Anxiety is my middle name

Along with a rush of clients wanting to quit smoking I have been seeing quite a few experiencing anxiety. The common thread is the inability to manage their emotions in a resourceful way in response to a situation or perceived situation. People who suffer anxiety live in the imagined future worrying about things that haven’t happened and people who suffer from depression live in the past and when a client suffers from anxiety and depression that is a double whammy for them. Where do you think the best place for them is to live? Yes in the present and that can be challenging without the right strategies. Luckily today we have a wheel of help and proven strategies including hypnosis, meditation, EFT, exercise, CBT, mindfulness, yoga and where necessary anti- depressants. To live in the present is very hard when you are faced with say the loss of a job, a relationship, a traumatic event and money worries. No one is suggesting that you put your head in the sand and don’t think of or plan the future. When we are talking about people who suffer severe anxiety, we have to teach them to live one day at a time as a coping mechanism. I had a young man some time ago, who came to see me absolutely desperate he was going to lose his relationship as a result of trust issues with his partner and who was unable to control his emotions good, sad, angry for any length of time. After hearing his back story which was horrendous, I could see why this young man had struggled with his emotions and relating to people most of his life. I knew I could not affect any positive change until he got some control back over his emotions which were out of control. It’s like trying to give a drowning person swimming lessons – they are not capable of listening. So we need to change our state when we are like this, how do we do it? The opposite of anxiety is calmness. You have to slow down your speech, your posture, your heartbeat, your thoughts and your breathing. This is where mindfulness comes in and breathing techniques. Sit down somewhere and focus on your breathing close your eyes breathe in and out deeply. What can help is to get an object and focus on it until you feel yourself quieten down a lit candle can be good, an egg timer, a clock anything a hypnotic spiral on you tube. Hypnosis can really help by teaching you at a subconscious level how to relax but with any recording you must listen for at least 30 days. Yoga helps, reading about how to deal with anxiety talking to someone who cares and remembering that anxiety won’t kill you. There is a really good handout called Eating your Ant – how to Eat your automatic negative thoughts – here it is http://satsanga.buffalo.edu/docs/ANTS.pdf For me I find it helps a lot to focus on the one day and what is going on just for that day and find something to enjoy about it. I have mentioned this before but The Leaves on A Stream Exercise in the following link is fantastic to calm you down. https://cathybarrowhypnosis.com/manage-incessant-though…/
One last thing – have a think about this: the feelings you experience when you are anxious are a lot like excitement – just imagine turning your anxiety into excitement!