I think I've made a pretty big discovery

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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.