Thu, 06/13/2013 - 14:25 – jb
When we feel anxiety in any form, it is always best to switch our
attention EXTERNALLY as much as possible. Our feelings lie to us when they involve anxiety, so it's best to take
our attention away from our internal anxiety feelings (take away their power)
by focusing on any sounds, sights, or other external stimuli that you can think
of. If you are working at a job, try to focus on your job-related
tasks, if someone is talking to you, give them your full attention. DO NOT go internal and dwell on /
try to "figure out" your anxiety feelings, because you won't come to
any conclusions, and you will be in the same place you started, if not worse.
There is nothing to
"figure out" about anxiety... it is just there, and it will continue
to be there unless you can remove attention from it and get your mind
moving in a positive / neutral direction. Do not treat your
inner anxiety feelings as telling you some "truth" about yourselves
or others, or give them more credit than they deserve... they are just produced
by THOUGHTS, like any other thoughts you have, and it's important that you just
let them pass by without struggling with them, and gently shift your attention
onto something else.
The less "importance" we can place on our anxiety
feelings / thoughts, the less they will have the power to control us, and the
less upset we will get by any perceived setbacks or overwhelming anxiety
feelings we experience.
It's important that we be
nice to ourselves, and don't get too down on ourselves for experiencing some
anxiety feelings. Everyone in the world experiences times of discomfort or
anxiety at certain times in life, the only difference is that they don't
analyze them so much, treat these anxiety experiences as very "important,
life or death experiences" and believe that by dwelling on them they will
come to some conclusions that will solve their anxiety problem. They
don't get caught in the vicious negative cycle of analysis and paralysis.
They simply feel a little anxiety about something, accept that it
was "ok" to have some anxiety, and move on with their lives, putting
their attention and thoughts on other things outside themselves.
Focus externally, stay active, exercise, work out at the gym... do
anything to take your attention away from anxiety, and stop fueling the fire.
Contrary to what you may believe, analysis of your inner anxiety feelings
will get you NOWHERE. It will only create more anxiety in your life, and
it will become even more difficult to break free of it in the future. Anxiety can only harm you when you focus
inward and pay attention to it, so let's get our minds moving in a positive
direction on some external, positive events / situations. You WILL
notice an immediate difference, and if you practice this enough, you will
experience a better and brighter tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment