Too many people these days suffer with anxiety. It’s become quite a problem.
Unfortunately, lots of people try to ignore or numb it with distractions like TV, video games, food, porn or drugs and alcohol. But they fail to realize that our anxiety is simply just a message.
A message confirming to us what we already know deep inside. Deep down we already know who we are and what we want, and this message reveals itself as anxiety.
Anxiety is always there – it serves its purpose so it comes and goes as it pleases. It waits until its next opportunity to get our attention. Its warnings grow stronger and stronger as time passes. And for some it’s completely paralyzing, quickly sending them into panic attacks and dangerous states of mind.
But if you continue to ignore it long enough the messages eventually come to a stop. You stop listening so it stops speaking. Yet the pain lingers keeping you feeling numb.
The longer you ignore the higher the chance you sentence yourself to a miserable lifetime of dread.
So what happens when we listen and follow?
You will feel stressed at first, but then it’s quickly replaced with euphoria and you realize it was nothing! The more you face it the stronger you get and the more you realize it comes and goes like the wind.
The longer you wait and procrastinate when you actually want to do something – the more the stress becomes. It’s a subtle nagging anxiety in the back of your mind constantly tapping away at you…
Until you conquer it!
When you overcome your fear you’ll see a change and growth in yourself.
Paulo Cohelo put it perfectly when he said:
“…once we have overcome the defeats-and we always do—we are filled with a greater sense of euphoria and confidence. In the silence of our hearts, we know that we are proving ourselves worthy of the miracle of life. Each day, each hour, is part of the good fight. We start to live with enthusiasm and pleasure. Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our soul, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our
lives.”Paulo Coelho
How to Listen to Your Body in 5-Steps
1. Realize you are feeling something instead of looking at it as just anxiety.
Do not try to run from it by any means, especially through distractions, drugs, or any kind of dopamine producing substance!
2. Notice that this anxiety or the gnawing, nagging feeling is a sign.
Your better self is trying to tell you something. So listen and do not ignore it.
3. Now notice where in your body you feel it.
Many people feel these kinds of sensations in their hands, legs, and in their gut. Often times it’s simply referred to as “the gut feeling”. It’s your second brain and this is how you follow your heart. You know instantly after you make your choice whether it’s the right one or not.
It’s the feeling of positive excitement or expansion that means “yes, I want to do this.” Or the negative, restricted feeling that makes you feel tight, rigid, contracted and depressed. This means “no, I don’t want to do this.”
I almost always notice the same symptoms although they like to show up separately. They don’t always all come at the same time. I usually first notice that I start to sweat even if it’s not hot, or I’ll feel an itchy-tingling throughout my body. Sometimes I get an almost numb tingling feeling in my legs, where I could feel weak like the floor is about to give way. Other times I feel a dull, shaky, pulsating pain in my hands specifically in my fingers.
Anxiety and depression go hand in hand and when ignored long enough the anxiety contracts your body into a state of depression.
4. Ask yourself (if you don’t already know) what is this feeling trying to tell me? Then act on it.
Embrace it, feel the feelings fully and release them. Then challenge them head on! That means whatever you’re scared of you have to face and act on it.
5. Know that each time you overcome this feeling of fear and anxiety the next one gets easier to get through.
Every time you follow through, you grow and you get much better at expressing yourself. Because the opposite of depression is expression.
How Your Anxiety Can Make You Money
The world is constantly changing and there’s always new opportunities out there. Your anxiety knows something that you don’t.
It wants you to do something. Rather you want to do something. It just comes in the form of anxiety.
But when we hang on to the belief that we aren’t good enough and refuse to act on our anxiety – we miss the opportunities and the life we want that’s right there waiting for us.
A friend of mine once mentioned:
“It’s only during times of great change in the world that new business opportunities and people rise up.”
Cole B.
When Netflix first came out with their Red Box it led to the start of a whole new industry of streaming platforms and now that simple idea has turned into a fortune.
And I bet you when they first came out with the idea they were anxious. Especially with big video giants already dominating the scene!
Some people thought it was a stupid idea trying to compete with Blockbuster the way they did – and who would buy a video out of a vending machine?
Because I remember seeing this Red Box in front of a drug store and nobody ever seemed to use it.
There’s always resistance to new ideas.
But it was a genius idea because look at them now. You likely pay them $18.99+/month to stream them on your TV.
So say, “thank you anxiety.”
Having anxiety is normal and natural and it isn’t something that should be demonized. Animals feel anxiety too but for good reason. Usually it means danger, but the danger isn’t always real.
Because that feeling will always return to haunt you whether you choose to ignore it or not. The only difference is when you deal with it, it actually goes away and you feel peace.
And you change the world in the process.
But when you listen to anxiety you are holding back.
Because true happiness comes from inside us. From the real experiences we have in life and after we conquer anxiety living the life we were born to live.
When you’re happy and moving towards your life purposes you stop feeling any crippling anxieties, I promise. This doesn’t mean you won’t feel anxiety ever again, it just won’t be crippling.
To conclude, being scared of our anxiety gives away our control.
And before we know it we’re going downhill because we’re crushed under the weight of our anxiety.
We continue to make bad life choices or worse – lack making any choices at all.
When we let go of what doesn’t matter like the things we don’t want or the things that give us anxiety, we naturally start to focus on what does.
You’ll find you’ve built the life of your dreams because you can’t be controlled anymore. Then you’re free. This life is now yours and it is real!
At the end of the day whenever you feel another sliver of anxiety remember…
It’s your choice to move in the direction of it causing you to feel unbelievable euphoria in the end. Or run in the other direction forever fated to living a life with a dull aching pain in the background.
Your friend,
Jamie
