Understanding and Calming anxious thoughts
Let’s talk anxiety!
Bringing knowledge and understanding of any topic, or issue always helps to bring power and control over it, and anxiety is not different.
Everyone experiences anxiety, in different degrees and for different reasons, I am someone who has and on occasion still experiences this today.
Throughout my life and my transformations in life I find that I understand anxiety that little bit more each time, I now look at anxiety from a more holistic point of view, and I find this helps. Helps to understand it better and helps to calm and control it better. For myself I find asking why? What is causing me to experience anxiety right now? Usually, the reasoning is entirely different for each person.
Understanding how our minds work is ideal when trying to understand how and why you experience anxiety, each mind is unique, as we all operated on personalised patterns and what we call in NLP Meta Programs. These patterns and programs can alter how we experience reality making our minds and experiences subjective. The body however is objective, it exists in reality and is a physical and undeniable part of human existence.
Our mind has a filtration process as it experiences reality, we distort, generalise, and delete information all around us all day every day. We further filter this information and distort it as it travels through our patterns, which consist of things like; meanings, beliefs, values, knowledge, etc, and through our programs, some of which we are unaware of (our drivers). These programs and patterns, belief systems and meanings are created at an early stage of development and are usually immature and not serving to the adult body and experience.
So, keeping this in mind we can start to see how the mind can be completely unique and how anxiety is something tailored to your unique experience.
Our bodies are made up of and generate energy, this has been discovered and proven in science throughout time. When we look at the mind, it is not locatable in the body, it is a projection of reality. A simple saying “Energy flows where the mind goes” can help us to better understand how and why we experience physiological symptoms such as anxiety attacks. If you are accessing a memory of the past or projecting your mind into the future to worry yourself with something that may happen, your body being objective in this world can not follow. Your energy will follow your mind projection, but what happens when the body cannot go there with you? You may experience energy in the nervous system, what we describe as panic, sped up heart rate, shaking leading to a possible outburst. This can be anxiety, notice how over time people would do something to shock the person out of a panic attack, you see it in old movies with a slap on the face, although barbaric it is relevant the shock brings you back to right now, the present. Now I’m not telling you to get people to slap you or to perform that little trick on others, but the point stands, come back to the present, focus on the right now what is happening right now.
When you experience this, it is a great chance to be able to be present with yourself and just notice where it is that you went, what thought, meaning or belief caused you to experience that. Sometimes you will find that it is in fact a meaning or a belief that has caused this feeling. We are after all meaning makers, and emotions and feelings are just energy in the body, right? So, imagine this, you have two children in their meaning making years, both are about to jump on stage for the first time and are experiencing what we call butterflies in the tummy. Child 1 is told that this is just nerves, and it is ok to feel that way, child 2 is told you must be excited you are going to do great. Child 1 is more than likely going to make meaning that the energy they are experiencing in their body is nervous, as they grow and learn and continue to make meaning they can associate that with anxiety, child 2 is more likely to associate that energy with excitement, as they learn and grow and make meaning, they may associate that with confidence and determination.
This can be a time for you now to notice for yourself, what do you associate those energetic feelings with what is the belief and meaning you hold beneath them?
Understanding how and why you are experiencing physiological symptoms that we label as anxiety or panic attacks; can help you identify why it is that you are experiencing them. Bringing yourself back to the present, and being present with yourself and your body, allowing yourself to become aware of what is happening for you, where has your mind travelled, what meaning do you hold for that experience. It can all unravel to a core belief or way of being that you can change.
So, what is causing your anxiety?