Another amazing thing I’ve noticed is that, no matter what I’m feeling, what I need to do and realize is this:
• Always play “spot the anxiety”. What I mean by that, is that what ends up happening is that the symptoms of anxiety and the feelings and sensations caused by it seem to cycle and try to start a new bout of anxiety. The trick is to say, hey I’ve been through this before, been around the anxiety spiral, etc. and what did it come down to in the end? Just anxiety. So let’s skip all the wasted time and let’s identify the underlying anxiety and deal with that, and whatever the symptom is will evaporate once the anxiety that caused it is addressed.
• Regardless of the feeling itself, if as is usually the case, the cause is anxiety itself, then no matter how tempting or logical it may seem to address the feeling, sensation, issue, etc. being experienced at the time, the fact is and has always been that if it is caused by anxiety then it will self-resolve along with the anxiety itself. So the key is to go for the anxiety at the core. Now, sometimes, the way to go after the anxiety is to deal with the external issue such as the purpose of life, etc., but the key focus should always be to target the anxiety and see the symptom as just that – a symptom of anxiety and not an entity in and of itself. And somehow, although in many cases the feeling/symptom may go unaddressed, it somehow resolves itself along with the anxiety itself. Like any illness, once the underlying cause is addressed, the associated symptoms all subside together with it.
