The Ten Anxiety Commandments

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