ANXIETY DISORDERS/WORKING THROUGH THE RECOVERY: BACK TO BASICS
Understanding setbacks
Setbacks are unavoidable. In fact, the more we have the better! Each setback teaches us more about ourselves and our disorder, and strengthens and refines our management skills. To work through to recovery we need to understand why setbacks happen.
As an example, our threshold to stress may now be at level zero. Practising our management skills will raise our threshold to stress to level one. We then experience our first breakthrough— we feel no fear or anxiety. This brings a complete clarity of thought and a total sense of freedom. Any stress higher than level one will be enough to start the whole vicious cycle again. Inevitably, this happens and we have a setback.
It is not so much the stress itself which causes the setback as how we think about it. When a stress is higher than our threshold, we automatically slip back into our old way of thinking. Anxiety and attacks follow. We become so caught up in it that we are not even aware that we have fallen back into the cycle. Only when we become aware of it can we do something about it.
Identifying the stress will show why the setback has happened. Whatever the stress is, it will be higher than we can tolerate at this point. If we are working from zero, identification is not difficult, as the normal day-to-day stress will trigger the automatic cycle of thinking.
When we become aware of why it has happened, the next step is to resolve any issues relating to the stress and to let the setback happen. Our threshold to stress will continue to rise as long as we continue with management skills. We will then reach level two. Any stress higher than level two will trigger a set back. Again we go through the principles outlined above. This is when we need to have patience. This is the working-through process.
Steps in the working-through process:
• Isolate the stress/es
• Be aware of how we are thinking about them
• Resolve any issues relating to the stress
• Let go of anxiety-producing thoughts
• Let the setback happen
• Continue with meditation
• Continue to work with our thinking
If we are working from level zero, the first breakthrough usually only lasts for about an hour as the daily stress will trigger the automatic way of thinking. With continued practice of the above, our threshold to stress will continue to rise. We will begin to experience days and then weeks of clarity and freedom. When we have a setback after these periods, everything does seem much worse and more hopeless. It isn’t. Only the comparison between these two ways of being makes it appear so. We will reach the point where there are no more setbacks. Clarity of thought and the sense of freedom will then become our automatic way of thinking and feeling.
If we are not sure why we are having a setback, we can write a list of everything that is currently happening in our life. There may be family problems, a difficult financial or work situation, children home on school holidays. There can be many reasons.
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