The Ultimate Secret To Anxiety Self Treatment
The Ultimate Secret To Anxiety Self Treatment.
One of the most tragic things about anxiety disorders is the almost universal assumption that the sufferer actually thinks something is wrong with them. The feeling of there being something intrinsically wrong with one’s self is one of the hallmarks of anxiety disorders, and it makes life’s journey far harder than it needs to be.
But anxiety is software, not hardware. Anxiety is a file that was uploaded at some point in the past. Having anxiety doesn’t mean something is wrong with you; just like having a song you don’t like playing doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with your music player. Anxiety is not ‘who you are’!
If you have lived with anxiety for a long time, it’s not likely that this ‘The Ultimate Secret To Anxiety Self Treatment’ blog will magically convince you that you are truly okay at the deepest level. But perhaps if we unpack this common assumption that goes with chronic anxiety, it could be a valuable step in the right direction. One step at a time, right?
One of the strongest drivers behind human behaviour is the desire to feel good and not feel bad. No matter what you want (whether it is $10 million or simply to find an effective treatment for your anxiety), you want it largely because you believe that it will feel better. The desire to feel better drives most (if not all) of our human behaviours on some level.
In the most simple biological sense, wanting to feel better has been vital for our survival.
When you put your hand on a hot stove, the desire to feel better causes you to withdraw and save your flesh from burning. Comfort and discomfort help us identify problems with our bodies and the environment, so we can make the necessary corrections to preserve life. In essence, a burn’s discomfort helps us identify a problem. Biologically pain and discomfort equal problems. The ache in your foot alerts you to the problem of tying your shoe too tight. The ache in your belly alerts you to the problem of needing to eat food and stay alive. The ache of the cold alerts you to the problem of needing your core temperature to remain stable.
Let’s extend our observation of this connection between discomfort and problems to our emotions because our emotional discomforts form the same purpose. An unpleasant jolt of fear is the body’s way of alerting you to potential danger. The discomfort of anger is connected to fixing problems and, on a biological level, probably relates to ‘the fight’ response. The discomfort of sadness often relates to the problem of loss or isolation (which pose their own dangers when you live in the big outdoors). So not only do our physical pains help us to identify problems, but our emotional pains are also specifically designed to identify and fix problems, which brings us to the pain of anxiety and anxiety disorders.
Living with anxiety and/or an anxiety disorder definitely involves a lot of discomfort. So it is perfectly natural to identify this persistent discomfort as a problem to be fixed. And, of course, in one sense, this is very true. This, however, is where many anxiety sufferers and anxiety disorder sufferers take a subtle but catastrophic wrong turn. That wrong turn is the assumption that the anxiety problem is a problem with ‘the self’ or with the person (you) experiencing it.
This may take a bit of time to sink in, but having anxiety doesn’t mean there is something wrong with you.
Having anxiety means that you went through something (or things) in the past that you were not able to process fully. We cut to the heart of this perspective when we ask the question ‘what did I go through?’ in place of the question ‘what is wrong with me?’. From this perspective, we can shift from asking how we fix ourselves to asking what needs to be processed, given more love, or simply let go of.
What did I go through in my life that caused me to feel anxious?
It is a seemingly subtle distinction between there being some pain or wound within us, versus there being something intrinsically wrong with us. Consider looking at yourself, and your anxiety like you would look at the following situation.
Imagine an adorable little puppy with a bad infection. A puppy that needs some treatment and then to be looked after especially well for a while. Is there anything intrinsically wrong with that adorable little animal because it has an infection? Or is it just suffering with something that has overloaded its body, and now it needs some love and care? The puppy has something that needs to heal, but we know that there is nothing actually wrong with the puppy. You wouldn’t criticize the puppy or get frustrated with it for having an infection, no matter how long the infection lasted. Even when it struggles, the puppy is always perfect
Having anxiety means that you went through something (or things) in the past that you were not able to process fully. We cut to the heart of this perspective when we ask the question ‘what did I go through?’ in place of the question ‘what is wrong with me?’. From this perspective, we can shift from asking how we fix ourselves to asking what needs to be processed, given more love, or simply let go of.
What did I go through in my life that caused me to feel anxious?
It is a seemingly subtle distinction between there being some pain or wound within us, versus there being something intrinsically wrong with us. Consider looking at yourself, and your anxiety like you would look at the following situation.
Imagine an adorable little puppy with a bad infection. A puppy that needs some treatment and then to be looked after especially well for a while. Is there anything intrinsically wrong with that adorable little animal because it has an infection? Or is it just suffering with something that has overloaded its body, and now it needs some love and care? The puppy has something that needs to heal, but we know that there is nothing actually wrong with the puppy. You wouldn’t criticize the puppy or get frustrated with it for having an infection, no matter how long the infection lasted. Even when it struggles, the puppy is always perfect
The ultimate secret to anxiety self treatment and healing anxiety is about addressing and healing whatever has made you feel anxious, not about there being something wrong to fix about you yourself. Anxiety is a problem, but it isn’t a problem with you!
If we can make this subtle shift within ourselves, it is a guaranteed game changer in our journey towards healing anxiety.