Anxiety, the cycle of fear

If you have anxiety, you are familiar with the cycle of fear, expectation, and apprehension that can accompany even the most routine everyday activities.

But eventually, we must all confront our anxieties, and when it comes to anxiety, we must learn to live with it.

In our civilization, especially in the contemporary modern world, anxiety is a constant. Around the world and in the United States, anxiety is increasing, and many people are finding themselves paralyzed by it, unable to confront the complexity and chaos of their life.

What exactly is anxiety, then? And why is it so difficult to handle? Apprehension seems to be the main component of anxiety. Before the incident even occurs, we feel anxious because we fear the worst will happen to us or someone we love.

Even though anxiety can be related to a specific future occurrence, it can also exist in the absence of such an event. Sometimes we worry about everything, not just one specific problem.

What can we do, therefore, to combat this anxiety that makes it impossible for us to deal with the world around us?

A Method For Overcoming Anxiety

Anxiety might be either reasonable or irrational, or it can be in the middle. For instance, it would be completely normal to feel anxious if war were to break out.

However, when we experience social anxiety and worry about going to work, we may exaggerate how difficult or stressful a situation actually is.

Future Projection is a technique I employ to assist me overcome anxiety because of this.

Future projection: What is it? It's a technique for putting yourself in a future circumstance about which you are worried.

After putting yourself in that circumstance, you walk yourself through the incident step by step, making an effort to be as realistic as you can.

Consider the scenario when you are attending a party where your ex will be. Although going makes you extremely uneasy, you also believe that you shouldn't avoid social events just because of this relationship.

This is your chance to imagine yourself in that scenario. You place yourself in the future and picture yourself entering the party and running into your ex.

Then you can visualize yourself being content with the current circumstances. You come to the conclusion that there is nothing to be concerned about after going through a thorough projection of the event. Your worries about the circumstance are unjustified; they are based on a foundation of general uneasiness that makes you believe something negative is about to happen.

Only if you allow your emotions to spiral out of control will something awful happen. When you discover that you can accept who you are, you discover that, in many circumstances, anxiety isn't something you should let run your life.

Giving Up Control

Do what you can, where you are, with what you have.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

An attempt to control an occurrence can also be the source of anxiety. Even if you're overcome with anxiety and unsureness, you think you have some kind of influence over the outside world.

Giving up control also entails letting go of tension. We only have a very small amount of control over things in this world, and thinking that we can force someone to understand us or act a certain way might cause us undue stress.

By putting ourselves in the situation and forcing us to accept whatever happens, future projection assists us in letting go of control. The projection of the event helps us play out these situations in our heads and understand we frequently carry worst case scenarios around, even though it may not turn out like we think.

We may observe that, in most cases, the worst does not occur when the circumstance truly arises. The ideal outcome does not always occur. Most of the time, something occurs that we can learn to deal with as we relinquish control and learn to manage our fear.

Try combining strategies for projecting your future with quiet mantras, breathwork, and other calming activities. You may overcome anxiety and have a more tranquil existence with effort, focus, and patience.

I wish you the best and hope you figure out how to cope with your anxiety.