Hey Benjamin-
Looking for a bit of insight here if possible...First a bit of history...34 yo Male and have had bouts of anxiety on and off since my first panic attack when I was around 23 or so. I no longer have them anymore which is great since I don't really fear the experience, it sort of burned itself out. I have found since that time and in a recent anxious flare up that indicates to me there's more learning for me to do. As I learn more and have read the first chapter of your book (which I am going to download), I think I'm on to something. As you know, severe anxiety is wrought with annoying symptoms. The initial panic attack that I had many years ago in my opinion has left me with residual fear (much like your own experience it sounds) that I haven't addressed. I have this gnawing feeling of frailty regarding my health although I don't have any facts to substantiate me feeling that way, a mild form of hypochondria if you will and needing reassurance at times. I have a great life otherwise in all aspects I have been extremely blessed. My goal is to ultimately be able to rely on self in these instances. How do I face this irrational underlying fear from my first panic attack? I'm ready to do it!
Thank You,
Darren
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Facing Fear How?
#2 Guest_Guest_*
Posted 02 October 2004 - 02:13 PM
Do you have an irrational fear of dying also? Just wondering.
#4 Guest_Guest_*
Posted 05 October 2004 - 12:40 AM
Thanks for the reply. I'm sure Benjamin has some expert advice for you forthcoming. In the meantime, try to focus on something or someone other than yourself, if only for a day or so. Sometimes that helps a bit while you are waiting to get his advice. See if it makes any difference in your thinking.
Best of Luck
Best of Luck
#5
Benjamin Fry 
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Posted 06 October 2004 - 07:35 PM
The question really is how to move on from fear. The answer actually is that we do so naturally by eventually exhuming our trauma and moving on from those feelings. This allows us to be more natural and connected in our world. This in turn promotes those glorious feelings of safety and connection with a bigger picture of the universal scheme of things. However most of the time we are cut off from that because we are cut off from ourselves by the repressive mechanism of our conscious mind, itself motivated by fear ñ this time of our feelings themselves.
The way to move on from this (in my view), is to do it the way I did it. Thatís actually why I wrote the book: because it really worked for me. I was experiencing a resurgence of anxiety at the same age as you. I had done a lot of healing in the previous decade and through that begun to understand what I thought was the reasoning behind the emotional chaos that I found so difficult. My conclusions were that it was not my feelings which were causing the problems, but my feelings about my feelings. It was my resistance and fear of my feelings that proved to be the real suffering. Not only were they unpleasant, but they also blocked the real feelings themselves, which needed to be processed in order for me to heal on a deeper level.
So, the trick is to stop being afraid of anxiety by embracing it. Understand that it doesnít come from nowhere. It comes from fear that was trapped in your body when you couldnít cope with it (perhaps when you were very young) and now it wants to come out (e-motion). Therefore it is not only rational, but also good for you. Sure it feels weird, but then you need to think of it like this. Thereís nothing wrong with feeling afraid during a horror movie. You let the fear wash over you without comment, because you understand where it comes from. Now separate the casue and effect by a decade and your reaction to the fear is totally different. Thatís what trauma does to our feelings. And thatís all it is. So embrace your fear and let it come and go.
Surprisingly once you master this, you will find that many of the things that you thought you couldnít do when anxious, you actually can do. You just do them while allowing yourself to feel afraid. The trick is to reprogram the understanding of the conscious mind so that it changes what it doesnít understand and therefore what it is afraid of and resistant to. The idea of my book is that it will do this reprogramming for you. This may sound odd, but I actually re-read it often myself to get exactly this same effect. Even though I wrote it and know it, my fearful conscious mind often forgets about it in its reactions to things.
Itís all a bit of a mind game and Iíd recommend to you some yoga or meditation as an exercise in refining your awareness of your different layers of mental processes. In the end the goal is both to be, and to be observing yourself being. Then you can both be afraid, and calmly remind yourself that itís ok to be afraid. From that point on things get better very quickly and fear can come and go as it pleases, enhancing your constant underlying process of emotional healing.
The way to move on from this (in my view), is to do it the way I did it. Thatís actually why I wrote the book: because it really worked for me. I was experiencing a resurgence of anxiety at the same age as you. I had done a lot of healing in the previous decade and through that begun to understand what I thought was the reasoning behind the emotional chaos that I found so difficult. My conclusions were that it was not my feelings which were causing the problems, but my feelings about my feelings. It was my resistance and fear of my feelings that proved to be the real suffering. Not only were they unpleasant, but they also blocked the real feelings themselves, which needed to be processed in order for me to heal on a deeper level.
So, the trick is to stop being afraid of anxiety by embracing it. Understand that it doesnít come from nowhere. It comes from fear that was trapped in your body when you couldnít cope with it (perhaps when you were very young) and now it wants to come out (e-motion). Therefore it is not only rational, but also good for you. Sure it feels weird, but then you need to think of it like this. Thereís nothing wrong with feeling afraid during a horror movie. You let the fear wash over you without comment, because you understand where it comes from. Now separate the casue and effect by a decade and your reaction to the fear is totally different. Thatís what trauma does to our feelings. And thatís all it is. So embrace your fear and let it come and go.
Surprisingly once you master this, you will find that many of the things that you thought you couldnít do when anxious, you actually can do. You just do them while allowing yourself to feel afraid. The trick is to reprogram the understanding of the conscious mind so that it changes what it doesnít understand and therefore what it is afraid of and resistant to. The idea of my book is that it will do this reprogramming for you. This may sound odd, but I actually re-read it often myself to get exactly this same effect. Even though I wrote it and know it, my fearful conscious mind often forgets about it in its reactions to things.
Itís all a bit of a mind game and Iíd recommend to you some yoga or meditation as an exercise in refining your awareness of your different layers of mental processes. In the end the goal is both to be, and to be observing yourself being. Then you can both be afraid, and calmly remind yourself that itís ok to be afraid. From that point on things get better very quickly and fear can come and go as it pleases, enhancing your constant underlying process of emotional healing.
visit benjaminfry.co.uk for more information on my work
support getstable.org for better mental health treatment in the UK
support getstable.org for better mental health treatment in the UK
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