Guest guest Posted March 14, 2008 Report Share Posted March 14, 2008 for me, about my anxiety and how I view and respond to it. I've always confused worrisome thoughts with my anxiety. I'm learning they really are a separate thing, and when I feel anxiety I don't have to " figure out " where it's coming from and then disprove the thought, in order to get rid of the anxiety. The act of trying to figure it out, seems to prolong it. Practicing mindfulness and acceptance has been so radically different from everything I've done before. I can practice acknowledgement and acceptance of my worrisome thoughts much easier now. The anxiety has been more difficult to address, until the last few days. I started trying something different. Instead of trying to " force " myself to accept it, I just simply acknowledge it, which I think is key, b/c I've tried in the past to ignore it, which also seems to prolong it. So the past few days when I feel anxiety I simply acknowledge it, consciously, " I'm feeling anxiety, I don't like the feeling, I wish it would go away " .... I just acknowledge whatever I'm feeling and how I'm responding to it. I also acknowledge any thoughts that come up with it. I don't " do " anything. Or figure anything out, or try to FORCE a reaction in myself, as one of acceptance or what not. Amazingly this is working MUCH better. I've been able to do this in the past, but I struggle with drifting back to my automatic habits to start " fixing " and figuring things out. Now that I'm CONSCIOUSLY doing it this way, I feel like it just " clicked " . When I'm feeling anxious, I find myself not minding it as much, not focusing on it as much. And it's so amazingly freeing to know I don't have to DO anything. It frees me up in so many ways. So I'm going to try to start practicing this more and more, and I see it requires me to be " present " and conscious of what is going on with me. I've always had the tendency to want to stay distracted from my feelings and thoughts, until they were just screaming for attention. I guess I did that as an attempt to make the thoughts and feelings go away, b/c I didn't like them, but we all know that doesn't work. It usually just gives temporary relief, if that. But NOT aiming for relief seems to give it in abundance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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