I used to think I couldn’t change – I was wrong.
As a former anxiety sufferer and now a Mind Coach, I work with people that want to rid their lives of anxiety.
I know first-hand not only what it feels like to have anxiety but also what it feels like to believe that there would be no end to my suffering. My clients and I are living proof that anxiety doesn’t have to be a life sentence.
However, on reflection, there were a number of realisations that I had to come to before any change could happen. The following are the 5 most important as I see them.
1. I could control my thoughts.
The notion that I could control my own thoughts was quite alien to me. I had a constant negative and paranoid internal monologue going on. I had never been shown how to take control of my thoughts despite all of the years of education that I had received. If it was possible to control my thoughts then surely I would have been shown somewhere along the way, wouldn’t I? So without the skills to control my thoughts I was left with no option, in my mind but to listen to them and remain totally at the mercy of them and believing that each and every negative thought I had was true and to be believed.
2. My anxiety gave me a negative lens through which I viewed the world.
In my world the opportunities for stress and self-deprecation were everywhere. Rather than understanding that this was just my perception of the world brought on by my anxiety, I believed this to be the only perspective that I could have on the world. It was the truth. The real truth however, was not that simple. My anxiety created a heightened sensitivity to stressful situations. I would get stressed at things that others would not and believed that the reason that they didn’t was because they didn’t have a full understanding of the situation. This really distorted my world view. When I learned that my anxiety was creating my negative perception of the world I became aware that getting control of my anxiety could reveal a less stressful world.
3. I was not mentally ill.
Seeing as I didn’t have a full understanding of what was going on in my mind, I jumped to some conclusions like; there was something seriously wrong with me or, I might have a mental illness. As I learned more and more about my anxiety I began to realise that I wasn’t mentally ill, but rather I had never been given the necessary skills and tools to manage my own mind. In the absence of these skills and tools I was ill equipped to face the stresses that I would encounter as I went through my life. This at least gave me one less thing to be stressed about.
4. I had to give myself a break
For years I was extremely hard on myself. I admonished myself for not being stronger and for not being able to cope with the stresses of modern life. I compared myself to others most of whom never encountered the same levels of stress that I did and I berated myself for not being able to be as calm as them. Thankfully, I came to the realisation that due to many factors in our lives we all have a different tolerance and threshold for stress. Without the necessary awareness and skills to keep myself from breaching my threshold, I was bound to struggle through no fault of my own. That is when I started to give myself a break and stop adding to my stress by being stress about how stressed I was!
5. Life could be different – I could change
I used to believe that this was just who I was, it was how I was made and that I would just have to learn to live with it, to deal with it. I was accepting it as my lot in life. I then started to realise that this was one of the things that was stopping me from changing. If I didn’t believe that life could be different and that I could change, why would I work hard to find a solution or even recognise one when it came along? But the fact was that I knew that there were people that had learned to overcome their anxiety so therefore if they could do it I could do it to.
It was these realisations that set me on a journey that changed my life and gave me back control of my mind. Once I changed how I viewed my anxiety I was open to learning how to overcome it. Now I help others that suffer from anxiety, stress or depression to take back control of their mind and as a result live lives of happiness and fulfillment.
Change is possible.
Wishing you health and happiness!
Dave
If you or someone you know wants to reach out to me and learn more, I am only too happy to help.
Drop me an email at info@themindcoach.ie
Or call me on: (01) 901 20 50 or 086 245 95 30.
Feel free to comment and ask questions or get in touch if you’d like. If you think this post might help someone or inspire change for somebody suffering, please share or tag to your heart’s content.
