“Healing anxiety is a journey of inner exploration, where you don’t run away from your fears but embrace them and listen to what they have to say.” - Unknown
If you experience anxiety and you have heard that it isn’t possible to heal and you have to manage your anxiety, believe me, what you have heard isn’t true. If it had been true, people like famous spiritual master- Eckhart Tolle and certified NACBT Life Coach Dennis Simsek wouldn’t be healing people across the world today. Both Eckhart and Dennis have suffered from anxiety for years but today, they enjoy living a life filled with peace, happiness, and joy. They are also guiding many people on their healing journey with the help of the lessons they learned when they were undertaking their own healing journey.
So, brave hearts, it is possible to completely heal from anxiety. If you think that Eckhart and Dennis are an exception or they suffered from lesser anxiety than you do and that’s why they recovered, it’s not true. They suffered from crippling anxiety which may be worse than the levels of anxiety you experience.
It is possible to completely heal from anxiety no matter how anxious you are but to heal you have to undertake a journey within. You have to gently embrace your fears and see through the darkness that you have been avoiding for years which is not an easy task. However, if you have the will to heal completely, you can overcome all the challenges.
To add scientific evidence to the fact that it is possible to heal anxiety, I would like to tell you that your brain possesses neuroplasticity. Neuroplasticity is the ability of the nervous system to change its activity in response to intrinsic or extrinsic stimuli by reorganizing its structure, functions or connections. This implies that your brain has the ability to change, organize and reorganize itself. So, it is possible to calm your anxious nervous system and heal from anxiety.
Now, what does the process of healing require?
The process of healing requires your willingness to journey within and explore the content of things that make you feel anxious. As you begin to understand your fears, worries and other things that lead to anxiety, healing begins to happen gradually. This is because the understanding of your fears frees you from their impact.
For example, if you rent your own car and later keep feeling anxious, exploring your fears will give you meaningful insights into their nature which will reduce and ultimately help you get rid of the respective anxiety. If you are afraid that the person who has rented your car may collide with someone and your car may get damaged, the understanding of your fear may help you see that your love for your car is only making you think about the worst-case scenarios. Whereas, the actual chances of the renter colliding with someone are very rare. This will help you feel at ease.
This is a simple example. I know that there are many other complicated things that you may be anxious about like your health, dying, and so on. But, the path to healing all sorts of anxiety is journeying inwards which can also be termed as self-awareness.
Now, let us discuss what is self-awareness, and then we’ll consider one example to help you understand how to journey within.
What is self-awareness or knowing your inner world?
Self-awareness is basically thought awareness. In any given situation, if you practice thought awareness without any judgments and being influenced by your thoughts, you are self-aware. For example, if you are in a dark room with your thoughts revolving around the possibility of a snake being present in the darkness, and you know that you are thinking about a snake rather than believing that there is a snake, you are self-aware. It means that you know what is going on in your inner world at that particular moment.
Now, here is an example of how you can practice self-awareness:
Let us consider that you are anxious about losing your job. As a result, whenever your boss calls you, you begin to experience fear, worry along with physical symptoms like sweaty palms, a rapid heartbeat, etc. To practice self-awareness in this context is to explore why you are so afraid of losing your job?
The key to exploring why you are so afraid of losing your job is to sit at a peaceful place and ask yourself some questions about the same. For example, you can begin by asking yourself the reasons for being anxious about getting fired. The moment you ask this question your thoughts will begin to indicate the different reasons.
You may be thinking that you don’t have sufficient skills to find a new job. You may also feel that if you lose your job, you’ll lose your friends and reputation in society or you may feel that after you lose your job, you won’t be able to earn money until you get a new job and your debt repayments, etc. will come to a halt.
Once you know the different things that make you feel anxious about losing your job, you have to go deep into them. You have to place a question mark on everything rather than believing your thoughts.
For example, you have to question whether you really don’t have sufficient skills to find a new job or you just think so? You can also question yourself that if you don’t have the required skills how did you get hired at your current company?
Such questions will give you valuable insights into your fear of losing your job and help you understand it deeply. Further, if your investigation makes you feel that you actually lack skills, then you have to understand that feeling anxious about losing your job isn’t the solution. The solution lies inappropriate action, which in this case is to work on self-improvement and enhance your skills. With self-improvement, true power will come to you. You’ll know that you are skilled and you can get a new job whenever you want. As a result, your anxiety about losing your job will get significantly reduced and vanish over time.
Further, as you learn to practice thought awareness, you’ll gradually develop the habit of practicing thought awareness all the time. Even in moments of anxiety, you’ll be able to watch your thoughts, explore your fears, gain the required insights and heal from corresponding anxiety.
Now, let’s talk about one of the biggest obstacles in the anxiety healing journey which is fear of anxiety itself. You feel afraid of anxiety because of the discomforting symptoms it brings along. A rapid heartbeat, nausea, panic, etc. You don’t want to experience discomfort, which makes you anxious about anxiety itself. But, healers know that to heal, you have to work on the root causes of anxiety which can only happen if you practice thought awareness and get rid of your worrisome conditioned beliefs. Once you begin to heal, the intensity of anxiety you experience will slowly decrease along with the symptoms.
So, are you ready to start your inner journey of anxiety healing? I hope your answer is a big ‘yes.
Believe that you can and you’ll!
Now, wishing you All the best, and may you heal from your deepest fears and anxieties soon.
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