"Anything at all can become an object of fear in the human mind."
"Anxiety can be a very debilitating problem. After all, there are an unlimited number of bad things that have not happened but that could happen."
"When you are anxious your mind is telling your body that your world is threatening, dangerous and stressful, and your body is responding accordingly."
"Stress can actually cause the medical and health conditions that we fear."
Anxiety is another name for fear, but it is fear coupled with apprehension and dread.
It is turbo fear. Many people who suffer from anxiety feel powerless to turn it
off, or even to turn it down, and they feel powerless to predict when they will
experience it. They often don't even know why they experience it.
Anxiety is Fear
Fear is how the mind reacts to the presence of a threat of harm. It is the mind's
way of alerting us to danger in order to protect us so that we can physically survive.
Survival is our deepest, most primitive and basic physical need or drive. Fear causes
the limbic brain to activate the flight or fight response. Though there are degrees
of fear, there is only one kind of fear. We are afraid of the experience of physical
and emotional pain, such as the experience of separation and
loss, and we fear for
our survival-we are afraid of death and of dying
Painful, anxiety-provoking and stressful life experiences cause memories which then
become the object of fear and anxiety. Related or similar memories and experiences
subsequently get connected in the mind to fear by their association with the original
memory. Traumatic memories trigger anxiety. For that reason,
Post-Traumatic Stress
Disorder is classified as an Anxiety Disorder.
Many people seem to experience anxiety "for no reason at all." They cannot identify
any specific experiences, memories, thoughts, objects, or situations that would
explain their anxiety. It is unclear to them what-if anything-triggers it.
Fear, Anxiety, and
Threat
The mind reacts with fear and anxiety to the genuine threat that is present in a
genuinely dangerous situation. The mind also responds with fear and anxiety to perceived
threat, or situations that appear or feel threatening but that in fact contain no
real danger. Objects or situations that are intrinsically harmless will come to
be perceived by the mind as a threat to you when they become associated with frightening
images or memories, or when feelings of fear and anxiety get stuck to them. That
is what a phobia is. Once the mind has acquired the habit of making you feel afraid
of something, then you will feel anxious and afraid whenever that thing or person
is near you and whenever you think about it or remember it. Anything at all can
become an object of fear in the human mind.
Flight or Fight Response
When the mind experiences feelings of fear and anxiety it is convinced that danger
is present, and you are convinced too because of what is going on in your mind and
body. Suddenly, safety is an issue. The mind activates its famous flight or fight
response in order to get you to move to a place that feels safe (meaning temporarily
non-dangerous). If the mind's response to anxiety is flight, then we will quickly
move away from the situation in order to avoid the perceived threat. If the response
to the perceived threat is fight, our fear will take the form of anger and our behavior
will be aggressive, in order to make the threatening person or creature go away.
Anxiety: Fear of What has not Happened
Anxiety appears to be about two things, but it really is only about one thing.
Anxiety seems to be fear of what has not yet happened (in the future) or else fear
of what has already happened (in the past). Anxiety about what didn't happen (yet)
is fear that something unpleasant and undesirable will happen. Anxiety about what
has already happened is really apprehension that the same thing will happen again.
These two "types" of anxiety, therefore, are really the same thing. Anxiety is only
about what hasn't happened: it is the fear, together with the anticipation-and often
the expectation-that something bad will happen to us in the future.
Anxiety can be a very debilitating problem; it can get in the way of a great many
of our life tasks and functions. After all, there are an unlimited number of bad
things that have not happened but that could happen. Some people expend tremendous
energy and time in a hyper-alert, wound-up, and apprehensive-"stressed out"-condition,
ruminating in advance about possible undesirable and painful events and situations.
Anxiety can take a crushing toll on our personal life. It is very corrosive and
wearing. It can adversely affect our physical health, our work life, our relationships,
our peace of mind, and our mental health. Anxiety takes valuable time and energy
away from things we could be accomplishing in the present. And, in spite of all
our worrying and anxiously preparing for what we fear, many-if not the vast majority-of
the things we fear never come to pass.
Anxiety is a Bad Habit
"Anticipatory anxiety," or anxiety about bad outcomes that we anticipate or expect,
is one of the mind's many habitual ways of behaving. No one makes herself miserable
with anxiety on purpose. If people got anxious on purpose they could simply turn
it off when it became annoying and tiring-which would happen very quickly. But they
don't because they can't. That's what makes anxiety a
bad habit. It is involuntary;
it is not intentional. Like all habits, anxiety is a production of the subconscious
mind, not the conscious will.
Anxiety, Stress Response, and
Health
When you are anxiously imagining something-something that clearly has not happened
but that you're afraid will happen-your mind's experience is that the imagined event
is already happening right now. The mind is constantly communicating with the body,
so when you are anxious your mind is telling your body that your world is threatening,
dangerous and stressful, and your body is responding accordingly.
When we're feeling anxious, we're projecting fear-laden and anxiety-provoking thoughts,
feelings, images and movies in our mind and brain. We are unintentionally telling
our mind to be afraid-or to be very afraid. Memories of similar past stressful experiences
are recalled and tossed into the mix. The resulting experience is very compelling.
It causes the mind and body to react as if what we are imagining is really happening
in the present: in many important ways our mind and brain can't tell the difference
between what is real and what is imagined. That is why you feel as if you are going
through a stressful experience even when you're only imagining it.
When we are feeling anxious, the stress response kicks in. All of our built-in chemical,
biological, and physiological stress reactions are activated in the brain and body
just exactly as if the imagined frightening situation were a real-time physical
event. Our mind and body have the same physiological and emotional responses they
would have if the feared event were actually occurring.
Even though in reality we aren't physically enduring a negative situation, we are
so anxious about it and so focused on it that we imagine it in three-dimensional
detail. We are mentally and physically sucked into the immediacy of it. It can be
very exhausting, distressing-and extremely unhealthy.
Chronic stress can cause, activate, and aggravate every kind of illness and unhealthy
condition. Stress siphons off valuable energy from our immune system, making us
susceptible to infections, illnesses, and poor healing; it causes unhealthy gastrointestinal,
heart and circulatory conditions, and it is implicated in numerous other disorders,
such as asthma, migraine headaches, juvenile diabetes, irritable bowel syndrome,
chronic fatigue syndrome and depression. Stress can actually cause the medical and
health conditions that we fear-precisely because we focus so fearfully and persistently
on them. It's a habit; we can't change the channel. (See MIND.)
Anxiety and Tranceformation
For all the pain and suffering it causes, all the time it uses up, and all the serious
physical and medical symptoms and conditions that occur in its wake, anxiety is
still just another bad habit on the part of the subconscious mind. This habit-or
tendency of the mind to work in a certain way-can be tranceformed in the same way
as any other habit. This is true regardless of whether or not there is an identified
cause or source of the anxiety.
Using the tools and processes of Tranceformation, we effectively and gently pinpoint
and clear up the underlying misperceptions and deleterious associations in the mind
that cause and perpetuate anxiety, regardless of their source, and regardless of
how long they have been in place.
Once the impediments, obstacles, and confusion have been cleared up and removed,
the powerful energy of your natural state of wellness is released into the tranceformative
environment that has been established. The mind then readily and naturally reorganizes
around a fresh, healthy, clear, strong, and reality-based sense of your self and
your goals. Your energies are freed for mental, emotional, spiritual and physical
healing.
Furthermore, the anxiety cannot return because it has been removed at its source
in your mind. When the cause of the anxiety is gone the symptoms are gone too.
Without any of the distress caused by "reliving" painful memories and experiences,
you will be freed from the debilitating misery of chronic worry, stress, and anxiety.
Once the pain, fear, and confusion are gone, you will achieve clarity. With clarity,
you always know what it is that you want to do next. Your sense of direction and
purpose is restored. You feel whole and well.
With your mind free of anxiety and worry, there is no more feeling stuck living
in a painful past. Gone also is the crippling fear of the future. You feel connected
and present, you have energy and focus. You know that the only place you can be
is here, and the only time it can be is now-and you welcome both. There is contentment
and satisfaction. There is calm and peace.
Some Force of Habit Definitions:
A good definition of the PAST: Everything that has ever already happened, that is
now gone forever, that stopped existing as soon as it happened, that isn't, and
that can never happen again.
A good definition of the FUTURE: What has not happened; what isn't, has never been,
and will never be: "the future" never occurs; "the future" cannot exist because
it cannot be experienced ("now" is all there is and it cannot be experienced in
advance).
A good definition of the PRESENT: The only time and the only place anything can
happen. What is. Everything. "The now." "Now" is a reality and an experience that
is beyond any idea you can have of it; Now is the only experience you can have;
Now is all there is.
The time is always now. The date is always today.
Stress
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