A Blog for all Anxiety Sufferers

Allowing your anxious energy is not a technique to get rid of or suppress your anxiety. You can’t destroy energy and suppressing it just keeps it within. The way to be free of this energy is to allow it fully. You think you want liberation from this anxious energy, when the truth is, it wants liberation from you. This is why it keeps coming up; it wants to be free of you, just as much as you want to be free of it.

Allowing yourself to feel the built-up anxious energy

Most people never allow themselves to feel this energy, they avoid places/situations, drink too much, over exercise, take drugs/medication, distract themselves in activities, they search the net for ways to get rid of it, look for gurus, try to perfect techniques, fight, suppress, spend all day in their heads trying to feel different. By doing the above most people get worse, as there is nothing more mentally draining and exhausting than always being at war with yourself, it is like lashing out at an invisible enemy that you have no chance of ever defeating.

Also, all this resisting, the constant struggle is the leading cause of your suffering. The absolute best you can do is force some temporary peace, but then the energy goes nowhere, so the problems persist and the constant search for temporary peace continues. Whatever you constantly try to suppress will always keep on knocking until you finally give up your pointless pursuit for temporary peace and allow its presence within you.

Many people spend their lives in this loop; I did for ten years until I finally realised the only thing I had not done was allow myself to feel the way I did. When I looked into this approach deeply, then it made utter sense to me why this would free me of this energy that I had done everything to try and avoid feeling. It made sense how much struggle and resistance would fall away, how much more of a break my poor and overworked mind would get, how much wasted brain energy it would free up. How, if I wasn’t so concentrated on fixing me, then my awareness could go back on life, and I would start to feel more real. It made sense to me that this was the only way forward.

It wasn’t the day I recovered, as I still had so much anxious and fearful energy to release and for a while things heightened, as now I was fully open to feeling how I did. It was like opening a tap, and everything that I had suppressed came rushing up, which wasn’t always pleasant to face. But I truly understood the process that was happening; I didn’t see it as a bad thing anymore, I didn’t think I was regressing on any given bad day. In fact, quite the opposite, I saw it as my body finally releasing what needed to be released, I saw it as a step nearer to being free of anxiety and finally realised a major key on how to recover from anxiety.

Why we fight and suppress feelings of anxiety

The main two reasons people go back to fighting/suppressing is because the brains automatic reaction is to try and fight off uncomfortable feelings. Because these actions are only counterproductive and will never free you of anxiety, it is essential that you/your brain needs to understand that feeling this anxious energy is a good thing. That when you are free of this anxious energy, then all that is left is peace, which is your natural state.

The other reason is many people don’t have the patience to go through this process; they wrongly assume that once they understand something, then their suffering should be over and if something doesn’t work instantly, then they go back to searching for temporary peace. I figured out that I could either allow myself to go through a few months of discomfort and be free or spend a lifetime trying to find temporary peace and get nowhere.

A lot of people will say to me ‘Yes, but it is not the anxious energy that is the problem, it is going to a supermarket, driving etc, that is the problem’ my reply is ‘No, these places are not the cause of your anxiety, they are just triggering the anxious energy that is within. If you were free of this anxious energy, then you would not feel such a reaction to normal situations’.

If the problem were in these places, then everyone would feel this way, the truth is, they don’t. So don’t put the problem on the location or situation you find yourself in, the problem is not there, that is just a trigger for what is within. The problem is never on the outside, the problem is within. So there is no reason to avoid these places. See them as a place that triggers in you what needs to be released and allow the reaction.

Being free of anxious energy is what recovery is all about

When you are free of this stored up anxious/fear energy, then you will only get anxious/fearful when you are in real danger. We need this reaction to keep us safe and protect us. The problem only occurs when we accumulate too much of this energy (usually through a prolonged period of worry and stress), and we feel it in everyday situations or as a constant feeling. When you feel anxious for no reason then nothing has gone wrong, nothing needs to be fixed or defeated, it is just a clear wake-up call to allow this energy to be felt and as uncomfortable as it is to do so, this process is precisely what will set you free.

Paul

If you would like more information on overcoming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life

Avoidance of life is never due to the fact that life is this big scary thing to no longer engage in; it is down to the fact that we don’t want to feel anxiety/fear and so we avoid living in the hope of not feeling it. Life itself is never at fault here; it spins exactly the same for all of us, it is only our mind’s fears and perceptions that make it appear different.

I had many aha moments on my road to recovery and realised that life was not to blame for my fear and anxiety. If it was, we would all be scared of the same things and avoiding life when that is simply not the case.

Most people happily engage in it and find joy in doing so. I realised that if life was not to blame, then I had to stop avoiding it. By doing so, I was teaching my mind that it was a scary place to be avoided and with this approach, my life became narrower and narrower, and my mind’s fears just grew.

I then realised that by building up my knowledge, I was trying to get to the point where I had such an aha moment that I would be able to get rid of fear and anxiety and just go out and live again. I realised this approach would never bring any real results and would be an endless waiting period and that if I wanted my life back, then I had to take the plunge and go out and live it once again.

I had to understand that through my past avoidance behaviours, my mind would still have a lot of worries and fears when engaging fully with life again, even if they were false.

Recovering from anxiety beyond just knowledge

There was no getting past the fact that if I wanted to my life back, then knowledge would not do this for me. The only way to get my life back was to go and live it fearlessly. In doing this, it did not mean that fear would not arise; it means I understood that it would do and that the feeling of fear was part of growth. Its presence was a sign of me stepping out of my comfort zones and building new habits, beliefs and perceptions.

My mind would come up with every reason I should stay within my comfort zones, as it would falsely believe that it was keeping me safe. I don’t blame it as I had taught it that the outside was to be avoided. It was just doing its job and trying to protect me, but I needed to teach it that life was not something to be avoided; I had to show it that I was fine and I did not require its protection anymore, and in time it would listen.

I also realised that it was never about trying to get rid of fear which is a hard-wired part of each person’s mind; it was about being OK with the feeling of fear. I am not saying you have to enjoy it; it’s not a nice feeling, but ultimately it is a harmless surge of energy that has its limits. I didn’t like the emotion of fear, but in time I lost my fear of it, and in doing so I was then no longer moved by its presence. I could make my own decisions on what I wanted to do, and that is when my life started to expand once again.

My mind’s perspective also changed when engaging in life once again, as my mind’s fears started to fall away and it no longer fired off its protection when it was not needed. I had taught it through non-avoidance that engaging fully in life was perfectly safe and fine. I was its teacher, and it was my pupil and the best way to teach it was through my actions.

Recovery from anxiety is more than just understanding what the problem is

I always tell people that I never came to some huge insight and then I was fine. Once I understood things, I still had to go through a period of reversing everything, which entailed feeling anxiety and fear. I just concluded that if avoidance had created so many problems, then the answer to reverse this was obvious and, yes, this would entail a lot of discomfort at times, but getting my life back was far more important than that.

Some people believe they can rid themselves of fear and anxiety through knowledge alone and so jump from one person to the next hoping to be free of anxiety and fear in one go and then they can go out and live again. In doing so, they stay stuck in seeking mode as they don’t want to go through the period of discomfort that is needed to reverse the process of avoidance.

Knowledge is important, but we have to implement it through living again

Yes, knowledge does help unmask a lot of myths about anxiety/fear, it helps you to be able to accept its presence better through understanding it. It helps to know why you are doing what you are doing and the process you have to go through. But at the end of the day, knowledge is pointless if you never take the actual leap to go out and live your life once again. Doing so beats any amount of knowledge hands down.

I am not saying it is easy and a lot of people may get defensive and go on about how tough it is. I understand this – it was for me also – but it is through the toughest moments that real freedom comes. Even if you make small steps at first and stay committed to expanding your life little by little on a daily basis, then this is enough to start the process of reversal. Building my understanding was massive for me, but the only reason I live my life fully now is that I engaged in living again no matter how I felt.

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life.

It’s not your thoughts or emotions that keep you in the cycle of suffering, it’s your constant struggle and rejection of them that does. Non-acceptance of ‘what is’ just creates resistance within and it is this resistance that causes so much suffering and it also what stops a process of healing from happening.

Anyone who is stressed and mentally exhausted has got there through struggling with ‘what is’, through trying to force things to be different than they are. The people who constantly worry and stress are mainly those who are arguing with ‘what is’ be in their inner state or the outside world.

If you’re open to any outer or inner state then there is no struggle.

Less struggle = Less suffering, Less struggle = Thoughts and emotions change naturally. You can’t force or create a particular state through struggle or personal will, this just creates more of what you are trying to get rid of and just mentally drains you. You can’t change the outside world by getting mad at it, it won’t stop raining because you want it to and that woman at work won’t act differently than she is, no matter how much you wish her to. The outside world, life and others act as they do, less stress and worry comes through understanding this one fact and realising that life won’t always go your way and that people won’t always act how you want them to. The outside and others don’t cause stress, it is your none acceptance of how things are that does.

This is also true if you suffer in any way, it is your non-acceptance of your current state that causes so much extra suffering. It doesn’t feel great to feel down, angry, fearful, irritable, anxious or any other state you may find yourself in. But trust me, if you just fall right into your current state and don’t try and feel any different than you do, then you won’t suffer the same as if you battle with it, also the complete acceptance of your current state, allows your mind and body to start the process of healing.

Be open to any state

My own recovery from anxiety came when I saw enough to give up this fight to control and change how I felt. The same thoughts and feelings were there for a while, but I just lost interest in them and without my interest, without the constant fighting, the constant struggle I started to feel some peace and I came out of these thoughts and emotions far quicker. They felt lighter, less serious and had less impact.

If a person was able to no longer fear any state they were in then recovery is inevitable. It is your fear of the state you are in, the story you put around it, the constant struggle to feel different than you do. So much suffering is self-created through lack of understanding, yet we think it is an outside force doing this to us, it is not. So let go and have trust that your mind and body knows how to heal itself without your constant attempts at manipulation.

Someone put this as a reply to a similar message on my twitter account, which is so true.

“Imagine a world where we witness thoughts without becoming them & experience feelings without being overwhelmed by them.”

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life.

I have just posted this and my Facebook page, I hope it helps in some way.

Complete allowing is the way out of anxiety and all the other symptoms that go with it. Be it intrusive thoughts, panic, restlessness, anxiety, irritability, feelings of detachment. Your inner disturbance is created by months, and maybe years of worry and so your body and mind is then full of trapped negative/anxious energy.

The only way out of this is to release all this built up suppressed energy. Fighting, suppressing while trying to control it won’t work and can only give small pockets of temporary relief at best, it can never truly fix the problem.

So why do we spend so long trying to fix, suppress and fight these feelings? We do so because our mind is a survival machine and it wants to be rid of these feelings, it screams ‘Do something, I don’t want to feel this way’ so we go around in circles changing meds, seeing counsellors, reading books, self- analysing, trying different techniques, anything not to feel this way.

This cycle can become a lifetime pursuit for many, the further they fall, the more they search for that elusive answer and the harder they battle to get better, not knowing it is this that is causing them to sink further.

The reason we get nowhere and in many cases sink further is because we have never allowed ourselves to feel this negative/anxious energy present within our mind and body, so it has never had the chance to escape our inner space, it’s a vicious cycle when not seen.

When you see things for yourself, it takes on a whole new meaning

On my blog, you get people who have truly seen it, and they flow with knowledge and understanding, they allowed all the inner garbage to surface and so are now recovered. They did so because they did not just see my words, more that my words resonated with them on a deep level and they saw it for themselves. You then get the other person who has read the same material, and they are still doing all of the above, and the reason is that deep down it has not clicked with them yet and they genuinely believe the way out is to get rid or suppress how they feel.

There is a world of difference between seeing something on an intellectual level and a deep level. When seen on a deep level, trying to control or suppress how you feel would seem like the dumbest thing you could do, so you would automatically stop.

It took me a while to have that lightbulb moment and get it. I was like ‘WOW’ that’s why that did not work, why that did, I see it now so clearly’. Was that the end of my suffering? No, as there was so much negative/fearful/anxious present within me, seeing what I did would not get rid of it overnight. I knew I had to go through a painful process I had spent years trying to avoid. In fact, finally allowing myself to feel it, I felt it more strongly than ever at times, mixed in with days of peace and bliss I had never felt before. I loved the good days, but I was okay with all the bad too, as I knew it was a vital part of the process of recovery.

Your mind and body is trying to release what is stopping you from feeling at peace

My realisation was the end of all my suppression and coping techniques, as it made no sense to continue to do so. Even when my mind screamed, ‘Escape, fix’ I smiled at it as I knew deep down I was totally fine with whatever symptoms came up. I was not under attack, and whatever was going on could not harm me in any way. I genuinely saw that my mind and body was full of negative/anxious energy through years of worry and stress, this needed to be released by completely letting go and allowing it all to rise up within me.

The mistake a lot of people make is they think that letting go, allowing, is a ‘do’, they want to know how to do it, why? Because again they want to use it as a technique not to feel a certain way, when this is all about feeling it, not the other way around. You can’t ‘DO’ allowing or letting go, it is not a do, it is an attitude. It’s about not holding on to any strategy, not having any rules or technique, not protecting yourself in any way, it is about letting go of everything, about fully opening up and allowing everything to arise within you.

People think if they let go of all control and all resistance that something terrible will happen, that they will somehow lose control, but don’t fall for your mind’s tricks, it won’t. You feel far more control when you let go than you do when holding on.

The above is not some idea I have about recovery, this comes from personal experience, I have seen so many recover this way, and for me, it is the only way.

Just remember you are always there underneath all this negative/anxious energy, this is all just surface stuff and not who you truly are. When the last of mine stuff was released, all the symptoms left me. All the labels I was given were nonsense; I did not need years of therapy, I did not need to deal with each symptom separate or need a bunch of rules or techniques. I did not need to get somewhere or escape anything; the answer was much more straightforward than that. The answer is simple once you see it for yourself; hopefully, my words will help you do that.

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life.

One of the biggest mistakes people make is they think their aim is about getting rid of anxiety, the second is they think they have to protect themselves from feeling it, so they hide away, avoid social interaction, run away from thoughts and feelings, push them away.

Remember the aim is not to, not feel anxiety, it’s to no longer care if you do or not. This is why people buy numerous books, see numerous counsellors, walk around with 20 sayings and 15 safety behaviours. Their aim is to either get rid of it or not feel it.

Both are wrong; you must actively go towards it to unravel the lie behind it, to desensitise to it, to build up new beliefs and habits. Don’t try and protect yourself by avoidance, the respect for the thoughts and feelings just grows. Instead of trying not to feel it, ask for more, don’t hide away, reveal your anxiety to yourself and to the world. By this I mean don’t treat it as the thing to protect yourself from, to hide away from, don’t treat it as your little secret you have to keep from others, putting on an act hoping your secret is not revealed. Go from caring to not caring, go from trying to keep it at bay to welcoming it, go from trying to not feel it, to feeling it at will.

I spent years in a loop of trying not to feel it, years trying to get rid of it and to no avail. My realisation came that everything I did, every book I read, every counseller I saw was all with the aim of one of them telling me how to get rid of it, it then dawned on me that this was my mistake and I should do the opposite.

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life.

Well I was going to talk today about intrusive thoughts, why they come and how to let them go, but the draft I wrote yesterday did not save to my computer, and I lost the lot, it was a long post and will have to be re-written at a later date now.

Today I am going to cover the subject of avoidance. Some sufferers suffer from this quite a bit, some hardly at all, but I think everyone can get something out of it.

Avoidance can take many forms; some people may avoid social situations, the neighbour, answering the phone. They may turn down invites to meet with friends, not go for the job they want, not join that evening class.

They restrict their own life because they become a prisoner to how they are thinking and feeling. They may find doing things too much effort, have got to the point where they hate mixing or that they feel nervous or awkward in social situations.

The above was me and what I thought at the time, was that I had to work out the magic formula and then I could start having my life back, that when this awful thing called anxiety went away, then my life could be normal again. The problem was that I did not know how to feel normal again, I had tried everything, and nothing had worked.

Then I realised that this is exactly what I needed to get my life back on track ‘Do nothing different than I did before anxiety’ I realised it was me that was changing my behaviour !! Hiding away and avoiding things was only telling my subconscious that there was danger here, there and everywhere, I could NEVER recover this way. The way to improve was to go against these instincts and do it anyway, to teach my subconscious mind that everything was fine.

It was like there was a little voice in my head that would try and keep me safe by telling me not to go here or there and not to put myself in certain situations. Your mind thinks it is keeping you safe by doing this, this is a built-in system within everyone, and it acts on what information it receives. If you avoid certain places, then your mind registers this and files it under dangerous and will kindly let you know the next time you are in that situation, again the mind is innocent in all this, it is just going by your past actions.

Someone without anxiety may have been fine with dogs, until one day they get bitten and then go out of their way to avoid them. Your mind has picked up on this avoidance and will most likely put you in a fight or flight situation when you see one. And the more you avoid, the deeper the threat goes into your subconscious mind and why the reaction comes instantly upon seeing a dog before you even think about it.

This is because the subconscious mind works a lot faster than the thinking mind. The only way to stop this overbearing protection system is to start mixing with dogs again, even when these feelings of fear come, as they most likely will. By doing this you are telling your mind that you’re okay now and you no longer need its protection, you can even thank it for doing its job and trying to keep you safe.

This approach brings the same results the same as someone gradually doing something and getting used to it, as it is your actions the mind picks up on. The only language it understands is your actions, so when you no longer avoid, in time your mind realises you’re safe after all and slowly starts to turn off this protection system.

That little voice in the anxiety sufferer can go off at totally irrational moments it seems, at times when where there is no danger, no threat and it can bemuse us. We have unknowingly created this reaction through our past actions and behaviours, if we avoid talking with someone, if we avoid socialising, then we are building up a fear in our subconscious about being around people, so it is only doing its job. So yes we have created this false programming, which is great news as now we can be the ones to reprogram it too.

There is no big secret to change this, all I did was understand that it was me that created this. I was the one who decided to change my behaviour and do things differently, so of course, my mind just followed and tried to keep me safe. It was me that kept telling it there was danger when there wasn’t, it just went along with what it was being told.

The way I turned it around was simple, I just stopped listening to this little voice, if the phone went off I answered it every time, anxious or not. If I got invited out then I would go, at first it felt odd, and I did feel some anxiety, but so what, I wanted my life back. If a neighbour approached I would not look down, I would walk right up and chat. That little voice that tried to keep me safe was still trying to do its job at times, but I just thanked it and told it I was fine.

In time this voice and the fight or flight reactions left me, it realised there was no danger there now, and there was no need to keep me safe any longer. I slowly, but surely reprogrammed myself and was now free to go anywhere with no problems whatsoever. The journey was quite exciting, seeing my life come back slowly, but surely, I even got a thrill out of testing myself and seeing me come through and the progress I was making.

It was not always easy, and the temptation to hide away was still there at times, but I never did. It was like I was looking down on myself at times and seeing the silliness of hiding away and the things I was avoiding.

This approach is how I solved this part of my anxiety, I just went against every instinct and did it anyway. I had the power to change things, we all have. I changed it from being able to do everything before anxiety to avoidance, so I always had the ability to change it back again.

Anxiety never stops you from doing anything, that is always your choice so don’t be a slave to it. From today if you suffer from any avoidance behaviours the only way to get through them is to live your life like you did before anxiety and take the feelings with you.

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life.

Hi everyone and welcome to 2012, I hope everyone had a good Christmas

As stated I have been very busy with another project, it is now just about completed and I will reveal all that in my next post. But it has been the reason I have hardly been around, it took a lot longer than I expected and a lot more work. I am also looking for more success stories for this project. I tend to get emails or posts of thanks on here when people recover, but rarely a more detailed story of their recovery. If you wish to forward any on to me then just email me your story and I will tell you exactly what it is for, before publishing it.

Right on to today’s post which is called two roads and the choices, we can make

When we suffer from anxiety, we can hit a fork in the road and make two decisions, one sign points us to a safe but lonely road, a path that leads nowhere. The other points to a road that is full of life and choices, the route looks more daunting, but ultimately leads to a more fulfilling place.

To make my point, I once saw a documentary on a soldier who lost a leg and half his arm in Afghanistan, and when he came back to England, his partner said he had given up on life and that he just stayed locked in his room. He was full of self-pity and became very depressed with plenty of ‘Why me’? He had decided to give in to his disability and taken to hiding away, getting drunk and feeling sorry for himself.

This attitude continued until someone came and spoke to him and said ‘You can have a very fulfilling life with the way you are, you just have to make the choice to live again, your disability is not stopping you enjoying life, your attitude towards it is?’.

These words really hit the solider hard and from that day on he was determined to give life a go and stop hiding away feeling sorry for himself. He made a choice to embrace his disability and went out socialising whilst finding local disabled clubs that he could get involved in. This person then went on to represent his country in a particular sport at the Paralympics and made so many new friends, going on to live a life that he never thought possible.

I am telling this story because this person had a choice, he also met a fork in the road and took the safe one at first, to hiding away feeling sorry for himself, the route I chose many years ago. Well, I was sick of this road and I decided one day to stop wishing it all away. I had anxiety yes, I had to accept that it was part of me for now. but it didn’t mean I couldn’t live my life, that was a choice I could still make.

Choosing the road of non-avoidance

We can choose a road of avoidance, one of trying to control our anxiety, thinking this temporary relief will help us long term. But it never does and leads to a very restricting life, one were we make excuses not to go here and there, to not to do this and that. We are giving in to the way we feel and letting it control us and what we do. Yet this is the wrong road and leads to more feelings of hopelessness and disconnection with the outside world. There were no more deals to be made with my anxiety, I was living my life and from now on it would just have to come with me. I knew deep down that if I wanted my life back then I had to go out there and live it. Hiding away hoping that one day it would all be behind me was never going to work.

One day you must realise this safe road is not working, it is leading you nowhere, it is just restricting your life more and more, it is not reliving you of anything and certainly not helping the problem.

Let’s go to the other road, the one without safety behaviours, without control and avoidance, without deal and conditions. This is the road I finally decided to take, and anxiety would have to come along for the ride. It no longer had a choice, there were no more deals to be made, no more excuses, if it wanted to be part of my life for now, then so be it, but it had lost its hold over me.

At first going out and about and not trying to avoid my feelings was hard and I felt disconnected for a while, but I no longer cared, it was caring so much that got me into the hole in the first place! If I let anxiety into my life without question, then what is there left to fight? What is there left to go over?, What is there left to avoid?, What is there left to control?

The right road opens up your life

The mistake people make is that they are always trying not to feel anxiety, which is missing the whole point, as you will never be free of what you refuse to feel. I may post something, and people may then use my words as a mantra, say it is ‘Truly accept the way you feel’ they may then repeat this in an attempt to make themselves feel better. There is the mistake; they again are trying to control their anxiety with a saying, trying not to feel it, they have missed the point entirely.

When I took the choice of the other road, I expected to still feel anxious, I expected to still feel disconnected, more in fact, as I was going out of my comfort zones. I held no expectations to how I would feel, my only goal was to live a fulfilling life again, how I felt was secondary and certainly not something I would be trying to control anymore, I had tried this for years, and it did not work.

In time this second road lead me to a far better place, to a more fulfilling life, places and experiences I had avoided in the past opened their doors and let me in, my life grew and grew, feelings and insecurities dampened in time. The other road had the opposite effect, life became narrower and narrower, I felt more and more isolated, my whole day seemed a battle of avoidance and control, no wonder I never got anywhere. I eventually learnt to love this new road, it was not as safe as the other road and had many bumps in it, but it was full of victories and surprises, I felt good about me again, in control.

I was actually always in control, I just never realised it. I had just had to let go of all my uncertainty and insecurities and embrace life again. Life was my salvation, it was my cure, it was not something to avoid and hide away from. Life helped me unearth what was inside of me, it brought all that anxious energy up and forced me to feel its presence, it was only through feeling its presence that I was finally free of it.

Until you truly let anxiety in without question and stop making deals with it, then the same fruitless battle will continue. Nobody has ever fought or thought their way out of anxiety; it is like quicksand, the harder you struggle to free yourself, the further you sink.

I hope that the post helps.

Paul

If you would like more information on over coming anxiety, then visit my site anxietynomore. If you would like to know more about my book then visit At Last a Life