The mental and emotional state we call anxiety is not about a person, a place, or a situation. It is your response to the world, the way you have gotten used to responding. Perhaps it was a person, a place, or a situation that got to you in a negatively impactful way, so much so that you began responding this way as a precursor to all that is similar, or at least similar enough to your mind that is always ten steps ahead to try to, in its own strange way, protect you.
Anxiety can be boiled down to three reactions, mental, emotional, and physical. This response was engrained in the person who has buried emotions that have not been properly dealt with. The death of these emotions, or their removal via release, is a key part of managing the symptoms of one's experienced emotional and physical anxiety.
Reviewing and remedying the mental patterns that tie into a person's anxiety requires a different approach. Oftentimes, the emotions that follow a certain mental pattern are strong, and therefore a mental spiral follows in a feedback loop of agitated thoughts and elevated emotions. To change mental patterns that are reaffirmed continually during one's anxiety and both caused by it, the person needs to first calm down.
In calming, the person must be able to objectively take a look at their thoughts and assess their logic, which can madden a distressed person who is already obsessing over the validity of their thoughts. The topic of obsessive thinking will be addressed in a different post.
A proposition for a person who is experiencing both emotional and physical distress paired with mental turmoil is to allow the maddening thoughts and emotions to decrease, as both combined are too much for one's psyche and emotional body in order to properly assess their thoughts in an objective manner. The purpose for the person reverting to a calm state is that their thoughts may not follow a logical pattern while their anxiety is at high levels. Once the individual is in the state of calm, or near-calm, they can properly reevaluate their thinking.
It may be necessary to 'trick' the mind into adopting new, healthier mental patterns. A mind that has become familiar with neurotic thinking may lean on such thinking like a crutch in times of stress or change, or as part of daily mental operations. Ceaselessly, the mind may put itself through erratic thinking in an effort to predict and prevent future stress or to 'properly' react to a novel situation. This pattern of thinking must be broken in order to create new patterns, which can result in lower levels of anxiety and in turn, a calmer and healthier way of experiencing the world. Oftentimes, once habit-formed, obsessive thinking cannot readily be turned off at one's leisure and is very difficult to control. Thus, to amend this 'out of alignment' sort of thinking, a person must not only 'break' the habit but 'force' their own mind to shift focus, diverting their present focus from the source of distress and cyclic thoughts. It is a grueling, painstaking process that may seem impossible, but it must be done to avert one's mental gaze from their usual routine. Much like an addiction, it gets easier the less one allows it to continue.
A Note From the Author:
I know it can be so very difficult to change one's thoughts. It is all too easy to revert back to fearful ways of thinking when you have learned to do so and to react to situations the same way over and over again. However, it is imperative to one's well-being to know that the power to break your mental habits is in your hands; it is in your mind. Your mind may be out of sorts at the moment, but you still have the capacity to choose and the strength to resist what you do not want to continue in your mind. Although you may tire, you must decide what it is you want, and once you do, you will know what you need to fix. It can be as simple as, " I do not want to think like this anymore." And so it is.
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