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The Ten Anxiety Commandments

5/20/2013

To celebrate the launch of the 20th Anniversary revised and expanded version of Living with IT, (see Book News blog here and BOOKS page on this site) I was interviewed last week for the Hobson's Bay Weekly (edition of paper coming out first week of June) about Living with It being seen as the 'anxiety bible' by many readers and the journalist asked me, if that was the case, what would be my 'ten commandments'
for anxiety ?

So here they are:

1. Thou shalt accept and not resist (which makes it worse) the fact of anxiety in thy current experience

2. Thou shalt allow the physical sensations to simply be without adding a story to them

3. Thou shalt be ever vigilant of thy thoughts, as thoughts are the creators of thy experience (and not the other way around)

4. Thou shalt cease idolising the problem and focus steadily on the solution instead

5. Thou shalt be a thousand times kinder to thyself

6. Thou shalt soothe, comfort and 'parent' thyself and shall desist from terrorising thyself

7. Thou shalt cease to make the external responsible for thy wellbeing and attend to it thyself

8. Thou shalt use thy anxiety to inform thou of necessary changes and make those changes

9. If thou makest a big deal out of it, it shall seem to be a big deal

10. Thou shalt not treat scary thoughts as if they are gospel

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Handling Mr Angry

4/24/2013

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A friend of mine recently decided to face down some nervousness and take the plunge (or dip her toe in the water!) and explore Internet dating after quite a long period by herself. As a person who had used her time of solitude for some intense inner searching (and finding) over recent years, she was approaching this from a different perspective than she had in the past and had learned from previous experience of writing all the things she didn't want on her profile to instead put a more positive (and non-judgmental) spin on her new one.

She decided that a good way to compose this was to phrase it in terms of a wish-liist - something similar to "If wishes came true - we'd share great, intelligent conversation, enjoy going to the movies and talking about them for hours, we'd discuss our favourite books and we'd travel to exotic far-off places - if only in our minds' and so on. A positive,clever way to talk about the things she'd like to share and totally non-threatening...or so she thought!

On the first day that her profile went up she received a message along the liines of: 'Me, me, me! I've never read a more selfish profile. You disgust me! Look at you - you're just a dried-up old trout' and so on.

Whew! Hard to not be stung by something as fierce as that but there are lessons in these things :
(a) People come into your experience for a reason. What was the reason he popped up?
(b) Had she really learned to not let another affect her own wellbeing?
(c) Could she see past the words to the heart of the person who wrote them?
(d) Did he convey something she disowned or feared in herself?
(e) Could she find forgiveness for this man?

In the end, my friend behaved with great integrity. She simply wrote 'And loving kindness to you, too'
And she saw the fear and hurt that were behind his words and wished him well. And then she blocked the sender.

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The Ten Anxiety Commandments

Handling Mr Angry

Author and Artist

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