What do you mean by acceptance???

[hannah84]

Hi everyone,

I have been on here many times over the last 4 or so months posting about my fears, syptoms etc and reading everyone elses posts and i have come across the word acceptance many many times and people have been saying that the way to beat panic is to accept them well i understand this but i was hoping that someone can tell me how i do this, I mean has anyone done this and got over them is this an actual real way of beating them? i mean is there any proper way you do it or is it just something you have to sit your self down and say you know im not scared anymore bring on the worst if you know what i mean? (Im sorry Im waffling.)
When do you just accept them at what point because i have had them for nearly ten years now and i have never accepted them but i can definatly see my future without them and if that means that i have to accept them first then i will definatly try it.
So if anyone has any personal or second hand experience please let me know.
Thank you so much x x

[Spagetti]

Hi,

Well what I was taught to do is when experiencing symptoms of anxiety is to tell myself that it is anxiety, it cannot hurt me, and the symptoms will pass. At the same time breathe deeply and slowly to calm the body down. The idea is to put these rational thoughts into the unconscious mind so they become automatic, and so the symptoms of anxiety cease.

You cannot put a time limit on this, just keep practising and dont be too disheartened if it doesnt work at first. Time and patience is the key.

Hope this helps and good luck xx

[Jaco45er]

Spagetti is spot on.

Acceptance is how you think, not how you feel.

If you have an anxiety attack, then tense up, fight it, get angry, let your thoughts spiral into the future that this is you for life, then this only leads to more tension and feeds the anxiety.

However, during anxiety, if you can think "no big deal, it will pass, it won't harm me" and carry on regardless (I nearly burst into a Beautiful South song then ), then with time, anxiety well impact less and less.

Check out Claire Weekes Books.

GL

Jaco

[NotResponding]

oh, i thought of acceptance in a different way....a defeatist way. i accept that i have the anxiety, dont fight it, know it like a friend. i have to live with it, and build my life around it, such as working from home, being okay about being lonely, keeping occupied n stuff. but thts only because i think i've got this for life now...
hmmmm, okay that sounds negative, but im so used to it by now.

[Slothette]

I agree with Jacko - you carry on regardless and you dont let it stop you doing anything because acceptance means realising (thinking & believing ) that anxiety cannot harm you.

[Brunette]

Hi Hannah,

Think of this this way:

You are neither fighting your panic (avoid this all costs as it will make you worse) nor giving in to it, you are just accepting it and letting it pass - think Zen!

Also imagine, for instance, that you are sitting at your desk at work and you have a mild headache or a touch of heartburn. What would you do? Would you feel like fleeing? Would you have to go home? No, you would take a couple of tablets and just carry on. You would feel uncomfortable for a while until the tablets kicked in but
it wouldn't get in the way anything you wanted to do and by the end of the day you will probably have forgotten all about it.

Start thinking of your panic in this way, as no more than a mild inconvenience, and it will gradually lose all its power.

I can vouch for the fact that this really does work.

B

[MathewAnxiety]

and the best thing is to try to ignore it, try to not pay attention to it and still do the things you like, its hard i kno. but after 2 years i have gotten a lot better

[PUGLETMUM]

hi, yes it can be done! - my take on it though is not trying to change ANYTHING - sorry jaco, for contradicting you but, true ACCEPTANCE, the real buddhist menaing of that state of mind - is not trying to change anything - but knowing that no matte rwhat comes and goes in the brain, is just like waves on the surface of the sea - sometimes calm sometimes very rough, but the oceon holds the waves - so 'we' are the oceon or the sky and our thoughts are the waves or the clouds they just come and go no matter how bad they are - trying to manipulate the brain and thoughts will only lead to trouble - think of a polar bear - now try to NOT think of a polar bear for a whole minute! - did you succeed? - i doubt it - what we try to suppress only comes back stronger - true acceptance is knowing our true nature - even if that is a frightened, timid one and getting on with life around that like th eother poster said - acceptance is a hard state of mind to acheive and i feel it is best to do it with help and guidance - try jon kabat-zinn for inspirationa dn guidance on how to truly accept yourself and your situation for better or for worse

[PUGLETMUM]

should read - the real buddhist meaning, not menaing! lol

[Bill]

Personally, I've never looked into Zen, buddhist or even read books on the subject. To be perfectly honest I'm not even sure where my personal beliefs have come from except for saying what's worked for me.

Therefore, "for me", I've always thought of acceptance as saying to myself "Ok, I give up, do what you like because I know there's no point trying to resist you!". In that way, if I truly convince myself of those words my whole body just goes "limp" because I'm saying to myself "I don't care" about what anxiety wants to throw at me.

Anxiety Enjoys frightening us so it will throw irrational thoughts or worries at us in the hope of making us tense us so if we try to resist and block out these thoughts and feelings, anxiety says to itself "ah yes, you're scared of me" so like a bully it just keeps coming back for more until we stand up to it by not feeding it what it wants.

I always think of anxiety like a ghost. It will appear from seemingly nowhere and say "Boo!" and because it appears suddenly it makes us jump so we tense up which then makes us feel panicky causing us to want to run. However, if we just carry on standing there and say to the ghost "So what?", the ghost doesn't know what to do so it melts away because it knows it can't do anything more to us than present us with its image and say "Boo" in the hope we'll run so it can keep chasing us. If we stand there though, the ghost just goes through us or we reach a stalemate just looking at each other for a while waiting for it to get fed up because in reality it knows it can't actually touch or harm us.

Therefore, when I get irrational thoughts, I think of them like worries created by and based on memories stored on a tape because throughout our lives our minds will store up whatever we see and do and whatever happens to us so that when we're feeling anxious for whatever reason such as a stressful situation we're currently in or simply feeling bored, these "flashbacks" will surface because our mind is already feeling anxious so it'll search for other things from our past that worry us.

What I'm saying is that I find is it's like a snowball effect. When we start to feel anxious it trigger more worries, "what if's" and thoughts that then increase our symptoms which is why I feel its important to nip anxiety in the bud before it takes hold. Once it takes hold it can feel So much more difficult to "accept" the feelings because the ghost gains power and grows to feel so real when it isn't.

The more we try to "fight" anxiety i.e. resist, control or push away, the more we feed it what it wants. For me, I've found that to take away its power means to allow anxiety to create whatever thoughts it wants and feelings it wants to create but accept them as just thoughts and feelings based on worries and say to myself "So what?" and I then find that although the thought might still surface, the frightening feelings associated with that thought melt away because I haven't allowed my ghost to frighten me because I know it can only say "Boo!"

Not sure what book or belief you'll find that in or where I've picked it up but all I know is it works for me.