Badass Ways to End Anxiety & Stop Panic Attacks! Page 8

Just as your mind may now say, “Wait what?” so will her body, her amygdala, and her mind! It’s the opposite of what it expects. Here they are—her body, amygdala, and so forth—preparing for an imminent attack by angry tigers with bow ties, and she demands more of it? What? Disconnect.

  This very technique may be all that’s needed to subside the unwanted anxiety. It proves to your body that there is indeed no real danger, for if that were to be the case, there’s no way a sane person like yourself would ever demand more or run toward the problem. So the fact that you do must mean that the fire alarm is misfiring. Your body then calms down and turns it off.

  This may take a couple of minutes, but running or managing the anxiety will not be needed. It will leave because you will be turning it off. Nevertheless, there are of course more techniques you can deploy, should they be needed.

  One of the most powerful ways to respond to anxiety is to just let go and go with the flow. Here’s my magical sentence I’ve been explaining to my clients for over a decade:

  “Whatever happens, it’s OK.”

  This is the strongest antidote to any type of anxiety you will EVER see and get.

  Truth be told, it will be one you’ll have to practice since it is hard to apply at first. That’s normal. Just like learning how to swim or ride a bike, persistent practice is all it takes. Bear with me while I give you a freaky example.

  Imagine a guy, wearing a gray suit, standing in an elevator of an office building. All of a sudden, he feels a sharp pain in his chest and numbness in his left arm. His mind thinks, “God no! I’m having a heart attack.” As a result, he gets a jolt of anxiety, the adrenaline rush. However, instead of going down the vicious anxiety and panic cycle, he says, “SO? So what? If this is my time to die, so be it, I’m ready.”

  Let’s forgo the fact whether or not it would be absolutely ridiculous to have such thoughts for now. The question is: do you think he will still feel anxiety? No. He totally dismissed the anxious thought and has wiped it off the table. His adrenaline level will soon get back to a normal level even though his physical symptoms may still be present for a while.

  Your mind will now probably wonder, “Sure, Geert. Sounds great, but what if he’s having a REAL heart attack? Then what? How does he know the difference? What if... ” Good question! I knew your what-if engine was waiting to jump into action. The force is strong in you, as expected.

  He doesn’t know, and it doesn’t matter, anxiety-wise.

  The real question is: does anxiety serve him? If it doesn’t, it is not needed. If he’s really having a heart attack, the additional anxiety won’t help him. It will probably make everything worse. So it actually doesn’t matter. What he could do, should he wish, is add, “If the pain persists, I’ll call an ambulance, but I choose not to fear what I’m feeling now. Whatever happens, it’s OK. I’ll deal with it when it gets worse, and for now, I’ll let my heart beat however hard or slow it wants to.”

  I get that this new way of thinking is going to give you a lot of mental resistance. That’s OK. Your mind is still wired to be anxious at this time.

  Let’s notice that the sentence says “OK,” not “fun, nice, cool, not bad.” OK is about acceptance, about not letting in additional anxiety. That’s it.

  “Whatever happens, it’s OK” is so powerful because even though the worst outcome might be one of the possibilities, it won’t happen in 99.9% of the real-life outcomes. So why flood your entire life with anxiety and unhappiness for something that will, realistically, probably not even happen...

  Now even then, I found time and time again that the true power toward anxiety lies in accepting even that worst possible outcome and deciding to be OK with it.

  That’s hard, I admit. It even may seem impossible for you at this point. That too, is normal.

  This was a very important personal choice I’ve had to make in the past. I didn’t want the anxiety to control my life any longer, so I accepted the “whatever happens, it’s OK,” even in situations where the worst possible outcome would obviously not be OK.

  Whereas my previous habit had been constantly playing the what-if game with anxiety as a consequence, I now, after many weeks of practicing, had a new habit of immediately letting go of control and just going with the flow, even if that flow would bring me somewhere I would opt to avoid.

  Although I never preferred the “what ifs” to become reality, I refrained from trying to control everything, and I let go, right away.

  That trying-to-control approach is what I had been practicing for fourteen years, and it worked abominably with not only zero results but even a severe increase in the way anxiety dominated my life.

  I explain the “whatever happens” mentality all throughout this book because I want you to have a 360° view of its powerful impact on your negative emotions. We’ll also keep going over ways you can implement it. The addendum at the very end will then give you means to use it in specific situations and with certain symptoms.

  In short, here is how it works:

  “What if this bad thing happens to me?” > “SO? So what? Whatever! I don’t give a darn anymore, been there done that. Whatever happens, it’s OK.” > No anxiety. It’s that simple.

  I remember one of the last overseas flights I took. There was serious turbulence, the kind where the overhead cabinets fall open and even the crew seems worried. I’m not a robot; I’m a human being so I immediately started to worry and wonder if I was going to die.

  My old programming, the old automatic response of my mind, would have taken that “I’m going to die” thought, get super scared, put a lot of weight on it, start to freak out, planned my exit, and would have made me feel super bad until the turbulence stopped. And even then I would have felt shaken up for a long time after. Heck, I might have decided to never fly again based on that experience alone and done all of my travelling by boat.

  Is that silly in your opinion? Would it be silly to be so scared of flying based on that one moment of strong turbulence? It is silly, isn’t it?

  Please keep that in mind. My overanxious reaction was silly. Turbulence is a normal side effect of flying. It’s complementary.

  So I’ve trained my mind to follow another silly route, the one without anxiety. It happened automatically during the turbulence but please remember that I’ve had to train this. It only became an automatism because I had been consciously working on mastering it for a couple of months, back in 2004. Here was my actual train of thoughts:

  “Yup, Geert, this is it! A plane cannot withstand this. The wings won’t be able to hold. You’re probably going to crash and die right now!” (This is my first unstoppable anxious thought stream, I could not have prevented it. But now I take over.) “Yup, that’s it, Geert. Your life is indeed over. That’s OK though! You know how you love to watch Airplane Investigation on Natural Geographic, well, you’ll finally be in it! They may even make a movie of what’s about to happen. Isn’t that great. So come on, enjoy the ride. YIHAAA!”

  I sat there with a smile, actually enjoying the turbulence as if it was an amusement park ride while most of the other people were scared.

  You may be thinking that what I just said is ridiculous, even totally stupid. I agree, it is! Thinking like that is really silly, childish even. Remember, however, that thinking you’re going to die is silly as well; we came to that conclusion in a previous paragraph. So I chose the path of silliness with no anxiety.

  Just imagine that each and every time you’ve had a panic attack or any moment of unwanted anxiety in the past year, it had been replaced by a moment of silliness and fun. How much fun would you be having? A lot, I guess.

  You survived each and every moment of anxiety you’ve had, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this now, even though your mind told you your life was over, your dignity was about to be smashed, or some other apocalypse would happen to you. You’re still here. The sun still comes up every morning. So it was silly to be anxious at those times. Why not use the second path of sillines
s then if it means the anxiety will fall away?

  Please take as much time as you need to let this sink in. I understand your mind will be resisting what I’ve just described. This is normal.

  I know anxiety is not fun, the sensations are no fun and I’m in no way trying to downplay how uncomfortable it is... but worrying about it, following the vicious cycle, and making everything worse is what you’ve been practicing for a while. And it didn’t work! Otherwise, you wouldn’t be reading this book; my jokes just aren’t funny enough.

  So, we’ll throw the old way of thinking overboard and try something new. I hope you’re with me and are ready to give it a try. This is the key.

  No, it’s not really OK!

  Some people who followed the first edition of my audio course often wrote me an e-mail stating, “Sure, Geert. ‘Whatever happens, it’s OK’ would work if I’m afraid to, for example, sweat in front of other people. But no, I’m afraid that I will die or that really bad things will happen to me. THEY ARE NOT OK!”

  Of course they are not! I prefer not to be on National Geographic as an airplane crash victim you know… It’s just a simple choice I make. The anxiety doesn’t serve me during turbulence. I’m not the pilot, and I haven’t brought a parachute as my one carry-on item. I can’t do anything about the predicament I’m in, so I might as well give myself over to whatever will happen. And this of course doesn’t just apply to airplanes and turbulence.

  That said, I totally understand the internal resistance you may feel now. I had it too.

  Most anxiety is created by mind games like catastrophizing. Your mind believes the absolute worst is going to happen. But it has no proof... Here is where we start to play a game ourselves. If the negative voice tries to scare you, fine. Instead of going down this negative path, say, “Sure! Bring it on! Whatever happens, it’s OK” and make it sound ridiculous. All of the bad anxiety you’ve felt that made you reach for this book had no use! There was no real and imminent life-or-death danger (if there were, it would have been good anxiety).

  Total acceptance is the key. But you will have to mean it. It’s pointless to feel anxious and then say, “Whatever happens, it’s OK. Bring it on” in hopes of making your anxiety go away. Here, you’d still fear the fear, and that would be feeding the anxiety.

  This is a concept that the late Dr. Claire Weekes spent a lot of time researching as well. As long as there is no total acceptance, the nervous system will remain under too much pressure and the anxiety will continue to flourish.

  I can tell you from personal experience that this is hard! Very hard! Nevertheless, it is the key.

  You have a choice.

  Please make the “whatever happens it’s OK, and I mean it” choice for the next couple of weeks. Invite the anxiety and all of its entourage of sensations in when it comes knocking at your door. For if you don’t, if you try to run, slam the door shut or pretend it isn’t there, it will tear down the walls of your house. Then, only then, does anxiety become a true beast, one with the power to destroy the quality of our lives.

  Why is that?

  Because all your anxiety wants is to be acknowledged. It wants some love, some attention, and even some recognition for all it does for you. For as we’ve seen, anxiety does save your life every single day. It points out the true and real dangers as well and we owe it not to fear it, if only for that.

  Unwanted anxiety is just a feeling, a sensation, a misguided fire alarm. The “what if?” thoughts you are getting are not real, you’re not in any real danger, for if you really were, it wouldn’t be unwanted anxiety in the first place. If you don’t see a clear and present danger, it is unwanted anxiety.

  Constant negative news is OK.

  Whatever is causing your anxiety (symptoms, a location, an upcoming event) doesn’t really matter because it will only give you the baseline level of anxiety. Your thoughts will create the rest of the turmoil.

  I call those thoughts the little cartoonish Donald Duck Devil or the negative radio station.

  We all have this negative radio, and people like us, prone to anxiety, have a very well-developed antenna that picks up on everything.

  A lot of people despise those thoughts and don’t want to have them. They tell me: “I want to be normal. I want to stop my negative thoughts altogether.” Well, again, you have a better chance of single-handedly ending world hunger than accomplishing this.

  These negative thoughts will need to be accepted too. They are OK. But we will be able to reduce them, just and especially not by trying to have less negative thoughts... as counterintuitive as that will sound.

  As I told many of the people who have followed my audio course throughout the years, “Learn to love the fact that your mind is so inventive. That it has the power to come up with so many scenarios and compliment your unlimited creativity for scaring you in new ways. The best horror and thriller writers in Hollywood could learn a lesson or two from your mind’s creativity.”

  The smarter and more creative you are, the sillier and more ridiculous the types of thoughts you will get (on top of all of your genius insights). You can’t just have good, creative ideas. Your mind will always go in all directions.

  When your mind comes up with what ifs, congratulate it. Say, “Wow, what else you’ve got?” and admire it.

  Observe it.

  This is important. Take a step back, and look at that fountain of negativity.

  Because then you will start to see it for what it really is: Your personal radar, trying to keep you safe, trying to warn you for the real dangers like snakes, and the most ridiculous fake ‘dangers’ like passing out in the supermarket, losing your mind, making a fool of yourself, or whatever else it comes up with in your case.

  These are just the mind games that I’ll discuss in more detail in the addendum. We can’t stop them. You will always have negative sensations (symptoms) and negative thoughts. You’re not a robot. So we have two options:

  Fear them. That’s what you’ve been doing all this time. I guess we can conclude this option doesn’t work out very well.

  Admire them, have fun with them, see how great they are at dishing up the most remarkable and ridiculous chain of events.

  Option two always wins. The more you play with your anxiety, the more you befriend it, the better the quality of your life will be and the calmer your danger radar will eventually get.

  Let me emphasize this: option two helps you to have a less sensitive danger radar, eventually giving you less and less unwanted anxiety for dangers that are not real and of course, less negative thoughts.

  But if you always jump upon everything your radar serves you as a possible threat, your amygdala (that part of your brain that sets in motion your anxiety system) will grow so much and your nervous system will tire so much that your danger radar will become more and more sensitive, making you much more susceptible to even more anxiety.

  A 2013 Stanford University study does show indeed that our amygdala will grow and become stronger (thus creating more anxiety) the more anxious and stressed we are.[6]

  Why wouldn’t it?

  If you’re truly attacked by tigers every single day, it is important to always be on guard and never relaxed. Yet even antelopes in the wild savannah don’t have to fear attacks every single day.

  Much of what you’re learning here will also assist in reversing this. And later on in the book, you’ll even get a scientifically proven technique to reduce the size of your amygdala. The good news is it can indeed shrink as well, the less it is used, as a study shows.[7]

  As you try this new approach, at first, your radar will still be sensitive. Certain thoughts and situations will effortlessly give you that jolt of adrenaline and that will make you anxious.

  Please, remember that adding additional anxiety always is a choice, no matter at what point of the vicious cycle you are located at that moment. Even if you have already gotten that first electric jolt, the racing heart, crazy thoughts, and the pit in your stomach, you can
still choose to say, “Hold on! Wow, danger radio, you had me going here. Thanks for being there, but I’m not going to tune into you right now. If you want to stay, fine, I’ll just take you with me then.”

  You’re a grown-up. You’re a smart person, and you’re definitely no longer a nine-year-old child. But your anxiety system is! It is primitive, as we’ve seen. So it is important to have this soothing self-talk as if you would be talking to an anxious child.

  Calling Out the Name

  Another technique against anxiety that I want to throw in the mix is “observing.” This is especially helpful when a feeling or a symptom that you desperately try to avoid launches your anxiety. You may sense that sensation often or, on the other hand, it may take a leave of absence only to return with vengeance (just when you thought you were freed of it).

  These sensations will often be a simple reaction of your body to something (an ingredient, a smell, something toxic/chemical, an upcoming change, something you’ve been stressing about for a while).