Here is comes…That feeling, all of a sudden I’m all alone. That feeling that I don’t understand is back. The one that seems to change my whole personality, change the person I feel most comfortable being. I hate when it comes and destroys any good feelings that I have. When it comes I feel like it will never leave, I forget what it is like to feel good, or happy. Does food ever taste good? I don’t know when I have this feeling?! What is sleep like? I don’t remember…

Am I ever going to come out of it? Why does my chest hurt and my stomach feel weird? What happened to the beauty in the world?! Nothing seems to be stimulating any of my senses. My senses are very dull except one.

Sometimes I can trick my feeling into hiding its ugly face for a few minutes, but let’s be honest… it always comes back when I’m going through one of my anxiety spells.

People around me notice the sudden cloud around me and wonder why I’m so worried or stressed about something. They think that I can control it and tell me that its going to be ok and I shouldn’t be so down and depressed.

I wish I could… I wish with all my heart that I could turn off my anxiety switch whenever it accidentally gets turned on. But it seems that once it takes me, it has to have its way with me until its satisfied.

Medicine, meditation, outside influence, positive energy. It’s all great, but anxiety seems too powerful to fight. It seems that I’m going to have to learn to deal with it, rather that rid myself of it.

That’s how I have felt for the longest time. But I believe that it’s no longer the case. It has been years and years since I have been anxiety free and I have spent a lot of time researching and learning about the human condition and personal development. I read a lot about thinking positive and changing your mindset to help with anxiety.

One thing that seemed to help most was consistent mantras that I would repeat to myself everyday to try and convince my subconscious that everything was ok, that I was ok, that my family was ok, that I was going to be able to take care of them, and eventually I would find my calling.

It helped, a little. I finally had some release and was able to get back to life. But it still came ruthlessly, especially when I started having some heart palpitations that would come hard and leave chest pain. Well anxiety causes both of these and I never could figure out if I was having a serious anxiety attack or something serious was happening to my body. So I would sit there wondering if it was anxiety or something worse.

I have since been checked out and fortunately everything seems to be fine. I get my halter monitor results back soon, but it looks like everything is going to be fine, as far as my heart goes. My head, well that’s a different story…

That is until I found the secret to all of the other tools and concepts that I have been learning about. Like I said they are all great and do, in fact help your overall mental health -and your physical too, when you get really good at it. But that’s a different article in itself.

In order to convince yourself that you will be able to overcome anxiety as a whole, you have to create a foundation. Something that your positive thinking, new mindset, and better habits can anchor to.

This foundation, this one piece that will make or break your whole plan of attack. It’s so simple, yet one of the hardest things that you will ever encounter. Change itself is a very hard thing to put into play, fully. This simple base makeup of your mind has been there longer than anything else.

And fortunately has undergone lot’s of changes throughout most people’s lives. Your SELF IMAGE!

Your self image is the key to unlocking your mind and overcoming more than just anxiety and fear. Your self image is the reason that you have anxiety. Deep down inside we think that “I haven’t got what it take to handle the situation”. Or, especially for me, I worry that I won’t have any control over the event or situation that has triggered my anxiety. Doesn’t matter if the situation has or will actually come to fruition. I still-in my mind, run through the scenario and find the worst. Then I worry about what I could do to fix or handle it. I know this doesn’t seem like what you’re thinking about during an anxiety attack but it is rooted to the feeling, deeply.

We have to, first work on our self image and start believing in ourself with the utmost confidence. This more than anything with lift us above the constant battle with anxiety. Because once you feel that you can truly handle things with confidence there won’t be a need to worry. And the things we can’ t control will drift to the back of our minds.

Find yourself and tell him/her to buck up and remember all the wonderful things that you have overcome and your still here. The last time you had anxiety, it seemed like it wasn’t going to ever end, but it did. And your fine now.

But first we need to work on our self image. How we truly feel about ourselves, in the deepest sense of the word. That will be in the next article. But until then remember that anxiety is just fear of the untold future, a future that hasn’t even happen yet. And no amount of anxiety will change the future.