So how was anxiety your friend? Well, we start to recognize that it's not necessarily the anxiety that's our friend it's more so the feedback that's where the actual relationship begins. Our conscious mind is regularly sending us messages in the form of symbolic feedback. Sometimes we have a headache or neck ache or other times we are feeling a little bit under the weather a little bit down a little bit blue. Perhaps other times we might be feeling extraordinarily irritable or just merely frustrated while other the times we might find that weird snappy with people and don't have an exceptional level of tolerance in the company with others.
So anxiety is my friend is ultimately a metaphor for any symbolic feedback any yucky or ouchie as I call them is a message from the unconscious mind. A tap on the shoulder or a quick reminder that is something that I probably need to deal with that I've been putting off or ignoring. I see a lot of clients in the clinic that often will be at that stage where they have regular panic attacks, and ultimately they are far further down the track of where what is an optimal time to do self-work with regard to addressing a message. Now I'm not saying it's too late not at all as it's never too late to do self-work but what I am suggesting is that sometimes we ignore messages and the best thing to do is deal with things as they come up. We live in a society that is so far removed from emotions. In the western world, it's often the case that no one wants to deal with emotions or they consider emotions to be a dirty you're an awful thing and that 'you shouldn't be having feelings'. Especially men are 'not supposed to be feelings' or possessing emotions.
In the western world, I believe this comes from the era of the baby boomers. We may have adopted a lot from English culture and the collective consciousness of stiff upper lip. Now the problem with pushing the stuff down repressing it and hiding it from our selves is that it can be like that classic old cartoon of sweep it under the rug, just sweep it under the rug. Sadly it's often the case when clients come to see me for problems like anxiety or OCD or panic attacks if it's going that far that rug that means sweeping things under has gone to the point with the way it's ready to explode all over the room like a Molotov cocktail. This is clearly a dangerous situation, so how can we stop this pressure building and stay in tune and awake. I will share some insights in the next article in this series.
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Anxiety is your friend! - Article 1 of 4