Every morning at work, we have a meeting where we go around the room, and each member of the team gives a status update. Well, today there were about a dozen people crammed into this rather small room. So, as the meeting started, as usual, I started to get my body symptoms, followed shortly by an internal "Uh oh, what if I really lose it this time??". But then I stopped myself for a second and said to myself "Wait a minute! This is only anxiety, and anxiety can't hurt me. In fact, anxiety (talking to it as if it were a person), why don't you just TRY to come and get me. I'm right here - go ahead and plow me over!" Well, guess what? I then got this warm fuzzy feeling (NOT that crappy butterflies feeling - a GOOD feeling), and the anxiety just floated away within a matter of seconds.
It's funny because I have had no problem "preaching" to others (on these forums) how dealing with anxiety is a bit of a paradox. When you FIGHT the anxiety, you actually FUEL it - it's like dumping a can of gasoline on it. But when you just "go with it", and let it do what it may, it actually loses it's power. This is obviously what is instructed in session #2, but somehow I always forget how unintuitive and paradoxical this is. It's pretty amazing how easily we FORGET...
Break-through this morning in a meeting at work
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