Treating symptoms, thoughts and feelings (emotions) the right way is crucial to the recovery from anxiety. How we reacted to these in the past led us into the anxiety state. How we respond to them going forward determines whether we remain in the anxiety state or recover from anxiety.
There are very important differences in how we treat each of these elements of anxiety. Let’s explore that.
Treating Symptoms
Physical and mental symptoms are often the most obvious aspect of the anxiety state. They can be incredibly varied – you can find a list of common ones here. The symptoms we notice the most are quite simply the ones that bother us the most. This varies from person to person. A symptom that troubles one sufferer may be no big deal to another, and vice versa.
The reason our most hated symptoms seem to stick around and get worse is precisely because we hate them so much. They become the center of focus for our minds, and we try desperately to avoid them or get rid of them. This succeeds only in keeping them energized and making them stick around.
“We just need to do the opposite of what got us into the anxiety state”
When a symptom persists, and we are (inevitably) unsuccessful at getting rid of it, we begin to worry about it and start to think it must be something other than anxiety. We very likely turn to Google, and fill our minds with all kinds of nasty incurable conditions and diseases that we must have. We may visit the doctor, only to be told there is nothing wrong with us.
But the symptom sticks around, or it disappears only to come back again a few days or weeks later. So what can we do??
Not surprisingly perhaps, we just need to do the opposite of what got us into the anxiety state.
- Instead of trying to figure out what could be causing it, you simply put it down to anxiety and stop analyzing it.
- Rather than trying to avoid the symptom, you welcome it.
- Instead of fighting to stop it, you allow it full rein to do whatever it wants for as long as it wants; and
- Rather than trying to block out the sensation, you just let them happen, fully, and without resistance.
You don’t have to like the symptoms, you just have to stop fighting or avoiding them. Allow them to play themselves out without interference. You can even welcome them, as they give you the opportunity to practice acceptance. They are your ticket to recovery!
You can also turn, face, and explore the sensation, moving into it mentally and experiencing it as fully as you can. This intentional action helps to eliminate the fear that you have of the symptom. Your mind is given the clear message that if you are prepared to move towards the symptom and explore it, then it can’t really be dangerous, and is not anything to be feared.
Emotions as you will see later are treated in very much the same way. Thoughts on the other hand are treated very differently. Let’s look at that next.
Treating Thoughts
Persistent and disturbing thoughts are a very common element of the anxiety state. They fall into a few main categories:
- Trying to work out how you got in the anxiety state and how to get out of it;
- “What if…?” thoughts;
- Judgments about yourself, your anxiety, or other people.
- Thoughts about compulsive actions
- Anticipation and worry about the future, what might happen, what you fear happening;
- Resurrecting & dwelling on things from the past.
None of these thoughts, NONE of them, serve any useful purpose. Ignore these thoughts; observe them, but give them no attention. This means not engaging with them. When you are aware of one of the anxiety-related thoughts you simply shrug and dismiss it as part of the bluff.
“Notice the thoughts, but give them no importance whatsoever.”
This is very important: you don’t try to stop the thought or change it, but just leave it alone. It has been suggested that you treat this thought like a drunken person at a bar – you don’t give any importance to what they are saying. You laugh, shrug and give them no more attention. When they try to get your attention again, you just say “Oh, you again, I’m not going to pay any attention to you”. Same with the thoughts; don’t engage.
Much like the drunk at the bar, they might try saying all kinds of different things to get your attention, but if you continue to ignore them for a while, they will drift off elsewhere.
When you pay no attention to the thoughts, you may find the vacuum is filled with powerful emotions. This is important, because it shows that the real purpose of the thoughts was to distract you from experiencing these emotions. Your mind felt they were too powerful, too unpleasant, too scary or dangerous, and that you have to be protected from them. You don’t.
The thoughts are nothing more than an attempt by the mind at distraction to avoid feelings of anxiety. This is a major part of the bluff of the anxiety state. These feelings may be strong and unpleasant, even scary, but they are NOT dangerous, and, as will be explained shortly, they NEED to be felt.
Engaging with the thoughts and trying to work them out is fighting them. Be careful too about going in the opposite direction and turning away from them quickly – which can be avoidance. Neither fighting nor avoidance is the way to recovery.
There is a middle ground where you allow the thoughts to happen, but you just observe them, with indifference. You see them, you allow them to come and go, but you don’t give them importance, or make them mean anything, or try to work anything out. You don’t wrestle with them (fight) or turn away from them (avoid), you let them happen but you don’t engage.
Treating Feelings (Emotions)
Your thoughts are irrelevant and unimportant, but your feelings are of the utmost importance, each and every one of them, and must be experienced as fully as possible. You want to feel those emotions fully (feel our feelings).
So again you don’t try to change them (fight) or turn away from them (avoid). You do pay attention to them, experience them fully, but
- without resistance
- without trying to change them or make them go away
- without judgment
- without resentment
- without hating them
You face them, and allow them to wash over you. In other words you experience the emotions with acceptance.
Summary
I’ll add a visual here that may help illustrate the different way in which we treat thoughts, symptoms and feelings.
Think of recovery from anxiety as a train journey. Don’t try to kick anything off the train. Give up fighting and resisting. Allow everything to come along with you.
Invite your thoughts along, but disinterestedly have them sit in the seat behind you. You know they are there. You can hear them, but have no interest in what they are trying to tell you.
Invite your feelings and symptoms along too, but have these sit right next to you. Embrace them warmly. Merge with them. Make friends with them.
In Michael Singer’s book “The Untethered Soul”, he says that the mind is where the soul goes to hide from itself. Put another way, when faced with intense emotional pain/hurt/fear your mind creates anxious thoughts. It will search for something that catches your attention – something that really troubles you or scares you. Something that you will engage with. The brain is trying to stop you feeling pain, and this is the only way it knows how.
Ironically, this strategy simply replaces intense, scary feelings with fearful, scary thoughts, and fails miserably. In the long run, you will experience more suffering than by facing the intense emotions, pulling you into bad thinking habits that lead to the anxiety state.
In order to recover (to heal your body and soul) you must ignore the distraction (thoughts) that your brain is creating. You must FEEL this pain/hurt/fear as opposed to THINKING about it. By doing this, you get to the root of the problem. By allowing the emotion to be fully felt, you release its energy, and allow it to dissipate. As you release more and more of these bottled up emotions, you heal your anxiety.
Simply knowing this is not sufficient. Your brain cannot accept that this new way of responding to anxiety is safe, or that it will work, unless it sees it for itself. It needs proof. Reading this and trying to figure it all out isn’t going to get you anywhere. Don’t try and intellectualize it; do it.
It is the doing (the practice) that teaches the brain how to respond the right way. And it is only through repetition that this becomes your new default way of responding.
