The thing that the majority of my clients tell me about their panic or anxiety, is how frightening it is to feel out of control…. and then we discover that their anxiety is causing them anxiety! One client recently, in an “ah-ha” moment with me realised, that if she could let go of the need to control everything she wouldn’t feel so anxious. In fact, the super anxious believe, if they could have more control over things they would be less anxious….but the reverse is in fact true.

The more control you surrender and the more acceptance you have of the way things are, the more calm you will feel.

Panic and anxiety are bad habits that the body gets used to practising. It is so used to practising them, that it might take just a fleeting thought, or a comment or situation to set them off. Often the fear of anxiety or panic attacks obscures any of those original triggers and so the anxious are left having, often, no idea why they have had such an attack.

Anxiety is very tenacious. It obscures lots of forbidden and unacceptable emotions.  To really deal with anxiety, you do indeed need to manage the symptoms, but most importantly, you need to search deep for the changes that are needed to alter your self belief and behaviour.  These behaviours and self beliefs are only habits.  Well worn habits, but ones that can be changed.

• Does this sound like you?
• Are you in bad habits with yourself?
• And more importantly, are you sick to the back teeth with it?
  

So how did we learn to suppress our healthy but self censored emotions so that we can no longer recognise them? Much of it will come from childhood, or they could be formed by trauma and loss later in life. Either way, the effect is experienced in the here and now. And that is where and when we suffer.  Now.

Are you an expert at self censorship and political correctness?

It occured to me a while ago, as my practice unfolded with a wide range of clients, that panic and anxiety are in fact all those forbidden feelings locked away deep inside that threaten to spill out if we, for one moment, relax. The threat of being exposed or of not being good enough all stacked up is enough to give anyone chronic panic and anxiety! It’s like a pressure cooker waiting to blow.

Did you know for example that:

• anxiety is a chronic learned, not inherited, habit often found in parents and children
• we can alleviate our anxiety by becoming conscious of what it is masking
• once conscious we can change the way we deal with familiar siutations which will reduce our anxiety
• that by building a deeper inner self confidence, you can reduce anxiety
  

I discuss in my Open Mind Guide to Dealing with your Anxiety an anxiety loop where families get into chronic habits and cycles of anxiety: you know, the worrying about worry cycle that is exhausting and self defeating. There can be nothing less productive and more frustrating than the worry cycle, or what I have called the ‘Anxiety Loop’. Anxiety is infectious.

Once a parent is anxious about their child, the child will be anxious about their parent because the child feels the parent is too fragile to protect them. Once a child is anxious about their parent, the parent will be anxious about their child because the parent feels guilty about the child’s anxiety. Sound familiar? This may start when the child, quite naturally, starts to develop natural feelings of anxiety as their consciousness of the world around them grows.  But the one with the power here, is the parent.

As parents we owe it to our children to be calm and confident. That is how our children will grow to also be calm and confident individuals.

The Open Mind Guide to Dealing with your Anxiety also describes how to reality check and I would recommend that you take an inventory of all the current things in your life that disturb or affect you negatively and then write down, next to this list, what you would have to do to resolve those issues. Be as honest as possible. If you’re not honest with yourself, there is nothing anyone can do to help you!

If this involves telling someone something which you feel is completely unacceptable, you might need one of my courses on Confidence and Assertiveness building that can help you build inner confidence to express some of those forbidden feelings that you are stacking up inside.

To not express ourselves clearly is a habit from childhood. But we can address it in the here and now by changing the way we do things now and experiencing new success.

To download your Open Mind Guide to Dealing with your Anxiety, and have it on your pc ready to print off in minutes, go to the products page. It is packed full of my 6 years of clinical experience working with panic and anxiety and contains a 10 step recovery programme at the end.

This Guide is for those seriously seeking to uncover the triggers and causes of your anxiety. It does not mask, yet again, with suggestion at how to avoid looking at your triggers. It grapples with the very root of the problem, and empowers you to change. Step 10 involves letting go after you’ve done all the work.  Help yourself.  You deserve to feel happy.

(c) Jenny Lynn, 2008. Reprints welcome so long as by-line and article are published intact and all links made live.

About Jenny Lynn

Jenny is an integrative psychotherapist, counsellor and hypnotherapist.  That means, whatever  personality or issue you present with, she can address appropriately and swiftly.  She also offers short courses in personal development in a range of subjects both in person and now online and is available to give public talks having presented for MIND, Saffron Walden CMHT, Uttlesford NHS practice nurses, WEA, among others.  She also offers specialist training to fellow professionals in the treatment of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/ME.

Jenny created The Open Mind Guide to enable many others to benefit from her no nonsense, practical yet sensitive advice and guidance.  If you liked this article, then you’ll love the site! RSS the products page and the blog and keep informed of future developments.

Tags: anxiety, anxiety product, bad habits, childrens' anxiety, frustration, guide to anxiety management, panic, parental anxiety, relaxation, self help, treatment