So what is the connection with panics?
Well, I was watching a programme yesterday about downhill skiers. They race down the mountains without a thought of the dangers involved because for them they just enjoy the excitement and want to be the fastest.
However, being the nature of the sport, accidents do happen and because of the speeds involved, when they do crash, it's often serious. The programme interviewed some of the skiers who had experienced severe accidents and it was really sad that they could no longer do what they loved.
There was one case though where after a bad crash he walked away uninjured, and yet his career was also over.
You see, whether an injury is physical or mental, a bad experience can still cause an "injury" that can take a long time to heal.
Even when an injury is purely physical, the physical healing can still only be half the battle. The reason being that after a bad experience, whether mental or physical, our confidence disappears to be replaced with self-doubt.
The skier who stopped racing after his accident where there was no physical injury said afterwards that when he stood at the top of the mountain, all he could picture was his crash and "what if" the crash happened again whereas before all he could see was the finishing line and how to get there in the fastest possible time. He had lost all his confidence and he added that in his sport if he even attempted to race again, there wold be "much greater risk" of another accident happening again purely because he'd lost his confidence and self-belief. He said that the only way to tackle a mountain was to "attack it" and not be tentative or afraid of it or you're defeated before you start.
So, you see the connection with panics?
We're going along doing our daily business without a care in the world (or so it seems) when suddenly we suffer a panic (our injury). We then become afraid that they'll keep occurring if we attempt to continue "racing" and then that fear defeats us before we start so we can sometimes end up never "racing" again.
People say we have to face our fears which is true but often sufferers will say they just end up feeling worse because it's a fight because the panics keep coming back. Well, facing our fears is only partly true. It's "how" we face them that is crucial.
If we stand on top of a mountain after an accident and say to ourselves we're going to face our fear of crashing but feel terrified before we start our run, there is a Huge possibilty that we will crash again and it'll destroy our confidence even further. Therefore, the crucial part is to install the self-belief that was lost which often means skiing down a mountain "slowly" and stopping at stages until we rebuild our confidence in our own abilities.
Only once you rebuild the key- "confidence" - will panics disappear because self-confidence stops you "worrying" about them and so like the skiier, accidents are then less likely to happen...and if they do, we just pick ourselves up and keep going with the new knowledge we've gained in how to defeat them.
Healing just takes time, patience, knowledge, willpower and the key ingredient.....building self-confidence...which are the tools to defeat fear.
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thanks Bill. Another inspirational post.
