When attempting to understand and overcome our anxieties we can sometimes feel overwhelmed by the amount of information out there. Having only a limited amount of time in our busy days to invest in our own self development, one of the big challenges is finding out what works for us individually. I have attempted to put together some simple tried and proven ways to live a happier, more anxiety free life.
Lighten up. Don’t be afraid to look at life and your anxiety with a bit of humour. Sigmund Freud, a pioneering psychiatrist, was a huge fan of humour and identified it as a mature defence mechanism in coping with stress.
Appreciate your anxiety (I know that’s tough!). Just as in life, nothing is black and white, neither is your anxiety all bad. Without suffering from anxiety it’s unlikely you would be such a sensitive, empathic or creative person. Give anxiety a little bit of credit.
Explore spirituality. Read a little Buddhism, attend church out of interest, do some meditation or read some philosophy. Your mind is like an elastic band, once stretched by a new way of thinking, it will never return completely to its former tension.
“There is no such thing as right or wrong, but thinking makes it so” Shakespeare.
Remember this sequence 1) Event 2) Thought 3) Feeling. This is a key concept, it is not the event that causes you to feel a certain way, but your response to the event, the way you think about and respond to the event. Understand this concept and you have made a significant step towardsunderstanding your anxiety. Congratulations!
Let go of hatred towards others. Why? Hatred is like holding a hot coal that you are going to throw at your enemies, you are the one getting burnt. In short, hatred causes you suffering. How do you let go of it? You forgive. I know that sounds pathetic but it works. How do you forgive? You can try love, but often that’s to hard to begin with, so try empathising or pitying them instead, anything is better than poisoning yourself with hatred. How do you pity your enemies if all you can feel is hatred? Simple, remember this saying next time someone hurts you; ‘hurt people, hurt people’. The bully at school is bullied at home. The girl who bitches most is the most insecure within herself. If someone feels the need to drag others down, it’s because they themselves feel down. Forgiving doesn’t mean kissing and hugging them. In fact, you may wish never to see them again. That’s fine. But at least you are no longer carrying hatred with you. I know it is easier said than done, but that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be said!
Invest in anxiety for a calmer future. Challenge your comfort zone every now and then, expose yourself to your anxieties. Look at it as an investment in a calmer more peaceful future. A stitch in time saves nine. Short term pain for long term gain!
Try to reduce your need to judge and label other people. Let them be. Basically speaking, we judge others in the same way as we judge ourselves. The mind is a funny thing, if we are more accepting of others and less critical and judgemental of their flaws, we treat ourselves in the same manner subconsciously. Accepting others, warts and all, flows onto our own acceptance, leading to better self esteem. Give it a bash.
Love yourself! Society often confuses this with arrogance when in fact they are opposites. Self love is the opposite to arrogance. Ghandi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Mother Teresa all had supreme self love for themselves, certainly not arrogance, and that allowed them to extend love to others through true forgiveness and compassion. Arrogance is a lack of self love demonstrated in the need to assert superiority over others. Self love is quite the opposite. You have to first love yourself, before you can truly love others, or as Shakespeare put it ‘Self love my lord is not so vile a sin as self neglecting’. Sometimes the biggest act of love you can give to your family and friends is to first take action towards loving yourself.
“People do not care how much you know until they know how much you care”.
Want friends to like and care more about you? Who doesn’t! But often we go about it the wrong way. We try to be perfect, or to impress them with our achievements. People will be impressed, sure, but is all your hard work and desire to impress and be perfect really just a desire to be loved? Of course it is. If you think about it, people feel most comfortable around friends who are imperfect, friends who are happy in themselves and don’t feel the need to impress. So, embrace your imperfections, they are often what makes you loveable. Instead, put the hard work into caring and being there for your friends. Then you will get more of what you are really after, love in return. Hooray, what a relief, we no longer have to impress everyone to be loved, impressing sure was hard work!
Yoda from Star Wars said: ‘Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hatred. Hatred leads to suffering.’ Take the little dudes advice, if you suffer from anger and hatred it may be because of your fears. Bosses are no more deserving of hatred than anyone else, but how many of us hate our boss? Often it is because we fear them, which leads to anger and hatred. Recognising this subconscious fear is important as it allows you to release some of the anger and hatred you have stored away. In doing so, you suffer less.
Invest one tenth of the time, effort and money you put into your body, into your mind. Read self development books instead of trashy magazines. Do a course in mediation or yoga instead of the gym this month. Spend money on seeing a psychologist rather than buying the latest winter fashion. We are often fantastic at putting our resources into our body, but our mind is often neglected. Many of us exercise regularly, spend time buying and preparing good food, spend lots of our hard earned money on expensive haircuts, cosmetics and clothes. All to make us feel better, attract a suitable partner and live longer. That’s fantastic, however the balance is often out and by shifting 1/10 of our focus from the body to developing our minds we will live longer, happier lives and become even more attractive. Putting time into developing your mind will reduce your anxiety and improve your self esteem, all making you a much happier person- although it’s not immediately obvious, hence the reason we don’t often do it. The more effort put into developing your mind will breed self confidence, an extremely attractive feature, as well as stability, helping you to maintain long term relationships with the opposite sex. A calmer, more peaceful mind also leads to less stress on the body, hence you will live longer.
Take a compliment without disqualifying it. Sounds simple but often isn’t, especially if you have low self-esteem. People are generous with compliments not to those who are most deserving, but to those who show most appreciation in reply. If someone thanks or congratulates you, be brave, look them in the eye and say with meaning ‘thankyou’. Try to resist the temptation to disqualify your achievements, otherwise you are throwing the compliment back in the persons face and they will stop giving them to you. By accepting a compliment you are showing compassion to the other person, as well as compassion to yourself. As the Dalai Lama said ‘If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.’ Don’t be afraid to love and be loved.
Tim Blake (March 2008)
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