This is taken from an email I recently sent in response to someone struggling with anxiety. Hopefully it can help you, too!
The single most powerful thing you can do to help yourself is to understand that anxiety is thinking about what you do not want to happen. Your unconscious mind cannot fathom that this imagined event is not actually happening. So it releases fight or flight chemicals that cause you to be constantly on he alert.
To stop it you have to focus on what you DO want to have happen.
Whereas a phobia is a one time learning event that creates a similar bodily reaction anytime the negative event is remembered or when a similar trigger in the present is encountered. Stopping a phobia is a bit more involved but most phobia’s create anxiety about the possibility of the negative trigger event happening again in the future.
So the number one way to interrupt these processes is to quite literally change your thinking and focus. Stop focusing on what you do not want.! Focus more and more on what you DO want.
It does take practice.
Here are just a few of my tools…
1. Breathe.
Focus on what you are actually physically experiencing right now.
I suggest that you imagine the breath flowing in from your toes up the backs of your legs, up your spine and over the top of your head. Pause with full lungs and imagine the breath swirling in front of your forehead for a count of 5. Then release the breath down the front of your body. Imagine swirling the breath in front of your toes before drawing it in for the next breath up the back of your body.
This works because you are:
- focused on now
- giving your unconscious mind something else to imagine rather than the negative scenario
- the breathing itself is soothing and life affirming to the body
2. Be rooted
Next Imagine being solidly grounded into the earth by imaginary roots coming out of the bottoms of your feet.
Keep breathing!
3. Roll your eyes.
This interrupts thinking patterns because your eyes are connected to different processing areas of your brain. look up! you a re accessing visual pictures. Look to the right or left. You are accessing auditory/sounds. Look down to the right or down to the left and you are accessing feelings and/or self talk.
So rolling through these areas with your eyes STOPS the stuck movie loop.
These are not the only tools in the tool kit.
But they are simple, easy to remember and easy to do. I only have time for one more and that is this phrase:
Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine?
It is designed as a question because that engages your unconscious mind. (again we want to stop allowing your unconscious mind to run rampant thinking about all the worst case scenarios) Asking a question causes your unconscious mind to begin to build evidence to support the presuppositions inherent in the question.
Why does it work out better than I can possibly imagine? is literally the self talk antidote to anxiety which is essentially asking yourself “why is everything so horrible?” in order to stop anxiety we have to stop asking anxiety producing questions and stop imagining worst case scenarios.
If I were working with you I would suggest to you that you write that phrase out by hand at least 100 times a day. As well as chanting it like a mantra.
I still use these 4 tools almost every day. and they have given me my life back.
Hopefully that is helpful to you.
Ready to master your mind for a change?
If you’re finally ready to crush anxiety now then click the link and let’s get started today. Just know that you can either hypnotize your self to succeed at making the changes in your life you say you want to make. Or you can hypnotize yourself to “fail.”
Either way you CHOOSE the hypnotist is actually YOU…
And this program is here to guide and help you create the change you want for yourself.
Got questions? I have answers and I want you to have them, so…