The central theme in the panic away program is ACCEPTANCE. The key to recovery is to allow the anxiety to come back. Complete 100% acceptance of all that you feel is crucial for the anxiety symptoms to lessen and eventually fade away.
It sounds simple, but it is far from it. True acceptance of your anxiety and sensations is extremely difficult and challenging and takes time. Panic Away member Ella describes her journey to full acceptance and how a simple re-phrasing of the word ‘acceptance’ to ‘letting go’ helped her overcome her anxiety.
Acceptance was the hardest thing for me to do. I didn’t understand how I was suppose to “accept” all these symptoms, condition etc. It felt so awful that it made no sense to me. I did think about it long and hard and tried to turn “acceptance” in something I was able to do. I turned “acceptance” into “letting go”. I let go of the life I use to live without anxiety. I stopped thinking I want my life back, I want to be the old me. I let go of the twisted attachment I had to feeling horrible cause that’s all I knew. I accepted that I had anxiety and panic and I accepted that it was going to take a lot of work to get better. Once you learn to keep your symptoms at bay it will be a lot easier for you to accept. I never really accepted my symptoms but I did stop caring for them. I payed them no attention. I didn’t love them nor care for them. This is how I treated my symptoms at first:
Have you ever had to hang out with someone all day that drove you crazy, you wanted to pull out your hair cause of them, they got on your nerves, they made you angry and simply irritated? Hopefully you have! I think we all have! Well in the morning look at your symptoms as the “un welcomed visitors” like you have to hang out with them you have no choice. So welcome the un welcomed visitors, let them know you don’t care for them, you wont pay attention to them, but this is the situation and you are stuck with them and you are going to go on with your day not paying attention to them.
If you had person in your house that you couldn’t stand all day I’m sure you wouldn’t “check in” with them to make them feel at ease or ask if they wanted anything etc. You would probably ignore them. The more you do this the more that person you don’t like wont want to hang out at your house, they eventually leave and don’t want to come back. It’s the same thing with symptoms.
Treat them as un welcomed visitors. This worked for me. I refused to check it. You have anxiety you don’t have serious deathly illness. Nothing will happen. You are safe, just uncomfortable.
Hopefully this makes sense to you cause explaining it is not the easiest! lol
Kim “
Thank you for sharing that with us Ella. By comparing your anxiety to an ‘un welcome visitor’ you were able to see the situation with clarity and in a new light.