Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Anxiety and its Cure- Inspired with Elisha Goldstein

I just came across a method to improve our anxiety level which can be of any kind. I am talking here about such anxieties which have caught you on the way of your life till now. They are not real but when you come across a particular situation they seems to be real to you, and effect you mentally or physically. They are also known as phobias.

I myself have a phobia of public toilets where I feel uncomfortable to urinate around the other people present. This phobia is known as Paruresis and my motive of this post is actually to educate myself and others like me to become normal.

Recently I read a book by "Elisha Goldstein" titled as " Mindfulness Meditations for the anxious traveler"  in which Author talks about the methods to improve various anxieties, in particular anxiety of traveling on the plane is dealt with in more details.
You can have any anxiety in your life, the methods provided here are not to fight with your anxiety but, to accept as it is and then to have compassion with your own self so, instead of  yelling at yourself when you feel like, just caress your own self and tell that it is okay.

Method of compassion is going to be more effective here because it will make you comfortable with your own self. On the other hand what we do when we are anxious is we just abuse our own self. We do a lot of negative self talk, and that just reinforces the idea of having that anxiety in your life.
Remember that all the anxiety or the phobias are just the results of our past experiences specifically, some bad experiences which you carry along in the form of a suppressed feelings like anger, desire, fear or any feeling, hiding somewhere inside in your mind.
This can be a childhood trauma or it can be a recent shock which, you open again and again when the same situation is there. If you don't overcome it, it becomes a part of your life and you start believing that this is you or this is your reality.

What most of the people do is, they do not accept this angry or fearful child face of their own, and they try to hide it, or try to criticize it. Sometimes I am afraid if the other people will know my scared face and then they will laugh at it so, I will hide it.
Thing you have to do is to find this face of your own which makes you anxious or fearful, and then detach it from your self. You are not that scary face, creating a space in between yourself and that old face you will understand what you really are.

Remember that face is just a memory in your head, you are not your thought or a memory. You are the awareness, who can chose between a good thought and a bad thought for yourself. Now when you have detached this old anxious face from yourself the next step it to sympathize it,put your imaginary hand on this face and tell him/her that is okay and tell him/her something which can change that scary face to a face filled with confidence, courage and faith.

You have to transform that gloomy  face with your wisdom and determination into a bright one.
Have you watched "Three  idiots"?  remember " All is well!" and then see that face turning into a smiling relaxed face which you wanted to have.
Now once you have showed your care, empathy, wonderful new experiences and compassion to the old one which, he/she was seeking for till now, and once it got that, its happy. It is as simple as that. You just linked a bad memory with a new imagination in such a way that once that old memory is struck by your conscious, it will directly be driven into the newer one.
The happy, confident, relaxed and courageous face. I think this is a mental practice and you have to give your time for it.
I hope this was helpful for you just as it was for me. I am just a common person like you who want to understand the life and make it better so, please feel free to mention anything in the comment box.

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