Today’s guest post is brought to by an Anxiety Guru reader named Emily.  She has lived with anxiety for some time now and wanted to share a few tips on how to challenge your anxiety. Do you have a story or tips that you’d like to share with the Anxiety Guru Community?  Contact me today and find out how you can help others in need of information and advice.

This is not just the lyrics to a Styx song.  A lot of us with anxiety will find ourselves isolated and lonely at some point. Being isolated and lonely is something normal that anyone can experience at any point in their life, but it can make people with anxiety especially down because spending too much time with our own thoughts, which tend to be negative, can make things seem worse.

It’s good to self-reflect sometimes, and we all need our space from time to time, but I find that when I spend too much time alone I over-analyze just about everything, and get too wrapped up in “what-if’s”, and assumptions. I end up getting depressed and further avoid situations that might break the monotony and give me pleasure.

Avoidance is something many of us with anxiety struggle with. We feel ill equipped to handle certain situations and therefore don’t want to face them. If we come at them from a different angle though, an angle of patience with ourselves, and see it as a chance to practice our coping skills, we’ll find that we often come out feeling better about the situation.

What separates us from the so called normal people is that we make assumptions, negatively label ourselves, internalize it, and then because of the pain of these feelings we try to escape from it all. We try to avoid all negativity like the plague. But the real problem is that we don’t know how to be objective. Anxiety does a good job of preventing that. We see every minor mistake and flaw as a huge deal and as a testament to just how inadequate we really are.

If we are to overcome anxiety we must question the thoughts that really kick the anxiety into high gear and bring about feelings of shame and uncertainty. This is exceptionally hard to do though, because everything we feel and believe seems to be true – whether it is or not. But once you start carefully looking for evidence of why you believe what you believe, then you’ll find that more often than not there is none. Therefore, you must question your negative thoughts. It is the only way to repair your anxiety and self-esteem.

Also, the next time you feel guilty, embarrassed, feel helpless or defeated, don’t let it escalate into feelings of shame. Don’t feel stupid, weak, or internalize any of the negative emotions that you carry around. Just take inventory of the problems you face, and most importantly make sure you do something about them.

Emily

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