Is acceptance acceptable?

[Firehead]

Seven years ago (nearly to the day) I had my first episode of anxiety/panic/depression. I've been back to work and off sick three times since then.

After all those years of therapy, self-help, meditation and medication I have finally realised: I am an anxious person. That is to say, anxious to the point of being pathological. I haven't been able to work "properly" in all this time. I have been extremely lucky to have an employer that let me do as I pleased at work ... within reason! However, things are different currently and the work environment is much tougher.

I now accept that I am an anxious person, always have been and always will be. I need to do what is best for me and mine BUT must incorporate this fact into my behaviour.

The "old me" would have called this "giving-up" but the "new me" calls it "wising-up".

Am I deluding myself?

[Catherine S]

Firehead,

I think you're spot on and I posted a thread about this very thing last week. I particularly like the bit about wising up as opposed to giving up. I too have suffered for many years and now accept that being anxious in certain situations is part of who I am, or I should say who I became through living with it. It does restrict my life but I have my ways of coping so that I am no longer the hermit I was in the beginning :)

ISB x

[swgrl09]

I think acceptance is extremely helpful. I believe that we all have reasons we are anxious, whether they make sense or not now, at some time in our lives something happened that caused us to react like this. Fighting it sometimes just makes things worse. If I can accept when I am getting anxious, I actually calm down quite quicker.

I think having compassion for ourselves for why we are anxious is more helpful than getting frustrated with ourselves (easier said than done sometimes).

An example would be that I became anxious about health problems really badly after my mom got sick and died out of nowhere and doctors didn't help her. When I sit down and really think about why I react the way I do, it makes so much sense. Like ... why wouldn't I get anxious now? Why wouldn't I be hyperaware of my health? Why wouldn't I be afraid? It makes total sense. Having compassion for this part of me that reacts like this actually helps me feel better and calmer at times, whereas getting frustrated and angry at myself makes it worse for me.

[inCOGnito]

I don't think it's completely necessary to label yourself as an "anxious person" as you are defining yourself. You then carry that label with you for life, incorporating it into your belief system.

Personally I wouldn't make it so concrete. You don't know what you or life will be like tomorrow, next week, or next year.

Another way of looking at it would be to say something like this - "For whatever reason I have had anxious feelings and behaviour for the last seven years. It's a part of my conditioning. It can and may change in the future."

Something like that would be my preference as it doesn't give you a sticky belief that is harder to change.

[Firehead]

Cheers for that, it helps.

This is my very belated reply!

[DustingMyselfOff]

I like it. I think acceptance is key, and not dwelling on it.
Sue

[ankietyjoe]

Acceptance is the key to non-suffering, but I don't think there's such a thing as a person who is naturally anxious. It's not a normal state for the mind and body to be in, and it doesn't like to be in it either.

What I do believe is that there are lifestyle choices, and ways of living forced on us by modern society that we think are normal, but in fact aren't. You'll think your life is normal, but it's actually very stressful to the system. There are myriad sources of this stress too, which need to be dealt with holistically from multiple angles. But it's up to the individual to identify what those sources of stress are.