Remember That You CAN Get Through Your Anxiety

Sometimes when you’re suffering from anxiety and others don’t think you are doing enough to overcome your fears, you may begin to feel discouraged. While you may agree with someone that says that you aren’t making the right amount of progress or practicing enough, you still shouldn’t lose faith in yourself or believe that you won’t get through your anxiety. What you need to begin to do is set up a more structured plan for practicing; write it out if you need to. If you feel you need some support, feel free to ask someone you trust to help you follow your plan and make sure you stay on the right track.

In addition, you need to begin to follow the plan and do so wholeheartedly. I know this may be hard, but it is not impossible. Remember that even if people seem to be losing faith in you or seem to be having doubts about you making progress, it doesn’t mean that you can’t, it simply means that you may need to start working even harder…not for them, but for yourself. Also, if you feel you need to be working harder to overcome your fears, chances are you do.

You’re Stronger Than You Think

Oftentimes we feel as if we can’t get through something alone and we may ask for help. As I’ve mentioned before, asking for help from the ones you trust is okay as long as you also realize that at times, you will have to try to get through your anxiety on your own. Whether it be simply because in life we cannot always depend on others or because those around us simply don’t know how to help or don’t want to, we have to learn to push ourselves to get through things without someone else assisting us.

This can be challenging. With anxiety often trying to convince the rest of of our mind that we cannot get through our fears, we often feel that we cannot get through our struggles. However, there are times when we have to get through our anxiety on our own and you will find, that you can. With continual practice and through trusting ourselves, we can get through our anxiety.

You may be wondering how to get through something so difficult on your own, especially when it’s the only way at times. My first piece of advice is to remind yourself that you can get through it and that your anxiety is just trying to tell you otherwise. Also, if you’ve gotten through your fears before, remind yourself of the fact. In addition, if you can, take your time. If you feel that you need to rest for a while in order to relax, do so. Most importantly, continue to practice so you gain the confidence you need to get through your anxiety!

A Little Bit of Progress…

A little bit of progress goes a long way. Many times if we cannot do something completely as we wanted to, we tend to focus on what we didn’t do and what we thought we couldn’t do instead of what we did and could do. While at times our moments of progress may seem small and possibly insignificant, they never truly are. Small steps eventually lead to larger steps and small moments of progress eventually lead to bigger moments.

In addition, even a small moment of progress gives us the confidence that we can do more. How do we draw upon our positive experiences? We remind ourselves that we got through something, even if we didn’t get through it seamlessly. We need to remind ourselves of the positive ways in which we got through our anxiety, not the ways in which we may have think we “failed”. If you made some progress, any progress at all, don’t take it lightly. Use the progress you made to remind yourself that if you got through your anxiety once, you can do it again.

Keeping Up Momentum

While we may know that we need to practice consistently to get through our anxiety, this does not necessarily mean that we always do so. As I’ve said before, there are times when other things get in the way of our practicing. There are things such as work, school, and other every day life activities that keep us from taking time out of our busy schedules to practice. However, even with these other activities, we still need to keep practicing.

We need to keep practicing in order to keep up the momentum that leads to us getting better. There may be times when we are suffering from a panic attack or anxiety and we don’t feel we have the strength to get through it. How do we feel strong enough and become strong enough to get through our fears when telling ourselves we are doesn’t do the trick? We need to constantly practice in order to prove to ourselves that we can get through these tough times.

So how do we keep up the momentum that we need to get through our anxiety? We need to remind ourselves that every day, multiple times a day, that we need to practice. I know how easy it is to just practice once and say, “Well, I got it out of the way, I’m all done for the day”. Unfortunately, that’s not always how progress works. We need to practice consistently just like if we wanted to exercise to get stronger we’d have to do so consistently. We can’t allow ourselves to fall back into the pattern of giving into our fears; we need to do the opposite.

I know that often times, what I mentioned above isn’t easy. I’m not going to sit here and pretend that it’s easy for me because honestly, it’s a big part of why I’m not better. There are so many times when I should be practicing and I’m not. However, I am going to continue to practice and try my hardest to do so consistently because I do want to get through my anxiety.

Guilt

For many of us who struggle with anxiety, at some point or another, we may feel guilty. Many people do not seem to consider anxiety a real issue and many times, they tend to blame those who struggle. However, anxiety is real and it is very real to those of us who have to go through it every day.

Some of us may have had a family member or friend (or possibly even seen or heard about a stranger) that was going through something physical or mental that may seem or be more serious and more dangerous than anxiety. For example, if you are afraid to drive you may feel bad because some people physically can’t drive for whatever reason and meanwhile, you just feel as if you can’t due to your fears. This may make you feel guilty because you have the power and capability to do things but because of anxiety, feel otherwise while others literally cannot do these things.

However, as long as you are not feigning your anxiety, you should not feel guilty. We all go through different things and just because we may not have something as “serious” as others may have, that doesn’t mean that our issue is any less real or frightening.

We can, however, sometimes look at this idea and say to ourselves, “I’m afraid to do this but some people really can’t. Instead of being afraid because I don’t feel I can do this, I’m going to prove to myself that I can.” So in a way, sometimes a little bit of guilt or self-awareness at least is a good thing, but we should not make ourselves feel bad that we struggle with anxiety.

We may also feel guilty because our anxiety may affect others whether it be because we ask for help, because we feel that our anxiety is causing rifts in our relationships, or because we are causing others anxiety . It is true that we need to try to be selfless and try to give the ones that are helpful a break, but also know that if someone truly loves us, they should be willing to help; to care. While we should not take advantage of the ones we love, we should also keep in mind that loving one another means being there for each other and that this goes both ways.

However, again, some people (even the ones who love us) will not understand and may not even try to help. We need to understand that this is a possibility and that while they still may love us and we still may love them, we cannot always expect everyone to be helpful.

Keeping Promises

This post is not about keeping promises necessarily to others, but rather, to ourselves. As I have mentioned before, there are times when due to not doing something exactly how we’d like to because of our anxiety, we accomplish our goals in a different way or in smaller bites.

While getting something done in a way that causes you less stress is understandable and, in many cases helpful since you are still practicing, you still must remember that you need to practice consistently to reach your ultimate goal instead of just side stepping trying to reach it and finding an easy way out.

For example, let’s say that there is an opportunity for you to work from home due to your anxiety and also, you have the option of coming in bit by bit until you can stay at work all day. While it is okay to maybe work at home as it (in this case literally), “gets the job done”, you should still try to go to work and practice so you can gain more confidence in yourself that you will be able to go to work and get through the day.

Sometimes we simply forget to practice. If this happens, remember how important it is to practice and do so!

It’s Okay Not To Do Everything At Once

I know how it is. Sometimes after letting your fear get the best of you for so long and feeling depressed about it for a while, you get to the point when you just want to  (though you’re not sure you can) try what you’ve been wanting to accomplish and get it out of the way. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all about making big improvements. However, many times when we suffer from anxiety, the best thing to do is practice and do so in small, but consistent bites. We need to retrain our minds and be able to prove to ourselves that we can trust ourselves.

You might be thinking to yourself, “So now I’m not supposed to try hard to get through this?”. No, that is in no way what I am saying. What I am saying is that sometimes it can be too difficult to just go from not practicing at all to just doing it all at once when we’re not ready. By taking small and consistent steps we allow ourselves to learn that we can get through our fears; we just have to learn to really trust ourselves so that we become fully confident.

It’s okay not to do everything at once. It does not make you a failure to not, as I’ve said before, “just do it”. My definition of failure, as I’ve also mentioned before, is to give up completely; to stop trying. If someone makes you feel bad about yourself because you are still suffering from anxiety just remember that if you’re trying your best, it does not matter what others think.