Cure Panic Attacks Naturally

[NOTE: This is transcript of a spoken presentation. Please excuse the conversational grammar.]

If you have panic attacks, I first want to say that you've really already made the first step of resolving the condition. A lot of people, when they first encounter anxiety disorders, don't initially know whats going on, and that can really make the condition a lot more frightening and kind of leave you in the dark about what to do about it. But at this point, if you've already identified your condition as panic disorder, you've probably already discovered that its a very common mental health issue. And there are multiple approaches that you can take to overcoming it. What I want to do here is share with you one of those approaches that worked amazingly well for me.

So, starting with the assumption that what you're experiencing is in fact panic, the next step is to determine why that anxiety has arisen in your life, and then implement a strategy to reverse that trend.

In most cases the cause of anxiety lies with your thought processes - meaning, the way you mentally perceive your world and what you expect from it. A person with an anxious mind often has their thoughts dominated by fear-based thinking and negative expectations. Putting your anxiety aside for a minute, are you also a worrier? Do you get nervous very often? Or do you experience stress sensations very often? If the answer is "yes", don't be surprised. Anxiety, worry, stress, nervousness, they're all kind of the same thing - negativity relating to fear based expectations about future events or even your current environment.

Some worry is okay. It can be worry that motivates us to take action to improve our lives, or to study for a test. For some people, anxiety is the last line of defense that gets them up in the morning, going to work and avoiding homelessness. And its nervousness that helps keep us alert and on guard in truly dangerous situations.

However, problems arise if we develop a mental habit of worrying about trivial matters, or if normal everyday situations start to cause us to become nervous. Because theoretically, everything we do in every moment of our lives has the potential for causing worry, nervousness or various anxiety sensations. There's always the possibility that something might not go the way we want. And if we let that perpetual flow of negative possibilities and potentials dominate our thinking, then sooner or later issues anxiety will likely arise. It may begin subtly, but it can get to the point that even when you're relaxing or doing what were once leisure activities, the overload of negatives thoughts, worries and fears that continue to linger in the subconscious mind can create a constant anxiety sensation. It may start off feeling like simple stress, but long term symptoms of anxiety can include panic attacks, agoraphobia, mild depression, derealization... things like headaches, dizziness, and all sorts of other symptoms.

So this might ring a bell with you, and hopefully it makes sense, because understanding the origin of your anxiety symptoms will make many of the solutions seem a lot more logical. And that sort of understanding may also be somewhat comforting.

But of course you're probably more interested in treating the anxiety, and getting on with your life. So the logical solution you would think, from what I've said so far, would be to start thinking thoughts that are more positive... to stop focusing on the negative potential of everything in life, and to start seeing the positive. This reminds me of something that Albert Einstein once said which was "the most important decision that we make in our lives is whether we believe we live in a friendly universe or a hostile one"... and that really is profound, because it's a choice that will greatly affect how we interact with our world. And you can really go either way - there is no absolute truth, only what you choose to create with your perception. Things will fall into place in accordance with what you believe. And I think in the long run, as an anxiety sufferer, it's really is in your best self interest to try to cultivate an overall attitude or outlook on life that's somewhat more on the positive side.

However, I also know, and you've probably discovered, that its nearly impossible to think positive thoughts all day long. And, in fact, trying to do that can actually make things worse - it can be frustrating. Because you have an "intellect", which is the inner part of "you" that automatically analyzes what you think and comes up with a thought about the thought - often an argument based on past conflicting experience. And that internal argument can easily transform your nice positive thought into an even more negative one.

For example, suppose you try to think a positive thought about yourself, something to improve your self-esteem maybe. And then there's that little voice inside your head that argues back that says "no you're not" or "no you cannot", or "but that's not what so-and-so said". And then that little voice has essentially turned that positive thought into a negative one. So to keep things simple, what I suggest is that you start by focusing on just one somewhat more positive thought. And make it something that's at the same time realistic - meaning that it's something you can believe. This way, your intellect wont reject it as intensely, or not as automatically.

As an anxiety sufferer myself, there was one particular thought that I worked with that really helped me to reverse all my other tendencies toward negative and fearful thinking. I didn't have to think about putting a positive thought to every moment of my life because I simple used that one single thought for pretty much all situations. And with time, more positive thoughts just naturally flowed from that first one because the more I thought about this one particular thought, the more my mind actually believed it. And eventually it really started to reshape my perceptions. It was kind of like a foundation belief that all the other more positive thoughts started to be drawn from.... like a basis for a new inner voice.

Okay, so you're probably wondering what that thought was. I first want to say that I'm calling it a "thought", but you might see it as a "belief". Either way, whatever it started as, I continued thinking and reinforcing it until I saw it as an absolute truth in my life.

The belief that I used to begin reversing anxiety disorder, and one that you may want to try cultivating yourself is one that says:

"I can handle it"  ,  "you can handle"  ,  "your name here can handle it"

This means that whatever you're worried about, whatever you're nervous about, whatever that negative possibility is, that which you fear happening, realize that you could handle it if it did happen.

When you fully internalize and believe this, you'll no longer dwell on the negative possibilities so much -- they just wont be so significant. And the fact is that this new thought or belief is almost certainly the truth - so it will be hard for your intellect to argue with. Because of that, it shouldn't be too difficult to apply this thought to just about everything you do. The fact is that you've been through quite a bit in your life already to have survived this long. And for all the situations and emotional events that you've been through already, there obviously haven't been any that you couldn't handle. Nothing has killed you yet. You're still alive. You're here, reading this, looking for a better way in life. You've survived everything so far. And if the past is any indicator of the future, you'll survive a lot more. And whether you know you can or worry that you can't, you will. The human mind's ability to solve problems and endure emotional adversity is absolutely enormous. And if you start to cultivate trust in that inherent capacity within you, you'll simply be a happier person and less overwhelmed by the negative potential that lies within every moment in life.

What does "negative" really mean anyway? Some of the greatest things that have happened to me in my life came out of what I initially thought were negative experiences, but they turned out to be positive once. So, once again, it's all in your perception. And when it comes to emotional possibilities, the belief that "I can handle it" is really a true one. So why surrender the beauty of your present moment to faulty thinking and anxiety? The only reason that you're encountering excessive anxiety or nervousness is because you've started to falsely believe otherwise. Try cultivating a real feeling in your heart that "I can handle whatever happens". Start seeing your world, your future, your every moment in that new light of this new perception. And in the presence of this one true belief, your worry thoughts, your negative thoughts, what if thoughts - they'll all just lose their power. And I think there's a very good chance it will help you overcome a fair amount, or maybe all, of your anxiety.

Just remember that whatever it is that you're worried about, stressed about, anxious about: you can handle it. Whatever the worst case scenario is that you're imagining, you will be able to handle it if it does happen. With this new foundation perception, negative possibilities will no longer be so significant to you. And you won't build up nearly the level of negative expectations that are currently feeding into your anxiety issues.

I hope this insight has been beneficial to you. I realize that not every person is the same, so what worked for my anxiety may not be right for everyone. But if something here rang a bell for you, I want to say that this approach also works extremely well when used in conjunction with my primary technique:

Free Program to Stop Panic Attacks and other Anxiety Disorders