Don't Let Anxiety Stop You
Do you have problems fighting anxiety? Is it affecting your life? Do you feel like you are drowning deeper and deeper in loneliness each day? If so, you need to know that you are not alone. All over the world, there are many people dealing with anxiety in their daily lives.
Although it may seem like a problem that will keep you away from a normal life, anxiety can also be an opportunity. When you give yourself a chance to understand your anxiety, you can improve in many aspects.
“Don’t hide yourself. Stand up, keep your head high, and show them what you got!”
-Joe Mari Fadrigalan-
Identify your fear
Anxiety is usually born of fear and worry about the future . Sometimes you may feel afraid of other people’s reactions. But deep down, the central motivation for anxiety is the idea that you have of yourself and what you should be, do, or seem like.
Maybe you have some physical characteristic that you are ashamed of, for example, or you are worried that things will not turn out for you in the future. To avoid anxiety stopping you, first you must identify and accept yourself.
When you know your fears, you can look for a solution to stand up to them effectively. It is important that you do not try to avoid or minimize your feelings. Any characteristic that you do not like can be the cause of anxiety, even if you do not realize it at times.
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.”
-Nelson Mandela-
Change your perceptions
We go through life thinking that our flaws are the worst. This creates a lot of anxiety when the moment comes to interact with others. To avoid anxiety taking over you, you need to choose another route, open yourself to another way of seeing reality .
Look at your reality from another perspective. You will see that little by little, things start to look more normal. You will even notice that what seemed like an enormous flaw to you is rather common for others. Learn to see what you now consider a flaw in a different way. Why don’t you choose to consider that feature that bothers you so much as something that, instead, makes you unique?
Pay attention to others
When you spend a lot of time thinking about what you do not like, you have less time to enjoy what is good. The same thing happens with the people around you. If you spend all your time anxious about what they may think of you, you forget to take care of your relationships.
Do not avoid going out with your friends and family or enjoying the time that you spend with them. Focus on the present moment and the people around you and stop wasting time on your worries.
Be patient
Anxiety does not come and take up residence in a few hours. It takes many years to develop all the habits that keep it in our lives. The same goes for the process to get it out of our lives.
You have to gradually start fighting anxiety. Do not make plans to go to a large party where you are the center of attention, if you are just starting to work on your anxiety. What you need is to take baby steps. If you are incapable of leaving your house, try to go out and get the mail one day. You do not have to go out and greet all the neighbors; you just need something small.
Do not flee from situations that make you uncomfortable
It is hard to do, but it is a great strategy to put a definitive end to anxiety. Staying where we feel uncomfortable will help us stand up to what we fear, despite the discomfort that we may be feeling. Surely you have at some point tried to avoid situations that give you anxiety. Do not do it anymore! Let yourself feel fear and doubts.
In this way, you will learn to deal with uncomfortable situations and they will gradually seem more normal to you. There will come a time when you do not even have a reason to feel that way. It is a process, of course, but the result is great. Only when you stand up to your fears can you defeat them.
“ You can run, run, run away from a lot of things in life, but you can’t run away from yourself. And the key to happiness is to understand and accept who you are .”
-Dale Archer-
Accept power over your life
Anxiety can take total control of your life if you let it. Do not let negative emotions have more power than you. If you do not like some aspect, think about how to change it, improve it, or make the best of it. When anxiety is a permanent problem that you cannot control, think about seeing a specialist .
