Anxiety

I was inspired today to post about anxiety. I let a lot of anxiety into my life at a young age and allowed it to take control over me in many aspects of my life. I would struggle with things such as getting up in the mornings, eating at meal times, any amounts of change happening around me, going to bed at night, being sick, etc. I was a professional over-thinker. I would do all sorts of crazy things with this anxiety; I would mentally make myself physically ill (often) and ironically enough, one of the things I had the most anxiety about was getting sick. I would think myself sick. Literally. Many times. Because of this large amount of anxiety that I let control my world.

I clearly needed some guidance, being that I was a child fortunate enough to be noticed by my parents, they helped me to begin to learn self-soothing methods. My mother would always tell me to talk about my anxiety, say out loud how I was feeling and why I was having those feelings. Sometimes saying it out loud was enough to snap me out of it and realize how silly my fears actually were. But, other times talking was not enough. I saw a therapist for a few sessions and within those sessions the woman made me a tape. (Yes, a tape. This was when we still had tape players) and on the tape she wrote "Andi's Relaxation Tape." This tape was an incredibly huge part of my journey to self soothing, and little did I know at the time, it would stay with me for the rest of my life. On this tape she basically takes me through a meditation. I lay still and comfortable and begin to tighten and loosen each and every muscle in my body from head to toe. Multiple times flexing and relaxing each muscle and feeling the difference between being tense and then relaxed. Bringing me out of my head and into my body (which now I can do with exercise, yoga, hiking, running, etc.) This method of self soothing is one that I have found to be the most productive to most people, getting out of our heads and into our bodies is something we have mastered through physical activities, sports, sex, dancing, stretching, etc.

After the portion of the tape that takes me through the body, she would then move on to visualization, she would tell me to go to a place that makes me comfortable (not literally, but in my head) once I would get to this place, for me as a child it was always somewhere in nature; a beach, the woods, the mountains. And as an adult, I can physically go to these places which is such a blessing. Once I was visualizing this place, she would tell me to engage all of my senses; what did I hear? What did I see? What smells could I smell? What could I taste? And she would tell me to notice the feeling of calmness that I felt in this happy place in my head. Visualization to this day has become an extremely important part of my daily life. When I am working towards my goals I am constantly visualizing the end result and making it real in my mind so I can manifest it to reality.

Once she finished taking me through all of my senses, she would tell me to think of all of the important people in my life, all of the love around me, smiling faces, hugging me, giving me endless love. Once I was picturing all of my loved ones she would tell me to thank them. Give them thanks, so I would go through each and every person I knew and loved (all in my mind) and thank them for everything they do/have done for me. Gratitude. Through this I have learned to always remember the people and the life I am grateful for. Without this gratitude we have nothing to live for. Without the love in our hearts and the people who bring us joy to our worlds, we do not have gratitude. We forget to be thankful, often. And it is as simple as thinking of what you are grateful for and the mind can change from anger, sadness, and fear; to happiness, excitement, and acceptance.

I am grateful that into my adulthood I have taken back control of anxiety and it is no longer a word that I would use to describe my personal self image. It is not apart of me and I no longer hold on to it. All of the things I have listed above have become strategies in my life to keep me from ever allowing anxiety to take over me again; talking about it out loud (or writing it down), physical activity to get out of the mind and into the body/becoming present, visualization for positive future, and gratitude. Actual solutions to a wide spread problem that many, many humans deal with on a daily basis.

Anxiety is not something we HAVE. It is something that we ALLOW. Stop allowing this illusion and fear to take over your life, it is not real. I promise you the journey to getting rid of anxiety all together is not always easy, and it doesn't always work right away, but it WILL work if you WANT it to. It took me about 3-5 years of major suffering to understand how to cure myself. And after those years of major suffering I've had about 12 more years of constantly dimming down what was left of the anxiety, that I had let take over many years before. I still have moments where I allow fear into my life, I am not perfect, but I do know how to take care of anxiety when it hits. I take immediate action the way I described above, now I can do it much quicker and I can detect anxiety before it hits in most cases. Practice makes perfect. Time cures all.