Becoming friends with your anxiety

Anxiety is not an easy thing to live with, I know, I had serious social anxiety for over 30 years and the lessons and methods I discovered, I have brought them into my therapy rooms to support you become best friends with your anxiety.

When we suffer from anxiety, we can have a variety of symptoms such as:

• panic, fear and unease
• brain fog
• sleep problems
• not being able to stay calm and still
• cold, sweaty, numb or tingling hands or feet
• shortness of breath
• heart palpitations
• dry mouth
• nausea

We can experience several symptoms at one time or perhaps just one or two. We are all different and we can experience anxiety in different ways.

What I did discover was that when you become anxious you fight against it. You try and bury it, hide and fight, hoping that you can overcome it. All you are doing here is increasing your anxiety as you focus all your energy on beating it down and as it is your own mind producing the anxiety you are actually using all our energy to fight yourself.

The most important point to be aware of here is your mind is your best friend and wants to protect you and take care of you, it listens to every word you tell yourself and pays attention to every thought you have and depending on what messages you are given acts upon this.

When your mind raises your feelings of anxiety, it is because it believes you are at risk and is trying to make you remove yourself from a situation. Your mind can become overprotective based on the messages it receives, however it is important that your mind always has the best intentions of taking care of you.

Do you want to put an end to this?

Firstly build an awareness of what messages you are telling yourself. Become aware of your self-talk and change it to more positive words. Don't find feelings of anxiety, practice acceptance and do something different when you feel your anxiety building up, stand up, walk, use all your senses. Practice long, slow breaths - you are aiming to slow your body down. Become your own number one, do things that you enjoy, try something creative. When clients come along to me we practice building and strengthening Self-love and compassion, self-acceptance and letting go of the past. If you enjoy music, play your favourite song, sing along and dance.

What you are doing here is calming the critical analytical left-hand side of your brain by lighting up the artistic right-hand side, this can help you feel more balanced and in control, releasing positive hormones into your body which can make you feel wonderful and energised. This in return sends positive messages to your mind-calming the state of alert and anxiety.

"I wanted to share with you ways that help you control your life so that you know how to calm your mind and body when you need it."

Becoming friends with yourself, your mind, your body and accepting the feelings of anxiety and other emotions as part of you and instead of fighting against what is happening, befriend them and like a good loving friend show different ways to reassure your mind that you are safe and well, and this way you can indeed enjoy the calm life you deserve.