How Winnie The Pooh Contributed To Ending My Anxiety Disorder

Funny thing happened today, I had a flashback to the days of suffering through an anxiety disorder and I made a very important distinction between how my thought process was then, compared to how my thought process is now. Back then I allowed people to show me how to think in my day to day life, friends who were quick to share an opinion and their emotional attachment to any give situation dictated the meaning I placed to everything, mostly negative. For 6 years during my anxiety disorder my brain was rented out to others to fill with whatever they thought was correct, and through those suggestions and emotions I found myself numb, unable to think for myself anymore and taking action not through my own research and experience, but mainly because of other peoples life experiences. I lived my life the way millions of others live their lives today, and that was to do everything I could to avoid what I feared most in life. What a crummy way to live, never really reaching the full potential we have to give more in our relationships, our career, our LIVES due to thinking of what danger could potentially appear around the corner.

The greatest philosopher of our time is someone you might know quite well growing up, his name is Winnie The Pooh. Winnie always had a way of seeing the positive opposite in any situation of what his shy and fearful friend Piglet did. I remember one particular episode growing up when Winnie and Piglet were out having a walk-about at night, when this thunderous storm struck and Piglet completely overwhelmed with fear asking Winnie 'what if the winds got so strong that a tree fell on us, or lightning struck us?' Winnie as always weighing both sides of the possible outcome replying "what if it didn't?' What if Winnie The Pooh accepted only the possibility of what Piglet thought at that moment? How would their relationship be different, and how would Winnie The Pooh's life in general be different, if that cycle of emotionally attaching himself to Piglets feared beliefs happened consistently? If you were curious about how the episode ended, Winnie and Piglet made it home safe.

Avoiding fear doesn't drive my life anymore, and it shouldn't run yours either. Easier said then done I agree, but consistently changing your focus to the other side of what might come to be in any give situation, as well as changing what drives you from avoidance of what you fear to directing it to what you want, will have a huge impact on all aspects of your life.