for action - which can't be carried out since we do not know what to do! So it accumulates as "stress" and unhappiness.
Unless we tie things down and address the underlying cause(s), we must, as a human being, experience anxiety - aka the symptoms over and over and over and over and over... Unless we follow up on the recommendations herein, we will live in a constant background noise and felt stress from the anxiety.
