I hope that you have worked on the first two steps and have gained some success. You wanting to follow those two steps is progress enough, so don't worry if you have not been able to accept those steps wholeheartedly. At least you are trying.
The third step in this process is
3) Float past it: This is exactly as it sounds. Float past it by not fighting back. Pretend your in a swimming pool floating on water. Apply that to your life. Let lose and go along with the flow. Do not stress and do not worry. Things will turn out to be good just as they are. Do not fight hurdles just float past them. As you do this, you will be left with calmness, which will then help you heal. Now this is easier said than done. I for one know that. I know that it is hard to accept and float past when you're dealing with emotions. I know that is hard to even think positive when you are in such a position and even when you try to think positive, your mind comes with a hundred reasons for why you shouldn't be so optimistic. Your brain throws at you a hundred "what if's" and questions you don't have the answers to and even though you want to be positive there are so many things holding you back. For each person, what that stress is may be different. For me, and I think many of you guys will be able to connect, the stress was not being able to get better. I was fed up feeling the way I was. I hated the fact I had anxiety and I wanted to get better as soon as possible. I did not want to wait. I would continuously think about my life before anxiety. All I remembered before this incident was happiness. Sure, I had problems, but I was still so happy with my life. I remember always thinking to myself, "wow, I love the college I am at. I love life. There is nothing to be sad about." I kept remembering how I could turn even the most negative situation into a positive one. No problem was hard enough to make me feel sad or to make a time of my life feel less joyous. I was always under the impression that having a positive attitude came to me naturally that, that was something I was born with because for much of my life I never had bad days that stretched to weeks or months. These thoughts roamed through my head for much of the day and they were thoughts that made me very sad. I thought I had lost apart of myself that I loved the most. The part of me that I was so proud of and had hoped to keep forever. Now, I am going to end this story here for just a second so I can tell you why I brought this up in the first place. I brought this up because that was my drive to get better. I wanted to be the same person again because I didn't want a lose a part of me that was so special to me. I decided that I would accept this condition and follow these steps if that meant getting my life back. Nothing was more heartbreaking and tough than the thought of not being normal again. I knew that I could gather any amount of hope and courage to make myself become the person I loved most and that is exactly what I did.
4) Let time pass: Everything takes time. Most of us have probably heard the quote "time heals all wounds," and in fact that is very true. With time anxiety and all of this will become a distant memory that you will only remember as a time in your life that has passed, much like high school. Bittersweet memories are something we all have. We don't go around remembering them each day. Just like so this will all fade away into the past, but you have to give it some time. Let's go back to our broken leg example. If you break your leg, you know that it will take time for your leg to become normal again and you understand that. The body needs to heal itself and the body will take its time. We wait patiently or impatiently, but we know that ultimately our leg will be fixed and we will continue on with our life. The same is true for anxiety! You have to give your body time. You cannot expect your body to heal itself with in a day or automatically. Even if you use this method and it works it will take time for anxiety to go away completely. You cannot be disheartened by the small setbacks or by the fact that the method is taking so long. When you break your leg, you should not expect for it to heal the very next day. When you see signs of improvement you do not rip off your cast and start running. You let your body rest and heal. You slowly incorporate your old routine and without a doubt one day you will be doing the things you once did, but you have to let time pass in order to do so. The same is true for anxiety. You cannot get slightly better and try putting yourself through a test to see if you are really the same again. You are still healing and life is not a test, it is a practice. Tests make people nervous and stressed while practices allow you to perfect your skills. Don't add stress and anxiety to an already stressed body by testing yourself. Instead take everything as a practice and perfect your skills. With all that practice your skills will become refined and you will know exactly what to do. Notice that this method does not ask for you to be patient. It tells you to let time pass and you should do just that.
Now, if the methods that I have mentioned have helped you in the slightest I would recommend you buy the book by Claire Weekes that is titled "Hope and Help for Your Nerves. I know that at this point it probably seems that I am affiliated with this book or I am pushing for you to buy it. I am not affiliated with this book whatsoever. This book was published in 1962, years before my own mother was born much less me. The methods that I am talking about are from this book. And this book has helped me become myself again, and I want everyone to feel happy and healthy once again. My goal is not to have you buy this book, but is that you become happy and get over anxiety or whatever that is that has brought you to this blog. I know how it feels and I wouldn't want anyone to feel the way I did when I had anxiety and that is why I decided I was going to make this blog. Even though I am summarizing what the book has said and putting in my own input, I feel like I am not doing it justice. I would also like to mention that you can get this book from Amazon or eBay for a very low price, around 98 cents. If you need help finding this book for cheaper, you can always feel free to let me know and I will help you find the cheapest edition out there.
With that, I am going to end this blog. I hope that this has has helped you in the slightest and remember to never lose hope. Things always do end up getting better you just have to give them time. With time, thing will become better. I will talk to you guys all in the next blog.
-Abigail Monroe
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