If so, please be careful whenever you do, if you say "I am Anxious” or "I am an anxious person" it will cause you a lot of pain and cause you to stay stuck feeling anxious!
Can you be an anxious person? Or are you just a person who is experiencing anxiety? Or are you just anxious in your feelings, your reactions, your thoughts, and your states?
Because we are far more than what we are currently feeling. But when we describe ourselves as being anxious we are actually creating a bigger challenge than we may realise at the time.
I notice that when clients come to me for help with anxiety, they come in from very different starting points, with the severity of their anxiety being the main difference. Some people have occasional attacks and some people have lived a life full of anxiety where it becomes the main director of their life. I have noticed that when anxiety becomes linked to their identity – how they see themselves in the world – it changes from being something that happens that they are scared of to something that they have to learn to live with. It also sets up the cycle for anxiety to repeat itself and therefore remains on-going into their future, and so many people have it move from an experience to a way of life.
Anxiety becoming part of peoples’ identity is very common and I believe this is because the nature of an anxiety attack can be very scary and frightening. Having anxiety takes up a lot of ‘thinking space’, and because we don’t want the experience to happen, we sometimes fight it and so it persists. Most people with anxiety that I have as clients have tried a few things as treatments like, drugs, therapy or breathing techniques, and received very little long term results. Because they received no relief they make the deduction in their thinking that they will just need to learn to live with anxiety for the rest of their life. Sadly this is not true and a very disempowering belief.
Linking anxiety to your identify is an unconscious process, but it is important to think about because when you see yourself as being an anxious person you can become stuck with it, recreating it for many many years.
If you want to live your life free from anxiety, then you have to move anxiety into your past and have it become something that you ONCE HAD. So stop seeing at as a part of who you are.
I am happy to help you discover how you can live anxiety free. The way I work with clients is far more than just a thinking or cognitive process. In fact it is largely an embodied experience of finding safety and peace within, by shifting the ‘tone’ of the nervous system so you can live life from a place of ease. If you're interested in having me help you then I would like to invite you for a free 20 minute consultation. Click here to arrange a time or get in touch on [email protected] to get started straight away.
I am the owner of Inspiring Wellness, a wellness and personal transformation clinic in Auckland CBD and the Author of "Wellness Words, how to think speak and feel great" and "How to Break free from Anxiety". I love helping my clients take back their lives and regain their health and get a whole new higher quality of life. If you are curious if we can help you, please contact us. We are here to help you.
Our society has taught us to think about depression in a certain way. We have ‘drugs’ that will make you better… Or will they? In my experience the drugs never really make anyone permanently better. Nor have I ever seen a human being who was better as a person because they took some antidepressant. Sure, we have seen many people who cope better. And that the immediate benefits of taking some drugs can produce a more desirable way of life compared to their previous way of living. But do you really think that if you take a drug it will help you to understand anything that has been affecting you at a deeper level? Do you really think you are going to get some epiphany and see things with greater clarity? These drugs can be useful as a short term intervention, but they often become a crutch and make it harder for people to come off them. You become reliant on some external chemical and without it feel stuck. Not to mention the side effects. But even if your on them and have been on them for decades, I have helped many people come off them when appropriate. First we need to let go and resolve a few things and work on some strategies towards being happy and well.
Every moment is a new opportunity to shift things, and the key is often in shifting things really slowly and steadily - but in such a way as it propels you in the direction that will make living life more enjoyable. -
But first you have to want this. So do you want to be well?
We are hard wired to become sad, upset, angry, agitated and also all the other negative emotions that we feel. But why do we feel these negative emotions – what is their purpose?
People have been telling you for so long that you need to stop feeling sad, or that this state is wrong. And as soon as you accept the purpose for being sad you can then move onwards.
Symptoms are your body's way of telling you to listen to what’s going on, for you to realise that something is not right (almost never is it a chemical imbalance), and because something is not right, you have to figure it out, and take action. And do things differently. Then, and only then, can the symptom disappear.
But if we just remove the symptom – by taking a drug or covering it up - we will never unlock the message, and so the messenger sticks around. So this terrible feeling hangs around AND THEN we begin the downward spiral. At this point we create ‘stories’ about our experience. Why we are broken? What’s wrong with us? How we are perhaps worthless, and so on. By doing this we strengthen the downward spiral, and, as a result, we keep getting feelings that make us sad… They are suppose to, because within the feelings and thoughts contain the wisdom for your life of greater happiness. But very few people can see this wisdom, including many doctors, psychologists and therapists. Because they are too busy trying to fix you – so often they don’t see outside of what they have learnt to see at university. But some do, and can help you.
Every journey begins at a point. I am guessing you have a point within you that is seeking something greater for yourself and that is why you are reading this. Please give me a call and schedule a FREE 20minute consultation, so you can come in and meet me and ask me any questions in person. Within 20 minutes I will know if I can help you. When people walk out the office after their first 20minute consultation often it comes with a knowing that life is about to get better AND it's often because they just made a decision to be on a path to get well. They just made the decision to do some unlearning and more importantly learn some strategies to be happy and well. I hope to meet you soon. And help you to a happier future.
I am the owner of Inspiring Wellness, a wellness and personal transformation clinic in Auckland CBD and the Author of "Wellness Words, how to think speak and feel great" and "How to Break free from Anxiety". I love helping my clients take back their lives and regain their health and get a whole new higher quality of life. If you are curious if we can help you, please contact us. We are here to help you.