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Has Anyone Found A Way To Not Feel Anxiety, Rather Than Just Manage Anxiety?
- Post starter Meadowsweet
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Regarding motivation (which idea I think @Meadowsweet said was cheeky rather than cheesy), I agree that progress needs commitment. That doesn't mean that difficult progress always equals low motivation or low commitment. I think there might be cases when people lack motivation, and cases where that isn't the issue.
Some people might lack motivation. Some people might be using their motivation in a direction that isn't going to bring the greatest results for them. Some people might be facing other challenges.
Some people might lack motivation. Some people might be using their motivation in a direction that isn't going to bring the greatest results for them. Some people might be facing other challenges.
The Albatross
VIP Member
Caught that and corrected it in edit Hashi, but thank you for pointing that out.
Added: I all I got is my own experience and Valentino combined with some elements (thought not admittedly all) of Anthony's one page approach is working well for me.
Added: I all I got is my own experience and Valentino combined with some elements (thought not admittedly all) of Anthony's one page approach is working well for me.
- Post starter
- #40
Meadowsweet
Diamond Member
This makes sense, and seems to be the problem I'm facing here. With regard to my daughter catching the bus by herself, and getting home alone (if only for a short while), it was something that was out of my control and I couldn't do anything to check or make sure she was ok, I had to let go, and when it comes to my daughter, I find that very difficult.
.
I'm not sure, if for me, that is part of the problem. My mind seems to automatically say 'no, I'm letting that thought form', because the thought of what could happen is too frightening. But the anxiety still goes on without the thought. For me, it seems more of a denial. I'm currently spending some time writing out the fears and thoughts. It does make the anxiety worse in the moment, but I feel more in control admitting that I'm projecting things that have happened to me, onto the risks of everyday life.
The Albatross
VIP Member
Why are you considering canceling your membership rather than continue a perhaps beneficial dialogue? Control is largely a fallacy. It is an interplay at best.
joeylittle
Sponsor
Sounds like, in DBT-speak, you are having secondary emotions. So, when you kick in with "no, I'm not letting that thought form", you probably have a first emotional response of anxiety (at having to stop a potentially frightening thing), and then a secondary emotion of panic at the thought of feeling anxiety. I'm just guessing, but this was very much my problem. For me, it looks like this:
Thought #1: I'm doing a bad job at work
Emotion #1: anxious
Quick thought #2: Don't think that thought
Emotion #1: self-criticism (at thinking a bad thought)
Emotion #2: depression
Unbidden thought #3: I'm failing at managing my anxiety
Emotion #1: sinking feeling
Emotion #2: panic!!!
And, that's why I just go right to breathing. My therapist says - and I agree - that you can't "un-think" or "not-think" a thought, it's like the whole "don't think about pink elephants" thing. You just right away think about pink elephants.
But you can interrupt the whole process with doing something else, and the by-product is non-thinking.
So I try to do this:
Thought #1: I'm doing a bad job at work
Emotion #1: anxious
Thought #2: Breathe in, two, three, four, hold (two, three, four) out (two three four), hold (two, three, four)...
And thought #2 just goes on repeat for a solid four minutes. After that, nothing seems as bad. Until I have to do it again.
Our brains are really, really sneaky. But our bodies are overt: they respond pretty quickly to what they are given, and they actually can re-direct pretty quickly too when you just get in there and interrupt the thoughts.
Anyway, I hope that helps some, as a practical tool.
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- #43
Meadowsweet
Diamond Member
That thread isn't related to this thread. It has been on my mind for a while. I am concerned, based on a previous pattern of experience, that I coming to rely on or depend on the the site for support, and when that happens, I switch off to people wanting to hurt or damage others, and I feel myself going into that mind-set that if I want to stay here, I just have to put up with any kind of abuse, grin and bear it, smile through the pain and pretend it doesn't do any damage. I can't heal like that, i'll just do myself damage.
Control of life and control of others is a fallacy, but I would question if finding control over my own mind is. It is as least something that should be reached for.
Thank you for sharing this, it seems to be a pattern that I recognise. @Hashi said in an earlier post that sometimes people can be using their motivation in a way that isn't helpful. I think that pattern is kind of based on a motivation to be a better person, to do better, to be better. But it lacks the gentleness and nurturing that is needed when a person has been motivated by abusive situations. I think perhaps if I can recognise the stages of that pattern, that kindness could come in where self-criticism stands.
And maybe the Nobel Prize
The way other people are talking about anxious thoughts forming doesn't seem to be the way I meant it. It's fine of course to talk about it any way, I just wanted to clarify what my meaning was.
I'm talking about intervening with a sense of power and the mind working healthily. There isn't any baggage around suppressing something, self-criticising, denying. feeling anxiety without the thought etc. What I mean is that I'm not letting unfounded anxiety take shape at all. (At least, I'm getting there.)
I really don't see this as cognitive. Like I said, to say "I'm not allowing" the thoughts is too logic-based and comes back to management only. Great fan of DBT that I am, when it comes to anxiety I think any behaviour therapy, or work on identifying and analysing thoughts, can only be management.
My meaning has a different frame of reference. It's more like antibodies seeing off an infection before it can take hold and become recognisable. It's dealt with, and all that remains is healthy functioning.
From my perspective, @Meadowsweet you pretty much answered your question with the way you phrased it. The options are to not feel anxiety by working directly with "feeling" (the visceral/nervous system response), or to manage anxiety with cognitive and behavioural approaches. I see this as the heart of all the debate around healing PTSD/symptoms versus managing them. My view is that certain approaches can only ever result in management, although they might enable someone to manage very well.
I'm talking about intervening with a sense of power and the mind working healthily. There isn't any baggage around suppressing something, self-criticising, denying. feeling anxiety without the thought etc. What I mean is that I'm not letting unfounded anxiety take shape at all. (At least, I'm getting there.)
I really don't see this as cognitive. Like I said, to say "I'm not allowing" the thoughts is too logic-based and comes back to management only. Great fan of DBT that I am, when it comes to anxiety I think any behaviour therapy, or work on identifying and analysing thoughts, can only be management.
My meaning has a different frame of reference. It's more like antibodies seeing off an infection before it can take hold and become recognisable. It's dealt with, and all that remains is healthy functioning.
From my perspective, @Meadowsweet you pretty much answered your question with the way you phrased it. The options are to not feel anxiety by working directly with "feeling" (the visceral/nervous system response), or to manage anxiety with cognitive and behavioural approaches. I see this as the heart of all the debate around healing PTSD/symptoms versus managing them. My view is that certain approaches can only ever result in management, although they might enable someone to manage very well.
I think that it's worth exploring the differences between fear and anxiety.
I try to break it up with fear being more instinctual driven (limbic, monkey brain, survival mechanism) while anxiety is originated more from thinking (intellectual).
The two are related in the sense that fear is primal and a root feeling, while anxiety is secondary, it's thoughts that trigger instinctual fear.
Exposure is trying to address instinctual fear, while education is trying to address intellectual anxiety.
But since the two are linked, motivation comes into play, because it is also part of how fear and anxiety are often linked.
When a person is motivated primarily by avoiding pain and seeking comfort (carrot/stick), that's driven from the 'fight or flight' fear response from the limbic system, therefore the core motivation is instinctual fear.
Then the 'Fight or Flight' instinctual fear response needs a target to fight against, or run away from. Thoughts and feelings that come from intellectual anxiety end up being that target. So fear starts attacking or running from thoughts.
Intellectual anxiety also increases because it feels instinctual fear increasing, and creates more anxious thoughts in response. (part of the instinctive orienting process)
... So if the primary motivation is fear, it would be very hard to break out of this loop. Because reacting unconsciously to fear tends to increase both feelings of anxiety and fear.
Not enough exposure is being done to neutralize uncomfortable feelings of fear. And not enough education, exploration and curiosity is being done to ease anxiety. Instead, it's like a dog chasing it's tail, alternating between fighting anxious thoughts and seeking (fleeing towards) comforting thoughts.
Or there's another common strategy of delving into anxiety, using thinking to try to control the external world and make it so safe, that you will never have to fear any real danger. That's a lifetime job of struggle and frustration, leading to ultimate failure.
-----
Sorry if my tone is too intellectual or impersonal, but that's part of my personality which has a natural bias towards intellectual anxiety, and weaker link to fear and social/personalized language. My impersonal tone comes from a natural ability to treat my self & emotions impersonally, and that led to me growing up with a high capacity to successfully detach from anxiety & other emotions.
But my adult traumas showed me the limitations of all of my mental strategies and escapes. I had to experience multiple failures, directly in my face, to finally accept that I would have to explore and learn to work in the body with emotions and instincts.
Detachment can create a great 'superman' like invincibility illusion, but it also sets up a humongous fall and crash when life decides to expose the falsity of that illusion. And even if the illusion can be kept up, there is a high price to pay for detachment, like the loss of joy and social connection with others, but also with your own inner self.
.. btw. Everyone is free to borrow, copy, kidnap or steal my sharing or material, as I see them as a work that is constantly in progress.
I try to break it up with fear being more instinctual driven (limbic, monkey brain, survival mechanism) while anxiety is originated more from thinking (intellectual).
The two are related in the sense that fear is primal and a root feeling, while anxiety is secondary, it's thoughts that trigger instinctual fear.
Exposure is trying to address instinctual fear, while education is trying to address intellectual anxiety.
But since the two are linked, motivation comes into play, because it is also part of how fear and anxiety are often linked.
When a person is motivated primarily by avoiding pain and seeking comfort (carrot/stick), that's driven from the 'fight or flight' fear response from the limbic system, therefore the core motivation is instinctual fear.
Then the 'Fight or Flight' instinctual fear response needs a target to fight against, or run away from. Thoughts and feelings that come from intellectual anxiety end up being that target. So fear starts attacking or running from thoughts.
Intellectual anxiety also increases because it feels instinctual fear increasing, and creates more anxious thoughts in response. (part of the instinctive orienting process)
... So if the primary motivation is fear, it would be very hard to break out of this loop. Because reacting unconsciously to fear tends to increase both feelings of anxiety and fear.
Not enough exposure is being done to neutralize uncomfortable feelings of fear. And not enough education, exploration and curiosity is being done to ease anxiety. Instead, it's like a dog chasing it's tail, alternating between fighting anxious thoughts and seeking (fleeing towards) comforting thoughts.
Or there's another common strategy of delving into anxiety, using thinking to try to control the external world and make it so safe, that you will never have to fear any real danger. That's a lifetime job of struggle and frustration, leading to ultimate failure.
-----
Sorry if my tone is too intellectual or impersonal, but that's part of my personality which has a natural bias towards intellectual anxiety, and weaker link to fear and social/personalized language. My impersonal tone comes from a natural ability to treat my self & emotions impersonally, and that led to me growing up with a high capacity to successfully detach from anxiety & other emotions.
But my adult traumas showed me the limitations of all of my mental strategies and escapes. I had to experience multiple failures, directly in my face, to finally accept that I would have to explore and learn to work in the body with emotions and instincts.
Detachment can create a great 'superman' like invincibility illusion, but it also sets up a humongous fall and crash when life decides to expose the falsity of that illusion. And even if the illusion can be kept up, there is a high price to pay for detachment, like the loss of joy and social connection with others, but also with your own inner self.
.. btw. Everyone is free to borrow, copy, kidnap or steal my sharing or material, as I see them as a work that is constantly in progress.
I believe management of anxiety *is* working through ways to not feel anxiety; that they are not mutually exclusive. To not feel anxiety is not a goal (or well, not my goal at least) - to be able to function even with anxiety present is. Minimizing the damage, not receiving none.
Personal strategies, I tend to focus on my breath, and on identifying what is it that makes me anxious beyond that. Is it a feeling in my body? Is it some sort of disaster scenario happening on the back of my mind I try to push aside, and should let out instead? Is it simply amplified association to past experience? Is it uncertainty of what to expect that I'm not giving space to in my life? So there comes that first.
Breathing, and then working on identifying *what* is causing me anxiety, once I calm my body a little bit.
Not all anxiety has a cause, of course. Some simply *is*. But a lot can be helped if analyzed, and if there are strategies of coping from that point, constructive thought patterns.
Personal strategies, I tend to focus on my breath, and on identifying what is it that makes me anxious beyond that. Is it a feeling in my body? Is it some sort of disaster scenario happening on the back of my mind I try to push aside, and should let out instead? Is it simply amplified association to past experience? Is it uncertainty of what to expect that I'm not giving space to in my life? So there comes that first.
Breathing, and then working on identifying *what* is causing me anxiety, once I calm my body a little bit.
Not all anxiety has a cause, of course. Some simply *is*. But a lot can be helped if analyzed, and if there are strategies of coping from that point, constructive thought patterns.
D
Deleted member 12723
A long time ago, I had such great anxiety about driving. I was restless and anxious and would drive in the slow lane. Then I got on meds that stabilized me.
Before I drive I visualize myself reaching my destination and I again visualize driving into the driveway at home and this has helped me so much. Most of my anxiety is about getting into an accident. I have been in many car accidents with me not driving.
Now I face my fear, like exposure therapy and I am doing quite well. I am even driving to places I have never been to before now.
I am gaining self confidence in my driving experiences. Most of the time I do just great. But I still have my moments. I can now navigate around cars on the freeways and I am often driving without any anxiety.
When I am overwhelmed, I get bouts of anxiety but I tell myself of all of my successes and it helps me.
I hope by exposing myself to my fears and anxieties I will get a handle on it and it will not be so bad.
For the longest time, I could not drive myself anywhere.
I remember a time in my life when I felt no anxiety driving at all and rather enjoyed the drive.
Becoming a caregiver for my husband full time exaggerated the anxiety and I really accomplished so much in spite of it.
I hope this helps somewhat.
Before I drive I visualize myself reaching my destination and I again visualize driving into the driveway at home and this has helped me so much. Most of my anxiety is about getting into an accident. I have been in many car accidents with me not driving.
Now I face my fear, like exposure therapy and I am doing quite well. I am even driving to places I have never been to before now.
I am gaining self confidence in my driving experiences. Most of the time I do just great. But I still have my moments. I can now navigate around cars on the freeways and I am often driving without any anxiety.
When I am overwhelmed, I get bouts of anxiety but I tell myself of all of my successes and it helps me.
I hope by exposing myself to my fears and anxieties I will get a handle on it and it will not be so bad.
For the longest time, I could not drive myself anywhere.
I remember a time in my life when I felt no anxiety driving at all and rather enjoyed the drive.
Becoming a caregiver for my husband full time exaggerated the anxiety and I really accomplished so much in spite of it.
I hope this helps somewhat.
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