Your hands fidget. Your leg taps uncontrollably. You shift nervously in your chair, get up, and pace the floor. Your mind races with worrying thoughts of what might be. Maybe this is new, or something you’ve been struggling with for a long time. Even worse, it’s 3:00 a.m. and you wake up with alarms screaming in your head, a dry mouth, a pounding heart, and a quick, shallow breath. “Am I sick? What if I lose my job and go broke? What if my partner is upset and we break up? Am I losing my mind?” One word describes what you are feeling….anxiety. It has the power to make you scared, retreat, run away, stop you in your tracks so that you freeze with constant what-if thinking and nerves on edge, not letting you sleep.
Anxiety has a mask fooling you into believing it’s your protection, but wait…look closer. Listen carefully as you remove its mask, and this is what you’ll hear:
“You’ve been anxious a long time. Do you really think that’s going to change? Sometimes you feel better, sure, but those feelings don’t stay. You come back to me…fear. It’s what you learned, what you know, and who you are. I’ll never let you go. Your “empowered self” stays buried in you. I’ll make sure of that. I’m good at what I do. I’ve won before, and I’ll win again. I own you.”
Keep reading the introduction
The manipulator has spoken, but do you have to get lost in its maze of lies? Anxiety isn’t your friend, it doesn’t side with you, and doesn’t care how much you hurt. Despite what you feel and as strong as anxiety can seem, does it really have the power to control you or are you giving it that power?
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…my 20s and 30s, my decisions to do or not do something were based on how anxious or safe I felt. This was exhausting and no way to live. I was tired of having to run my decisions through a fear meter. Still at such a young age, I longed to live a more normal life where I could give myself the freedom to explore new avenues, travel, talk to others freely without the constant “what if something goes wrong” narrative.
I sought out help and feverishly began to learn what anxiety was, why I had it, how it acted, what it did, and how I could shed it with research, therapies, and techniques. I learned it’s an illusion, a ghost, a phantasm just like the smoke you grab with your hand. When you check, there’s nothing there. It hides, strikes, and disappears into the shadows from which it came. That’s anxiety.
Its main objective is to cause fear, to hold you back, and rule your life. The most important thing I learned though was how to let it go and take back my control. I learned how to stop panic attacks dead in their tracks and live a normal life where anxiety doesn’t manipulate my thoughts to make me believe in things that will never happen. I discovered that anxiety didn’t own me, and I know it doesn’t own you. Keep reading and in the pages that follow, you’ll find out what I learned and how you can apply it to your life. I will teach you one step at a time, and we will tackle this together because when anxiety comes to play, you’re not alone. This…is how we win!
