My Understanding of Anxiety and Methods of Dealing with it

Anxiety has taken many forms with me. It has taken form of a black hole emptying everything from the pitful of my stomach. It has come form as a knife slashing away with self inflicting thoughts, preventing me to sleep. It has even come in form of the inability to look somebody in the eye whilst we talk. Heck, the worse it has ever showed up as was panic attacks. For anybody who has never experienced panic attacks, it's like over analyzing every thought that roams through your mind and finding a reason to panic about that ..whilst hundreds of similar frightful thoughts race through your mind in that second at the thumping of your heartbeat! I think the best explanation I've heard of describing a panic attack ..is that split feeling of when your going to fall of your chair but that feeling is looped with more intensive fear!

For me personally, the worse form anxiety comes in is a 'thief.' Anxiety can rob you of talking to people which effectively can reduce your quality of relations, or developing relations with others.
It can rob you from others seeing who you are, as you hold back your true self ..which effectively is robbing you from growth.
It can rob you from going out, indulging in new experiences.
It can rob you from putting your hand up in a classroom to answer a question that you knew the answer off ..you stay quiet instead of feeling confident and positive had you answered the question.
In sense ..anxiety robs you of confidence, empowerment, happiness, growth and many more. - Now that is a travesty!

An example of this, is the story of the soldier who was held captive by a Vietnamese General. The soldier lived in a dire cell of a camp, but every year the General would take the soldier from his cell and present a door. "You can go through this door, or you can go back to your cell." The general firmly stated. Every year the soldier went back to cell of captivity, too anxious to step out of the door of unknown. The soldier eventually died in that cell. After his death, a Vietnamese soldier asked the General, "What was behind that door?" ..The General replied "Freedom, back to his family and friends."

In due time, I understood anxiety. I understood that it was nothing but a voice of fear. The more frightful of a situation I was, the more negative scenarios my mind would form running through my mind..which led to physical implications such as racing of heart, perspiration, inability to look someone in the eye etc..

From here, I understood that our minds behold many micro voices that direct our minds. The way I like to think of it, is as if our mind was a car. These micro voices are passengers in the car ..and whoever is driving the car determines the mood of the car and the destination. So ..when fear is the driver, with hope, optimism and love useless passengers .. the car mood is going to be negative with route to anxiety or depression. Thus, the objective is to remove fear as the driver and replace it with more positive micro voices.

Challenging

The first thing I did was to challenge each anxious statement. "You can't blog that on steemit ..people will think your stupid ..it will be pointless ..it's not good." ...Challenge - "You're not stupid, post it and find out. Besides, if this post can help even one person then it is considered a success!"
Adapting a behavior to consistently challenge negative thoughts is easy and effective! I do it out loud, I believe saying something out loud provides its more power, makes it more real.

Challenging is effective as a lot of the times, anxiety is the fear of the unknown. So challenging it, gives you the boldness to apply an experience to the unknown ..which in returns gives you knowledge to build upon next time you indulge in it. Not to mention positive emotions such as confidence, belief and empowerment for just facing your fears alone ..regardless of how well you done.

Grounding

'Grounding' is an activity that diverts the fear softly from the driver seat. It occupies your mind away from negativity, doubt and drowning. This activity includes you looking around at your scenery

• Finding 5 things you can see
• 4 things you can touch
• 3 things you can hear
• 2 things you can hear
• 1 thing you can taste.

Next time you feel anxious try that activity, it is effectively soothing.

I am a true believer that mental disorders should be more studied within schools. I feel if you understand something such as anxiety, the more effective you are in controlling and then even eliminating it. Anxiety, as I said at the start ..is a bitch. It really can rob a person so much more than they know. However, when you look anxiety for what it really is ..it is nothing but a spineless bully, which with the right methods can be chopped down.