Are feelings of panic and anxiety consuming your world? One of the
primary symptoms of anxiety is feeling uncomfortable and thinking
you are trapped or stuck. Being stuck starts by dwelling on things
you're worried about instead of taking action. By not taking
action, you're giving yourself no option to do anything else but
worry. And excessive worry almost always leads to feelings of
anxiety and in extreme cases to panic attacks. Here you will find
three simple questions you can use to bring relief before panic
attacks occur.
Worrying can become a habit that feeds your anxiety and can lead to
panic. A habit is something that is repeated involuntarily over and
over again. Habits are formed from the practice of doing something
so often that you start doing it without realizing that you even
started. Does your anxiety lead you to a feeling of hopeless that
nothing will ever change? If so, worrying has probably become a
habit that needs to be broken.
"A day of worry is more exhausting than a day of work."
~John Lubbock
Whether you worry occasionally or habitually, if you never develop
a plan that supports actions that ease the anxiety, you can stay
stuck in this cycle for a very long time.
The Sooner the Better
A habit is a learned response with a particular pattern. The only
way to overcome a worrying habit is to create an interrupt—a way to
stop the habitual response before it gets started. This helps you
to learn a new response and create a new pattern to break the old
habit.
Strategies for Breaking the Habit
The easiest way we have found to practice breaking the worry habit
and create a new pattern is to can use your subtle feeling of
discomfort as an interrupt to your habitual responses. The next
time you notice you feel uncomfortable in any way stop and ask
yourself these questions.
1. "Is there something I believe about the situation that I
don't even know is true?"
Very often we're worried about things we think are true in a
situation even if we have not verified that we are correct. Take
the following statements:
"I never should have said that."
"What if she never talks to me again?"
These statements create worry that you said the wrong thing and
that she might never talk to you again.
Let's say we asked question number one about those statements. The
answer might be, "I can't possibly know that she'll never speak to
me again. In fact, I don't even know that she's upset about what I
said." If you come up with answers like these, there will be an
immediate sense of relief just by realizing you're worrying about
something that might not even be true. The next step could be to
take action and ask the person if they're upset in any way. Very
often, what we're worried about isn't even an issue.
If you asked this question and don't find relief, go to the next
question.
2. "What do I deeply value in this situation that has me
worried in the first place?"
When you identify what you want, it is much easier to take action
toward getting it.
For example, if you say, "I hate driving in the rain" you might
identify safety as what's most important to you in that
situation.
Or perhaps your worry is focused on a thought such as this:
"My son is so sick, what am I going to do?"
In this case, worrying about what's going on with your son, and
what you can do to help, is the driving force behind your anxiety.
Once you've identified what you are really troubled about, pick one
action you can take to satisfy what's most important to you.
Say you really want to understand all the details about your son's
condition. To satisfy this desire for clarity about his condition
you might pick the action of talking to the doctor to see if she's
willing to explain your son's condition until you understand that
clearly. By performing an action, you spend way less time worrying
about what you don't want and more time creating the life you do
want.
If you ask this question about your anxiety, identify what's most
important, and you can't come up with an action to take, ask
yourself the third question.
3. "Where in my life do I experience these things that are most
important to me?"
Once clear about what's most important in a situation, on occasion
you'll find that there is no action you can take to create what's
most important in the moment. At these times, question number three
is very effective in focusing your attention on getting what you
want from something that is already happening in your life. Take
the following statement:
"The world is so scary, what if we keep having wars?"
In this thought, you identify concerns about safety and peace of
mind. This is the trigger behind your worry and anxiety. It's
possible that in this particular situation you could not identify
an appropriate action to satisfy these things. That's when you ask,
"Where in my life do I experience safety, and peace of
mind?".
You might look at your life and say:
"I feel very safe where I live."
"When taking a walk, I feel peaceful."
Beyond a simple statement, it might be an experience you had while
helping a child or greeting new neighbors. Maybe it's the act of
giving money to a charity that really satisfies the values you
have. Whatever is important to you, if you look at your life you
will find examples of it somewhere.
All three of these questions are designed to support you in
creating new responses and patterns to old habits and focusing on
the things that are most important. Always remember that if you
don't know what you want, you can't get it. If you're in action
creating what if you want in your life, you're much less likely to
feel worried and anxious and therefore, much more likely to be
having fun and feeling happy.
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in
discovering
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