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basically our body’s fight-or-flight response has gone a bit trigger-happy and is wreaking mental and emotional havoc.
I was fueling my anxiety problem by the way I was responding to each and every anxious thought that crossed my mind.
I don’t teach anxiety management. I teach people how to heal their anxiety so they can get back to living their life again to its fullest.
The unusual thing about The DARE Response is that it’s not designed to get rid of your anxiety; it’s designed to get rid of your fear of the anxiety. It’s your resistance to and struggle with anxiety that keeps you trapped. A bit like quicksand, the more you struggle, the deeper you sink.
You’re very near a full recovery when you’re no longer concerned with whether your anxious sensations are present or not.
The most crucial point to reach right now is to get comfortable with your anxious discomfort.
A person who experiences frequent panic attacks or general anxiety is constantly bombarded with a cocktail of stress hormones. This bombardment not only makes your nervous system highly sensitized to stress, but it also leaves you feeling eerily cut off from the world.
Sometimes anxiety doesn’t spring from one particular life event. For these people, it originates because they haven’t been looking after themselves properly (e.g., not eating right, not getting enough sleep, or consuming too much caffeine and alcohol). Poor diet and not getting the right amounts of key nutrients is a real trigger for many.
losing someone early in childhood or overbearing or aggressive/domineering parenting can make some more prone to anxiety later in life.
we can be living our lives with a lot of stress and exhaustion, similar to holding a muscle in an unusual position for too long. If
this is your body’s own misguided way of trying to protect you.
Defuse Allow Run Toward Engage
STEP 1. DEFUSE
The biggest mistake most people make when anxiety strikes is to get caught up in “what if” thoughts.
A good response to a “what if” is: “So what!”
What if I have a panic attack here in the car? So what! I’ll pull over and get through it like I’ve always done in the past.
It doesn’t matter if you don’t fully believe in your own responses to these questions. The key point here is to quickly defuse the buildup of fear by answering the “what ifs” in the right way with a strong “so what” attitude.
If “so what” doesn’t feel like the appropriate response for you, then come up with your own response like “whatever” or “oh well.”
The important thing is to illicit a
dismissive attitude toward your fears.
STEP 2. ALLOW IT
What level of anxious discomfort am I willing to embrace today in order to heal?
Just like an athlete who embraces discomfort in order to achieve their end goal, you’re embracing anxiety in order to get where you need to be.
It’s about having a new, almost detached relationship with it, a bit like a curious observer mindfully watching the waves of anxiety rise and fall.
Say to yourself: I’m no longer going to battle with you, anxiety. I call a truce. Come closer to me now, and sit down beside me. It’s okay. I’m allowing you to stay. I accept and allow this anxious feeling. I accept and allow these anxious thoughts.
