Disclaimer: I am not a professional counselor and do not intend to prescribe anything here. You should seek a professional service whenever you have to. I am sharing my own experience, which may relate to you or someone else around you.
Discovery Phase
Always look for the sign inside, check that if you have a mind that is not listening to you. If your answer is yes, that means you already have anxiety, or you will experience it sooner or later. For example, you plan a gym or any other exercise activity, and as the time reaches to execute the plan, your mind finds something else more important than your health. That’s an excuse the mind gives to avoid going through physical pain that one experience during the exercise. Because our mind’s job is to save energy, by design, it doesn’t know that exercise improves health — we have multiple minds/ layers.
There are many online anxiety tests that I find not that helpful. As a human, we experience multiple emotions every day, so the results of the tests vary based on when you are taking the online test.
If you keep a journal, that can help you to find a clue. Write down positive and negative things you experienced throughout the day. If you find more items on the negative side, then your mind is attracting/inviting negative energy. I found this useful to check the state of my mind. This also releases stress because things look smaller when written on paper than running in the brain. That says, our mind cannot size/weigh stuff without the help of other mind layers.
Anxiety Level
It would be best if you determined what’s your anxiety level is. You can scale them as low/medium/high.
Low: you feel happy inside, and things look positive around you. However, you get into a period where negativities crippled your mind. You find it hard to go back to your happy mojo. This phase happens due to abnormal circumstances, and most of the time, it lasts for a short interval a few hours or a day or two.
Medium: This is a kind of wave pattern. Your mood frequently swings, even with a small incident. You feel happy if everything goes well around you, and the very next day, you feel sad/mad, or other emotions take over your mental state.
High: You find it impossible to be happy again. Your mind runs in autopilot mode, and negativity is predominant. Even a small thing looks overwhelming to your mind, whether it’s positive or negative. At this level, a person is on anxiety prescription drugs.
There is one more level, which is extreme, where one experiences a panic attack. At this level, even this article will cause a disturbance in your mind. However, I would recommend reading it until the end.
Acceptance
Your anxiety level goes down the day you acknowledge it and start discussing your feeling with others. The initial realization gives clarity to our minds for better processing and handling. Second, when you talk about it with others, that means you are not holding anything.
We live in a world where everyone shows/talks about their strong side that misleads others who are watching/listening to feel they have a problem in their lives, and everyone else is happy, healthy, or wealthy. However, in reality, every human life experiences anguish and difficulties, but very few talk and share.
Opportunities
You might be asking why me? Others are happy, and why am I going through this? The short answer is you didn’t care when you had to, and you let your mind be trained in things that you don’t want to see. Anxiety is a mental state like a happy mind.
Consider this as your failure to learn about yourself. Anxiety opens up lots of opportunities if you look at it with a positive mind. When you are experiencing anxiety, you start noticing all the inside activities food digestion system, heartbeats, brain patterns, a small-small body pain, which you never experienced before. It improves your awareness, which is very important for your growth. You started noticing how your mind reacts to the events.
That is why I call it a blessing. It has changed my life and certainly made me a better person than I was before the experience
Transitioning from Anxiety to Better life
Your mind does everything to keep the current pattern. It would be best if you use an external force to break mental habits. Also, stop listening to your mind and start training your mind using mental and physical exercise. Use a safe yoga posture, and don’t give up even though your brain can’t take it. Always remember your body can take more than what you mind. I used to do Sleeping tiger and chair postures. I started with a Stopwatch and recorded the initial time where I didn’t feel much muscle pain and kept adding 30 seconds from there.
Physical activity releases endorphins and dopamine that help a lot in the transition to a better life.
Although you are vulnerable, I would recommend talking about your mental states with others. Be vigilant; people can easily influence you.
Don’t run away from the situation/places that trigger anxiety. Tell your mind that your body is safe, and everything is normal.
Write only positive things at least once a day. Don’t dwell on negativity. It’s your mind, and nothing has changed outside.
Meditation is the best way when you mix it up with yoga. If you solely do meditation, you won’t be able to focus because of the stressful mind. You can see the differences, do the slow breathing exercise before and after yoga. In the beginning, you would find it hard to control breathing, but it becomes easy if you do the same after the session.
If you notice kids, they are always happy except when they want something badly. But they let go of things and move on. Another reason for their happiness could be very minimal knowledge of things. Remember, you were a kid too. Don’t feed any information that brings negativity. e.g., watching violent movies or news.
There are many methods I used, and everyone is different, so always try a new way to teach your mind to look at things with a positive mind.
Sustainability
If you keep a little positive approach, you will come out from the anxiety. The techniques you use to come out from stress keep practicing that and get better at it.
Happy Life
The whole journey will make you a better person, and you will learn to let go of things that don’t matter. Everything is beautiful inside and outside. You need to bring that beauty in your mind by mind training.
Stay positive and live a happy life!!