The goal is not to get rid of anxiety, for it is normal - it is part of being human. Anxiety helps ready us for action and is there for our survival. The aim is to understand why it has become so strong, change what it means to us and know how to reduce it and prevent it spiralling out of control.
However, when we have low self-esteem, anxiety and panic disorders, phobias, OCD and depression we believe that to have any anxiety is not right and associate the first sign of it with deeper meanings ... this is what makes it so strong.
If ten thousand people say you are good and you believe that you are bad ... you will feel bad about yourself. Conversely if ten thousand people say you are bad and you believe that you are good ... you will feel good about yourself.
To change beliefs, we have to understand how and why they developed. We have to understand our experiences, the people involved and more importantly, the conclusions we drew about our role in them, for it's not the experiences themselves that do the lasting damage, it's what we make of them. We have to understand how we learnt to think and behave because of our experiences.
Our individual personalities probably develop from a mixture of genetic make up, experiences and learning.
As such, how we behave depends on the knowledge that we gain from past experience (derived from situational clues, knowledge at that time, assumptions and reasoning) and how and why we apply this to present situations.
Differences in, and complex interactions between, the above factors give rise to our individuality. We are all different, and yet, in one sense we are all the same.
We all have similar body structures, we all have similar mind structures, we all have the same five senses and we all receive and process information through these senses and structures in a similar manner.
Therefore, it is not surprising that we all tend to deal with certain situations in roughly the same way.
Problems involving anxiety and panic, obsessions, compulsions and despair work in basically the same way and reflect the ways that our mind and body have evolved to deal with 'bad' experiences. Given your genetic make up, your past experiences, the knowledge you had in the past and the knowledge you have now ... your mind and body are working PERFECTLY.
However they are not working APPROPRIATELY
Our mind and body are so interlinked that in some ways it is difficult to distinguish between them; thoughts generate feelings and feelings generate thoughts. Anxiety leads to tension but also tension leads to anxiety.
Many people with long-term anxiety and depression problems exist in a higher than average state of tension and a tense body is already making associations with anxiety, 'prepared' to spark off a worrying thought or image and start the ball rolling towards the panic, phobia, OCD, despair.
Insight and understanding are essential to overcoming anxiety problems. However, from shyness to depression, something else is equally important ... changing behaviour. We can't just think our way out of these problems - to change behaviour we have to do the behaviour ( it isn't possible to learn to ride a bike just by thinking about it! )
Changing behaviour alone will not help if we still feel bad about ourselves or still have unanswered questions about the problem. Any force over which we have little understanding and even less control will always hold power over us, for it is unpredictable and could harm us and as such remains frightening.
Therefore: successfully overcoming anxiety disorders requires BOTH insight and behaviour change
We have to:
Understand the problem (how it developed and it's effects) to such an extent that the search for reasons and answers can be given up
Reduce the automatic negative thoughts, images and behaviours
oh and by the way steve....can you stop repeating yourself so much, you might want to go and look at some other sites to get more info to bore us with!!!
Ohh well look at that, my mean streak just rose ..My last therpaist told me i need to show my anger more often...lmao
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..My last therpaist told me i need to show my anger more often...lmao