Have you ever stay stuck into your thoughts and instead of moving on, you ended up in a loop of stress and chaotic negative outcomes. That's right it's Anxiety. Anxiety doesn't show up like an explosion but it starts out as a single thought leading to another and another, as you overthink and spend time more it branches out to multiple outcomes and how you want to control every situation every possibilities even the ones you can't control. This not only creates stress but you will also end up worrying upon your mind and body. This is where the ultimate spiral showdown begins, heart racing, chest pain, headaches, shakiness, losing weight, and many more.
Anxiety can play a huge role with your perspective against reality. Instead of magnifying the solution, it will narrow down your focus into the negative outcomes, creating the problem to even bigger problems that convinces you to bring your attention to it. You will have doubts on the decision your making to it, you get all anxious and over-doing it, you start being hard on yourself, repeating and overthinking the same conversation or scenarios. Even simple task will make you feel like the world is ending. It controls over you and instead of fixing and trusting the process, you might end up sabotaging it and making it harder on yourself and to the people around.
But, Here is the cheat code, Anxiety is not your enemy but a sign to you. Anxiety shows up when you have fear, or uncertainty. This is because your mind has not been through this experience before so it would be in panic mode. An experience that has not been match to any of your past memories so your mind will be into panic mode and doesn't know what to do but generate outcomes. Usually it generates negative outcome so that you can avoid it as much possible but that doesn't solve it, you just be stress even more because the problem still exist there. Therefore, the fear becomes a fact in your story but it's actually just an illusion.
So, Are you done with being in a loop of the Spiral Showdown? Let's talk about how you can escape the spiral showdown and become Grounded Stillness.
First step to approach this situation is to observe and accept it. Don't question it to be positive or negative just yet. Observe it as a pure statement. Acknowledge the feeling, Yes, I am feeling anxious, Yes , i am feeling sad, Yes, i am feeling scared. Then move to the next one which Acceptance of it. Why do you feel anxious. I feel anxious because i fall sick, i feel anxious because i have to face my new boss, i feel anxious because my wife is holding a frying pan waiting for me at home. Anxiety is the fear of what if this happens, what will the future be? Instead of spiralling that way, bring yourself to the present. Practice on your breathing. Get some fresh air in and out while looking around at things that you can sense with to bring your focus into the present world.
Now, that the state is out of chaos to calm. Time to face the question you're going through is the thought ( outcome ) that you're having , True or Illusion? Is it supported by facts or did ChatGPT said so? Is there any solid evidence or proof you have that this outcome will be the end of you? This will help you to be more clarified with what you're going through instead of jumping to conclusion straight off bat. If no evidence is supported by anyone then it's something to not likely to be worried about.
Now the problem is still there but your anxiety wanders off for a little while. So, get down to handy mandy business. Focus on how can you make this situation solved or what align steps can you act upon to move forward. You see if you don't move, anxiety can return and we back into a spiral again. You don't have to come up with a big and successful action plan. You can break down to small task and trust the pace as you do so. Always acknowledge how you feel during the process time. Take one step at the time, don't rush it as your anxiety can take the wheel.
While you are taking action, make sure you are taking care of yourself as well. Don't get so overwhelm that you need to take action and expect results immediately. These things take time, slow and steady. In meantime while you do it, get some proper rest, make sure you are eating and staying hydrated. To get your mind off , go for a walk. The best is to walk in nature, That's like the most ultimate and grateful thing you could ever do in this life and situation. This would support your nervous system to be in a state of relax and not go on a fight or flight mode.
If things are really off the course for you, you can always talk it out to someone. Just express how you feel to your friend, family or even a mentor. Sometimes being heard and given reassurances is really needed at this given moment. It gives you the sense of relief that it's not the end of the world. Yes, there is change happening. The best you can do is to embrace the wonderful change that is happening in your life.
Lastly, be patient with yourself. Overcoming your anxiety can be tough at first as you will eventually fall back to old patterns. The good news is we have neuroplasticity, so things can create a new pattern for you to grab onto once your brain got used to it. But, patient is a virtue in order for that to happen. By doing this, you slowly gain control on things that are able to be reach upon your control. The ones you can't, let God.
Anxiety creates a mindset of terror and fears of the unknown and negative output. But, it doesn't define who you are. You are never your thoughts but a free living soul in this earth. So, don't let your thoughts or emotions take a toll to a pit when there's a path where you can be absolutely stunning and rising to be a resilience towards every event you face. With proper awareness and care, anxiety can be manageable.
It's not about having anxiety and it's ruining your life, it's how you can use it as a guidance to live a better life with better align actions.
Abirami Ravi (abirami1999ravi@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
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