To Overcome Anxiety, Divide and Conquer

Overcoming anxiety is a common, if not universal, goal among those of us who experience anxiety in any of its forms (Types of Anxiety Disorders: List of Anxiety Disorders). Unfortunately, doing so can be a daunting challenge that eventually begins to seem impossible. Fortunately, overcoming anxiety is not impossible, and it doesn’t even have to be daunting. One way to move past anxiety is to divide and conquer; in other words, break anxiety down into manageable bits and reduce it piece by piece with intentional action. 

Why Anxiety Can Seem Hard to Overcome

Anxiety is a term, a concept in the world of psychology and mental health. It’s a little word that encompasses an ocean of issues. Anxiety refers to the way people think. It refers, too, with emotions and how we feel. Anxiety refers to behavior, actions we take or don’t take because of worries, fears, guilt, regret, and more. Anxiety pertains to a large group of symptoms. Anxiety encompasses a lot of things, and for that reason it is overwhelming and can feel impossible to overcome.

The truth, though, is that anxiety is merely a word. Yes, it has deep meaning and can greatly impact our lives, but the word itself is nothing more than a group of letters. When we realize that, we can step back from anxiety as one big, overwhelming ocean that is drowning us and break it into manageable bits. We can divide and conquer and overcome anxiety.

Dividing and Conquering to Overcome Anxiety

When we see anxiety as one big, overwhelming picture, we can feel as though the ocean is one gigantic wave crashing upon us and holding us under water. Breaking it into bits, dividing anxiety into separate pieces–individual waves–allows us to conquer it.

There are manageable ways to divide and conquer anxiety, such as this plan:

1. Spend some time with it, studying it to understand your specific symptoms and how anxiety is bothering you and limiting your life.
2. Divide. Now that you know some specifics about it, you can know where you can break it apart. Awareness of your own anxiety lets you see the pieces of it.
3. Contemplate those pieces. Which ones are the most troublesome, the most life-limiting? Pick one of the worst aspects of your anxiety, and separate it from the overwhelming word anxiety. That’s your first of a series of divisions that can take place over time.
4.  After the dividing, conquer. Looking only at that one bit of anxiety, ask yourself what your life will be like when that’s no longer a problem. Be specific and describe what you will replace this bit with.
5. Take purposeful action. Create an action plan that involves multiple small steps that you can take every day to work toward your goal and vision. It can even be helpful to divide these steps into little bits, such as focusing on what you can do each hour to overcome this part of anxiety.

When thought of as a huge concept, anxiety is overwhelming, drowning us with one big, powerful wave. When we divide anxiety into manageable bits, we can take action to conquer it. Then, rather than drowning under the weight of a giant wave, we are surfing on a single wave. When that happens, we conquer our anxiety.

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from Anxiety-Schmanxiety Blog http://ift.tt/28S1poi