Anxiety Information

Anxiety is a mystery. So misunderstood. So frightening. So unwanted. Nobody knows why it comes. And nobody knows why it doesn't leave. Nobody knows... or so it seems.

You can read tons of information about anxiety, and still not have a clue about its true nature.

Anxiety is a consequence. You must DO something to start feeling anxiety. Then, you must KEEP doing something to keep it around.

Soon it takes on a life of its own. And you have to do less and less to keep it going. Anxiety builds up momentum inside of you. So the older you get, the worse it becomes. It spreads and grows all on its own. Or so it seems.

Anxiety starts after the age of 5 or 6. You can feel fear before then, but not anxiety.

Anxiety requires input from your conscious mind. Generally speaking, it's a combination of mental processing and a particular way of handling your feelings. Which means, you have to come to certain conclusions in your mind. And simultaneously, you must push away your true feelings. Leave them undefined.

1. Faulty conclusions.

2. Undefined feelings.

That's the recipe for anxiety, in a nutshell. Obviously, there's much more information to be learned about anxiety. But that's the over-simplified version.

A lot of the problem comes from our own patterns of processing information and our patterns of processing our feelings. We make conclusions about how to think and feel early in life. No one teaches us. (Unfortunately!) There are no classes in How To Think. Or... Feelings 101.

We're not taught how to process information as much as we're *conditioned* how to. Certain behaviors and attitudes are rewarded. Others are punished. This conditioning that we all received becomes an ideal breeding ground for anxiety.

The basic information we receive: feelings are bad and wrong and you shouldn't even HAVE them, much less FEEL them.

One of the problems with believing that statement is we create anxiety to FORCE ourselves to deal with our feelings.

Anxiety is always self-generated. Such as, by our undefined feelings...

Another basic piece of information we receive: devalue yourself. Don't trust yourself. Don't think of yourself. Don't even love yourself. Not really... Love others instead.

In other words, don't even get to KNOW yourself. Don't understand yourself. Seek to understand the world around you instead. The world is more important than you anyway. So focus outside.

"Don't get to know yourself. Don't be selfish!"

Faulty conclusions...

Basically, we're taught to not be responsible for our own thoughts and our own feelings. We aren't taught to think and we aren't taught to feel. Which makes anxiety almost inevitable.

We experience anxiety because of certain patterns we picked up as children. The older we get, the greater the anxiety becomes. Or, the greater the potential is that anxiety will start to become a problem. Sometimes it smolders beneath the surface for years, before it seems to explode in our conscious awareness.

That's when we go looking for information about it.

Anxiety is complex. Often it remains a mystery. Ironically, you escape anxiety by going deeper into it. By engaging it. By feeling it. And by seeking more information about it. Trying to run away... keeping it an unknown mystery, only makes it worse.

Anxiety has a message for you; information you need to know. It starts as a whisper. But as you ignore it, the whisper becomes a shout.

Generally, the message is to develop greater mastery over your own thoughts and feelings. Let go of the old ways that don't serve you. Don't push your feelings away. Come closer to yourself.

Get to know yourself on a deeper, more real level.

Listen to your anxiety.