Tools to help beat Anxiety!

Beating Anxiety Takes Work and Practice. Here’s what Helped:

A few key therapeutic interventions helped in Maggy's case.

1) Validating and radical acceptance. I encouraged Maggy to acknowledge that she chose an inexpressive partner because she worried that she did not deserve more and how that made sense at the time. I also validated her feelings and asked her to reduce her judgment of herself and accept him as he is. This removes the anxiety-producing emotions of guilt and blame off of both him and her.

2) Centering. I taught Maggy how to reduce her anxiety with breathing and meditation exercises. She would not be able to make wise decisions if they were coming from a place of worry and other negative emotions.

3) Envisioning. I helped Maggy to create a clear vision of what she wants her life to look like. This takes the focus off of what is wrong and puts energy on what she is working towards. As Maggy began to understand that what she thinks about and feels about becomes the reality she creates, she started to read her vision statement upon rising and before bed. This helped her stay focused on her dream of having a job and a small home, and her daily decisions to get there.

4) Affirmations. Anxiety thrives on worry thoughts and without worry thoughts there would be no anxiety. Maggy learned how to become aware of her thoughts and replace them with thoughts that felt centering and calming. Thoughts like "Who am I kidding", "I can't do this on my own", or "He has so much power over me" became noticed and shifted to thoughts like "I can do this one step at a time."

5) A Good Plan. Maggy and I created a plan for divorce and life after divorce and she began taking the steps to achieve it on a weekly basis, including a financial plan, a self care plan, role playing conversations with her husband, and a housing plan.

6) Surrounding yourself with the positive. Maggy attends, along with hundred of other Long Islanders, workshops about positive energy and growth here at The Center for Self Growth. Recently, during a workshop about how to release anxiety both emotionally and physically, I asked the attendees to write down all of their worry thoughts about money. One person said she worries about losing her job, another worried about her children’' financial security, another simply worried about even sharing her worry thoughts. The workshop was sold out, as is any other event I do about anxiety or worry, because even those who don't typically suffer from anxiety are worrying more these days. I explained that "worrying is praying for what you don't want" and we must learn to master our minds and emotions in order to create the happy life we want now. However, I stressed, beating anxiety and being happy takes hard work and practice.

No one ever taught us the skills to do this and we simply have to be shown the techniques to feel better. For some, medication may help or be needed, but for anyone experiencing worry and anxiety there are tools that can help you master your thoughts, feelings, and life so that anxiety can be a condition of the past and peace can be your future. Practicing feeling positive not only feels better, it opens up opportunities that you may not have attracted or seen when worrying!