Over Come Panic/Anxiety and Agoraphobia Part VII

Self talk is the most important thing you can do. In this article we're going to:

1. Review self talk
2. Review observation
3. Deal with Disappointments

Self Talk:
Your brain is a computer—the most sophisticated and effective instrument you could ever have. It will do everything you tell it to. It's unlimited power and will make life rewarding and fulfilling or miserable. Strangely it doesn't care how you use it. Self talk is the same as self hypnosis. If you are in the habits (and I hope you're out of them by now) arguing for your limitations such as:
I can't do something
I'd try it but it won't work because I'm too uneducated, short…

This kind of thinking is self limiting for many reasons and is important to dismiss. Instead say, “Up until now, I've had difficulty with _______ and I'm going to overcome it, get it right, go for it…”

Healthy self statements are affirmations, affirmations direct you brain in the direction of health and prosperity. Several of my programs use many affirmations:

Enhance Creativity
Success
Prosperity Consciousness
Affirmations for Baby

Observation.
I was lying in bed the other evening just before I drifted asleep and I noticed my breathing tense, and muscles in my chest tight. I said to myself, “this is amazing, here I am lying in bed and my subconscious is preparing me to fight or run from something.” Rather than resisting it, I noticed it and went with it. I never did figure out what my subconscious was getting me ready to run from and it really doesn't matter.

Within a few minutes all tension left my body and my breathing was deep and regular as I drifted asleep.

Deal With Disappointments
Now the crux of the program as disappointment, diet, and your personality got you into this mess. Of course with all the symptoms, less than adequate medical advice… it's easy to put the disappointments in the back of your mind and say, “that doesn't matter so much anymore, I just want to get through the day.”

Personality! There is one aspect of personality—naivety that feeds into the effect of disappointment.

As we graduate high school we all have ideals and goals. It doesn't take long for our ideals and goals to be challenged for in reality life is more often about our plans (unmet goals) that fall through than it is about the plans and goals in the first place.

Jane had what she thought was a realistic expectation that her relationship with her sisters and mother would continue with the same sort of camaraderie she always had. She was somewhat addicted to that camaraderie and expected it to stay forever. In fact she didn't know how to adjust to its absence.

Actually it was an unwritten goal and she didn't know it was a goal until it was no longer there. Add to that problems with her son for which she thought she should have answers and the pressure of the responsibility of having her husband relocate and find a new job and Jane was overwhelmed with disappointment—none of which seemed to matter during her agoraphobic attacks as she just wanted to get back to her “abnormal normal self.”

What made a big difference in Jane's recovery was:

  1. shifting from conclusions to observation and
  2. knowing what caused the reaction in the first place (the fight or flight)

Dealing with her disappointments were a welcome challenge once she understood the connection. What do you do?

Disappointments are usually shrouded with emotions—frustration, depression, anger… to name a few for if you can not let it be that something did or did not work our as you hoped or expected, you'll have an emotional reaction and if you can't let it be you have any particular emotion, you'll want to run away. The DVD portion of the program goes into this in depth and is good to review over and over again.

Most of the problem comes from your personality in that you expect yourself to have the answers. It's important to turn over the problems and disappointments to the “creative self.” Example: you try to remember someone's name and the harder you try to remember the more frustrating it is. Finally you say, “heck with it,” and at some point later, the name comes floating to mind.

As you discover how to make the emotions you feel OK without resisting them, they disappear and your creative self delivers to you approaches to handle the disappointment. This is what will provide you immunity to those uncomfortable feelings that you used to know as panic or anxiety—you'll remember you had the difficulties, but forget what it felt like to have had them.

Ask for Support: Another personality trait is that you like to be self reliant. Ask your friends and family for support in dealing with your disappointments. They may provide you a different perspective that you had never thought of before. And if they suggest you're being a bit naïve, ask them for some reality training as to what they think is happening.

You're always welcome to check reality with me.

By now, it's totally possible that you have a handle on your life where you didn't before. If for some reason that handle is not there, you missed something or perhaps thought something I said wasn't really important, or perhaps you misunderstood something, or perhaps your expectations were off a bit off target—contact me—there's absolutely no reason why your life can't be normal.

Homework:
Retrieve the list you made of your disappointments a few weeks ago.

Add any to that list that may have come to mind or recently occurred.

If in the course of this program, you've come to a creative approach, great--cross that one off. If on the other hand, you're still at loss as to how to deal with one of them:

1. Acknowledge that you're at loss at to how to deal with it.

2. Acknowledge any emotions you have--stop pretending they aren't bothering you.
3. Flow with the emotion--make it ok to feel.
4. Let your creative intelligence know that you'd like to do one of more of the following:

a. to see the situation from a different perspective.
b. somehow learn or benefit or profit from the situation.

c. flow with it.
d. find a creative solution.
e. tackle the disappointment and deal with the consequences.

Do this with each disappointment whenever they come to mind. This is the theme of the Enhance Creativity  program. 

Regardless of what you've been told, using a revolutionary technique, anxiety panic attack is only a disease of ignorance and can be gotten rid of through understanding of a few basic concepts!