Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks! Quotes

“Anxiety cannot be outrun, and we don’t even need to, as explained. You are your safe spot. The world is your backyard. All the rest is trivial and just a mind game.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Unless it’s wanted and real anxiety because of the real physical danger you’re in, you’re as safe wherever you are at the moment the anxiety strikes as you would be in your own home. Plus, as I’ve noticed during the years I had actual agoraphobia, the anxiety will simply find you wherever you try to hide anyway. You cannot outrun it.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“This is indeed our last freedom, the one that nobody can ever take away. We do not decide what happens to us, but we always decide how we respond.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Please put that sentence on your bathroom mirror: “I’m fine wherever I am.” The fear is fake; it’s unwanted anxiety. You’re not about to get eaten here either. There is no need to run because if you do, you’re proving that this situation is indeed to be avoided, making it harder for the next time you’re in the same or even in similar circumstances. That’s the reason why my anxiety spread out like a wild flame in a batch of hay. From a family get-together where I had my first attack to restaurants, movie theaters, public transportation, and so on. There’s no need to run since the other location you’re running toward isn’t safer than where you were. Both are not dangerous. It’s a perceived danger, not a real one (if it were, it would be real, wanted anxiety and running would actually be advised).”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“The jolt of adrenaline and the weird sensations can be a bit harder to deal with while driving, because your body wants to run and move, and yet you’re sitting strapped in in your unmovable car seat. What works well here is to start singing loudly or yelling YIHA to use up some of the adrenaline. It’s just excitement because you’re doing something that your body considers exciting.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Life simply is dangerous. You are able to accept this perfectly well in most areas of your life, and it should be accepted while driving as well. Especially so because you are a good driver. Your alertness and danger radar make you a better driver!”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“If the pain is caused by your stomach that dislikes what you ate, a beginning ulcer, or your liver that has a challenging task ahead, anxiety is not going to fix any of that. Since we eat/drink things that our body dislikes, since we catch viruses and more, pains are possible. I always go for full acceptance and when a symptom persists, I have it checked and try to figure out what’s causing it.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Hyperventilation is very common with panic attacks and anxiety. Here it will be important to forgo of the common technique of breathing in a bag since that will mess up your blood oxygen/carbon dioxide levels even more. There are two ways to respond: 1. Do nothing and let your body breathe any way it wants. This is often the most effective approach. Our breathing happens automatically, and your body will soon find the best way of breathing. 2. Use abdominal breathing. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth, making sure that only your abdomen moves. Furthermore, you can use any of the mental and other techniques described in part two of this book. My favorite is, “I allow you to breathe anyway you like, dear body. Whatever happens, I’m fine with it!”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“And as I said earlier, if the pain and symptoms are severe, you go to the emergency room or call for an ambulance, but you can still choose to do so without anxiety. As you’ve learned in part one, anxiety can give you all of the symptoms that may resemble heart problems, so the only way to know something may really be going on is when you choose to let go of the anxiety. If the symptoms and pain then persist, only then would I, personally, seek help. Anxiety has no place here, no role. It won’t help even if something is going on. So it’s totally safe to choose to let go of anxiety.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“This is indeed mostly a trust issue. Anxiety will only rise when you don’t trust your heart to do the right thing. That’s what the “what if?” thoughts will try to tell you. If they don’t, your negative radio will most probably be adding, “Yeah but you know you’re probably having a heart attack.” To which my reply has become, “Whatever. Whatever happens it’s OK, even that.” This was just my way of making fun of it and of accepting the anxiety. I, of course, preferred not to die!”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Good ways to deal with heart symptoms are to just accept them, to say, “Whatever happens, it’s OK. If it’s something bad, I’ll deal with it then but now I’m still standing.” Use the friend method and comfort yourself. Or push harder and say, “Is that all you’ve got? Beat faster!” Reconfirm that you’re sick of being scared. You can also finally embrace it, letting the feeling of fear wash over you. Feel it, instead of frantically pushing it away like you probably used to.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Since overcoming my panic attacks, my approach truly has always been to just let my heart do what it wanted. For fourteen years, I thought I was going to die right then and there at least once per week. I now decide I prefer to die once, for real, instead of in my own imagination multiple times a week. I want to truly live in the mean time.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“The heart has many reasons to beat faster other than you being physically active. If you drink alcohol, your heart will beat faster since alcohol is a poison to our bodies. If you’re sick and your immune system is fending off a virus, your heart will beat (a lot) faster. If you’ve eaten an ingredient you’re allergic to, your heart will beat faster too. Nothing bad is going on then, your body is simply doing its job. Irregular heartbeats are no source of concern either, provided your doctor confirmed you are healthy heart-wise.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“We cannot really control our heart. Sure, our thoughts can help it calm down or speed up a bit, but if there ever would be a serious problem with our heart, our thoughts wouldn’t be able to fix it.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“This is the number one response to adrenaline. It’s difficult to have anxiety and not have it affect your heart.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Nonetheless, here too, reassuring you that all will eventually be fine is not a solution, for your mind will try to convince you that your situation is different anyway. You know the rule by now: accept every possible outcome.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“If you suffer from bad panic attacks, your thoughts may try to make you believe that you will lose control. You will not. Your mind is simply overwhelmed because it is fighting against an imaginary army of ever increasing legions of tigers and other predators. You can’t blame it for thinking that is a daunting task.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“The same is going on with your thoughts. They are just channels of information; they are not you until you decide you like a certain channel and believe it sounds interesting. Only then do they become you. And crazy thoughts are not just about losing your mind, going crazy, or doing something that you really wouldn’t want to. They’re also the famous “what if?” thoughts we’ve been discussing all throughout the book.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“If you are worried about your thoughts, this is proof that they are not who you are. Your crazy thoughts do not define you.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“You are the thoughts you act upon. And you will not act upon thoughts that are not in line with your core.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“You are not your thoughts. Having strange ideas doesn’t make you weird or a bad person. This is not your will; these are not instructions that you will blindly follow. You are still in control.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Some of the thoughts will make you believe you’re losing your mind; others will scare you because they will seemingly give you intentions you don’t want to have. It doesn’t matter. They are just thoughts. Please let this sink in. They are just thoughts! You don’t have to agree with those thoughts, but you’ll need to see them for what they are. Pieces of information.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Just imagine what it would feel like: you finally overcome those pesky symptoms and feelings, you start living your life again without that dreaded fear of the fear, and for the first time in ages, you get to enjoy doing that what you previously feared. But then, lightning strikes. You get an anxious moment and possibly a panic attack. Your negative thoughts kick in, and warn you, “There you have it! I’m back at square one. Everything is starting again!” Honestly, the fact that you will have uncomfortable moments in the future is as sure as the fact that ice melts in the desert. It’s unavoidable. The question is: how will you respond? The initial negative thoughts are very normal, you still have your danger radar, you still have your little cartoonish devil, you still have your negative voice. You remain human, after all.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Let me repeat that. If you don’t run from your anxiety and just wait it out, it will get bad (with or without a panic attack) and then it will pass! On its own. There’s no need to run. To recap: exposure is a powerful and necessary weapon against anxiety, but only when you combine it with the other tools you are learning throughout this book.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“You will always need to expect that anxiety will show its head at some point. When you expect it, it won’t take you by surprise. Please remember that it’s impossible to live without anxiety. There will always be events that can scare you. We can’t turn the alarm system off. And it will still give a false alarm here and there. So it’s your intolerance to anxiety that needs to be overcome. Anxiety is a normal emotion. We can all feel it. “Normal” people, however, don’t dislike anxiety. They simply dismiss it when it’s not appropriate.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“The third challenge you’ll need to work on is the anxiety itself. Whenever you expose yourself to what you fear, it’s logical that you will feel anxiety. Nonetheless, the simple fact that you decide to face your fears is a step of major importance. It communicates to your subconscious mind that you’ve decided to no longer fear the fear itself. This is very important.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“Letting go of control is crucial to living a life where anxiety doesn’t dominate you. It’s the solution to a social phobia, a fear of driving or flying, hypochondria, and many more forms of anxiety. If control is an issue for you, and I bet it is, your mind mistakenly believes that having everything under control will give you the freedom you desire. This is faulty. You cannot have everything under control. There are so many factors we cannot control: nature, the reactions and thoughts of other people, traffic, etc. There are a gazillion things we cannot control, and true freedom comes when you fully embrace that. Embracing the fact you cannot control everything can lift a huge weight off your shoulders and set you free. That sounds like it comes from one of those spiritually enlightening books, doesn’t it? But it isn’t. Trying to have everything under control severely limits your freedom and the quality of your life. Not to mention that it will burn out your nervous system swiftly. This is a true catch-22. The more you try to have everything under control, the less control you’ll have. Imagine what will happen when your mind comes up with a “what if?” question or any other anxiety inducer, and you automatically dismiss it. Can you imagine how free you would be? How easy would it be to say “yes” to all of the experiences life has to offer without worrying?”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“That phrase and mindset will also help with control. During the exposure, your mind will want you to be in control in an effort to take away the uncertainty (e.g., “Go for the aisle seat so you can get up whenever needed” or “Let’s do it when it won’t be crowded” or “Let’s call in sick.”). Let go of the notion of having everything under control, and go with the flow. If you want to take it step-by-step, limit the control you’ll have and only build in some contingencies or exit strategies like the people from the examples I previously gave you did.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“The uncertainty is the reason you have been avoiding that what gives you anxiety. It’s exactly because you don’t know what will happen that you’re anxious. You wonder if your worst nightmare will come true or not. Might the negative voice be right? Will that bad thing really happen? Here too, we’ve all had to face this uncertainty and in a way say, “You know what? Whatever happens it’s OK. Show me what you’ve got!” This is the best way to accept and even embrace the uncertainty.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life

“There are many ways you can benefit from exposure. One way is going all in from the get-go. This can be brutal, but it is often very effective since more than one fear can vanish at once. The second way is a step-by-step process, sometimes even three steps ahead, one backward. That’s fine, too. I’ve seen great results amongst my clients whatever way they chose. All in or slowly working their way up.”
― Geert Verschaeve, Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks!: A counterintuitive approach to recover and regain control of your life