Anxiety caused by external events or real life problems can be hard to deal with, because even when we are able to successfully face and accept the anxious feelings, the circumstances are still there. This is especially true when the anxiety is caused by something completely outside of our control, and there is nothing we can do to change it.
World events such as the current coronavirus pandemic, financial crises, natural disasters etc. cause great anxiety and fear even in people who are NOT otherwise sensitized. So it is no surprise that those who are already in the anxiety state can experience a greatly amplified level of suffering.
Real life problems that cause anxiety can be almost anything. Common ones include loss of a job, a personal health crisis, or loss of a loved one. Each of these comes with a mix of strong emotions. While the loss of someone we love causes predominantly grief (anger, sadness and depression), we may also experience an increase in our anxiety. In our sensitized state, we find any strong emotions difficult to cope with, and they can trigger the release of adrenaline, adding more symptoms to our already overwhelmed nervous system.
How Does It Affect Us
With situations we perceive as a threat, aside from the anxiety/fear and perhaps panic, the feelings and emotions that often accompany such real life stresses include: overwhelm, confusion, doubt, indecision, powerlessness, fatigue, despair and many more.
When in the midst of the impact from these external situations, we may experience a difficulty making even simple decisions, and become frozen, unable to get started on anything. Our minds may be racing with thoughts, and we feel confused and uncertain. We may be constantly recycling through the same thought loops, yet each time reaching the same unworkable solutions, or no solution at all.
We can become completely consumed with these thoughts and feelings where we lose our ability to function effectively. It may also have a large impact our relationships and our jobs. Others in our lives may view our reaction to these situations “excessive”, and carrying on for “too long”.
What we need to remember is that our already sensitized state causes our minds and bodies to have an exaggerated reaction. This isn’t something we choose, or we can simply turn off at will, it is simply the way in which anxiety works!
What Can We Do?
Much of what we experience when in the anxiety state is self-inflicted. I don’t mean that in the sense it is our fault – there is no blame for this condition. What I mean is that the anxiety results from our own reaction to our feelings, and our fear of them. However, life can also throw us a curveball that causes high levels of anxiety that is not the product of our own anxious mind.
Because it is an external threat, we tend to believe we can’t treat it the same way as our internal anxiety. We assume it won’t respond to acceptance. We think we need to do something different. This is not true. All anxiety, regardless of the source/cause will respond to the Acceptance Method.
Faced with an external threat or stress that we cannot affect or change, we need to address it a two levels – a practical one, and an emotional one.
First, we do what we can about our situation and circumstances. We take steps to adapt ourselves and our lives to the new reality. We look for ways to mitigate the risks we face, and take actions to reduce the impact the situation has on us.
Having done that, we need to address our feelings. We must look at how we think about and respond to the stresses and worries that still emanate from the situation. We will naturally get feelings of fear/anxiety because of this external threat. That’s to be expected. But we don’t benefit from constantly trying to solve problems that are beyond our control, or from worrying excessively about possible outcomes in the future. If we do this, we add second fear and ramp up our symptoms.
We need to face the situation, and give it appropriate attention, but only to the extent where we are improving our situation, or preparing ourselves against real risks. This is where the Acceptance Method really helps us.
It teaches us how to respond to this external crisis in a way that we don’t add second fear. This means learning not to react to our feelings of fear, anxiety, and stress etc., but to face and accept them instead. In other words, we practice the method on the anxiety that we experience due to the situation.
My Experience
I made by far the most progress in understanding and learning the Acceptance Method during difficult times. One period in particular was a confluence of personal and external circumstances that created some very complex and scary scenarios. The specifics of these don’t really matter because they will be different for everyone, but the lessons are the same.
We learn the most in difficult times.
It’s probably worth saying here that while we yearn for peace and an easy life, it is during the times where we are presented with our greatest challenges that we learn the most about ourselves and the world. It is our struggle that leads to wisdom. The same is true during recovery from anxiety.
Faced with these life challenges, I tackled them with as much honesty as I could. Writing them out helped. There were a lot of problems (some large, some small) that either had no apparent solution, or were beyond my control. Many appeared circular – where any action seemed to lead right back to the original problem. And for others, whichever solution I chose, something else was going to be made worse.
For example, when work stress was making me ill, if I took time off work, upon my return the stresses would invariably build again because I had learned nothing about how to heal my anxiety condition. The longer term solution of course was to learn how to recover from my anxiety using the acceptance method. But in the short term, I had to deal with the situation I was in.
If I looked for a lower paid, lower stress job it might impact my finances in a way that would be more stressful than staying in a toxic work environment. But if I continued to work where I was, it seemed likely it would eventually degrade my health to the extent I would be unable to continue in the job anyway. So there was the paradox: I couldn’t afford to leave my job financially, but I couldn’t afford not to for my health. What to do? What to do?
Faced with seemingly unsolvable problems, and unbearable stress & anxiety, I did four things:
- I started by making a list of my priorities in life and ranking them. (My health came out on top, because without that, everything else suffered or became irrelevant).
- Secondly, I made a list of all the things I felt I needed to get done.
- Thirdly, I asked three questions about each task: “Do I really need to do this right now?”, “Is there any other way of getting this done, or can someone else help me?” and “What would happen if it didn’t get done right now?” That way I could eliminate unnecessary actions in this time of extreme stress, reducing my workload to the bare minimum.
- Finally, using the priorities I established in Step 1 and taking into account any time deadlines, I ranked the tasks. I then focused my efforts on the most urgent or important tasks first. Reducing the physical clutter in my environment and organizing my paperwork helped too.
I should make special mention to those things outside of my control. In some areas I was dealing with people that had different goals, and did not necessarily have my well-being in mind. Some of the issues were processes that inevitably dragged out over a long time without any way for me to bring them to a close. I had no choice but to surrender to these things. I did what I could, when I could, to move them along, but otherwise accepted that I would simply have to let time pass.
It’s Not All Bad News
In a strange way, this experience was a blessing, because it completely reset my priorities in life. It required me to tear down all my preconceived and subconscious beliefs about what was important to me, and to rebuild them from scratch. I think I am much better off as a result. I have a much greater appreciation for what makes life worth living, and what is important and what is really quite trivial.
It was a time of enormous personal growth. My life took on much greater meaning, and became a more conscious, satisfying and flowing experience. Gone was the chaos and dysfunction of constant chronic anxiety, replaced by a profound peace, acceptance and deep understanding.
That period accelerated my recovery from lifelong anxiety habits. At a very deep and profound level I absorbed the knowing that I could accept ANYTHING life throws at me, and move forward with a clear mind and peaceful heart.
