09. Habits and Perseverence

Conditioning

Anxiety is part of a learnt response. First comes the thought, which is then followed by the adrenaline. Because it is a learnt response, this means that it can be unlearnt, or changed.

Perfect learning is what we refer to when a person has a phobic reaction to something at a particular time and then they go on to have that same response every time they are faced with the same situation.

Perfect learning, however, is far from being the perfect way to develop your character. As we grow older, we begin to see that our learnt responses were not entirely thought out and may need changing. Luckily for us, they can be changed.

If you have a bold commitment, you can change your response.

The simplest and easiest way to change is to use relaxation.

Whatever belief you have, you have conditioned yourself and you’ll be getting a subconscious release of fear which is out of your control. If you use deep relaxation and go into a state of relaxation, you can face the situations which are only imaginary in your head and you can change the responses.

Cycles

Often when we have anxiety, we focus only on this moment as if it were the only way things have been and the only way they will always be.

We can only see the moment and we think “this is it”; this is how it’s going to be “forever”. The fact that we think we’re never going to get out this situation is what makes it much worse. If we learn, instead, to say “This too shall pass”, we can remember that anxiety levels always go up and down.

There’s a cycle to them. The fact that we have times when we feel better or worse in life means that we can also learn to get a better perspective. We can see that, just as with the changing seasons, our moods also change and they too will pass. Almost immediately, we do see a change when we apply this perspective to our understanding of cycles.

Writing things down and realizing that, even when we’re in those situations, the bigger picture is still around. If we focus on the little details, we may not find our way out of it so fast. If we focus on the bigger picture, however, we may realize that this is just for today. We may feel a little anxious or down for today, but it will pass.

Perseverence

As with any kind of training, perseverance in you’re practice is what counts.

When you’re dealing with anxiety, there’ll be times when you have setbacks. Those setbacks can be for two reasons: either a memory has been triggered, or the old pathways have, for some reason, been activated in your brain.

There are also physical cycles when we have more energy and less energy. There are times when we think or feel more clearly and other times when we think and feel not too clearly. Bearing in mind that we go through these cycles in our lives, it’s not surprising that we may have a setback or more anxiety.

Perseverence is what makes the difference.

When we are in a state of anxiety, we have a tendency to want to give up because it’s simply too painful. These times, however, are the most important times to persevere because they offer the greatest opportunity for growth.

Perseverance is an attitude we need to cultivate and remind ourselves that, not only are we conditioning a relaxation response to anxiety, we are conditioning an attitude of perseverance itself.

We keep going back to it again and again. We remind ourselves that we now have a purpose, a direction and new meaning into our lives.

Using the overall system, or just different techniques from the system, brings us back to our purpose of improving our attitude and finding freedom from anxiety.

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