ANXIETY!

Hello Reader:)

Thank you so much for being on my page. I am glad that you have decided to read about anxiety. This article is all about what an anxious brain can do and a first step to overcome anxiety. Let me put it straight, though I am a psychologist, the article is not from a clinical perspective using a psychological brain rather it’s of a person’s personal experience with psychological intellect. If you would like to know the depth of anxiety go ahead and click on this following google link, and I hope that it helps you.

https://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/topics/anxiety-disorders/index.shtml

To begin with my anxiety:

Someone created this blog for me a decade ago mocking on my writing skills. I was then not so good at expressing my thoughts and that’s what I thought. And my blog site remained untouched for 10 long years. I was always anxious about my language skills and I believed that I would never write in my life. But then one beautiful morning thoughts were just flowing in and therefore, I started typing the words in order to safely secure them in my long-term memory. This broke my false belief. Now I wanted the world to read it. Then, my anxiety sweeps in. I was cynical, I remembered that someone who mocked my language skills and I was so not ready to take negative comments that leave me worrying.

In a couple of weeks one of my colleagues shared the link of his first blog post. I read it and I posted a comment, my id read it as ‘itsmythoughtstrain’. It was then I remembered that I too have a blog page, which I had almost forgotten. I decided to post my first article (https://itsmythoughtstrain.blogspot.com/2019/05/happiness.html ) on my page, which reached out to 200 odd people. It was an Aha moment for me. Some of my well-wishers called up and gave me a few suggestions to improvise on my writing skills and guess what? I didn’t feel negative at all. I was rather thrilled to implement all those suggestions in my upcoming post. My confidence restored and anxiety was replaced with eustress (a psychological term for happy stress). Over time though I developed my language skills, my greater realisation was I have ideas to communicate, which are learnt through my experiences.

“Thoughts lead to expectations, expectation leads to worries, worries either strengthens or make you vulnerable”.

Anxiety is one of the mental illnesses

Anxiety means constant worry about something that you are not sure of. I said a constant worry, which is certain that it’s all up in our mind and again which others are mostly not aware of (unless you keep it to yourself). When we realize this we take the first step in accepting our anxiety and take the courage to face it in order to see the outcome of our ability.

To name a  few, Steve Jobs, Jack Ma, Ritesh Agarwal, Mark Zuckerberg and Jay Shetty have definitely gone through anxiety only to showcase their phenomenal achievements to the universe. You can be a student or a housewife or a business person or working for an institution or an organization or can be one of my colleagues, who is also having hidden anxiety. You might have an urge to tear those anxious thoughts, but you become helpless, ignorant and keep breeding your anxiety. We all love to stay in that comfort zone and it’s an escape from those bristles of life. However, our brain gets psychologically affected and drained out leading to mental illness.

 

Be gentle - The first step is Courage

If I had believed and settled on those words of someone, I wouldn’t have become a blogger. Anxiety continues to persist when you pretend and lack courage in easing your stressing circumstances. One of my students experiences anxiety every time the class teacher keeps an assessment or exam. He believes that only his counsellor can help in alleviating his anxiety and therefore, whenever there is an assessment he seeks guidance. This persistence of anxiety is due to the failure of non-acceptance of taking that first step of courage. In his case, the first step of courage is ‘Trusting in his effort’. In a similar way, we need to identify what is our first step of courage. And this varies from one situation to another.

To take an instance from Bhagavad-Gita (Gita is a non-religious scripture), Arjuna, one of the Pandava brothers of the Indian epic the Mahabharata, seeks guidance from lord Krishna when he experiences anxiety in the Kurukshetra war field. He realizes that he would be fighting his own kith and kin and also his guru who had taught him the knowledge of warfare skills. He grieves for the wives and children of the thousands of men whom he would be killed during the war. Those evoking anxious visions wanted him to remain as a coward rather than fighting his own blood relatives. During those times man (Kshatriya men) stepping back from his duty (karma) is equal to being a dead body. It was through lord Krishna’s enlightening guidance Arjuna was able to overcome his anxiety and won the war.

The above instance is for us to understand that sometimes when our anxiety is ruling us it is essential to seek guidance and win over it.

Relationship anxiety is “Not knowing where you stand in someone’s life is emotional torture. You don’t deserve that. Stop settling”. ~ M. Sosa

Anxious thoughts can be more than one

Your anxiousness can be a stage fright, expressing love, starting a business, getting into marriage life, starting a new career, finding a job, COVID-19, financial issues, societal concerns, gender identity, feeling of rejection, peer conflict, etcetera. Recently, I stepped out of one of those mentioned anxiousness even though the outcome was not favourable. Yet I don’t feel devastated, rather my belief has strengthened. I am glad that I believed in myself otherwise I would live my life with guilt for not taking that courageous step. My first step of courage was ‘being myself’. It was not at all as bad as I thought because when we are anxious we visualize extreme negative outcomes. Now I have so much faith in myself to bind into the gift of life that I am blessed. This pervades to channelize my energy into a meaningful one.

Do Not Settle. HELP YOURSELF in working on your tormenting thoughts:

• Exercise to Get Rid of your bodily stress.
• Meditate to Control your anxious thoughts.
• Read to develop Resilience.
• Improvise your skill to increase your Self-esteem.
• Have a hobby that keeps you engaged/focussed. This helps you to see the Novel you.
• Conventional wisdom is work is worship. BELIVE in it to revive.

 Let’s understand this –

Anxiety is an aching thought,

Which is neither seen nor touched, but felt hard.

It’s a generous pain that’s seen in your mind’s eye.

You know it, it’s not worth it.

 

 It takes away your happiness and keeps you glum.

And, you put a phony face to push your phase,

Where you settle on it and flush your persona.

  

Listen to that gentle voice of strength rather than the loudness of fright.

Unleash your anxiety by taking the first step of audacity,

And there you go, seize the day.

 

Psychology says, when we indulge in our thoughts it becomes an obsession that we keep thinking of those thoughts even if we do not want to think of it. Read it again. 

To conclude, it’s not easy to let go. At the same time, it’s not safe to hold on to your worries. We need to contemplate the beautiful manifestation of each day that we are grateful for. Let go of your catastrophizing thoughts, be you, cope with life and see the paradigm shift before it leads to depression because it is a silent savage.

Thank you so much for making it till the end. Please do comment as I am open to suggestions.

 Live, Love and Smile,

Sangeetha :)