At last a life quotes

Here’s some quotes from a book called at last a life. it’s about anxiety and panic recovery but also talks about pain


“When a thought enters your head, the moment a negative

emotion is attached to it and you are probably having that

sickly feeling in the pit of your stomach, you need to get rid of

this emotion and adopt a ‘whatever’, ‘as if’ attitude to your

thoughts. It takes time and effort, but the rewards are huge

and if you can recreate this new emotion - a ‘don’t care’

emotion - then you will be able to dismiss the thoughts as

utter rubbish and they will diminish. At the moment, the fear

you feel for the thoughts is what is keeping them coming.

Once the fear has gone they will have no hold over you

whatsoever”


“ but this is what keeps us ill - impatience. We search

around thinking there must be something out there, something we

have missed. “Just choose one road to follow and stick to it. It stops all that searching around in your mind for an answer, tiring your mind even

further and putting you under more stress, when this is the last thing

you need.”


“100% and just do as you say. Smile at them if you wish. Say 'yes, as

if' it’s just my anxiety finding an escape route. I had such thoughts

and just paid them no respect. In time, without the fuel of fear, my

anxiety levels dropped and became weaker and weaker.”


“It's not about forcing yourself to accept it every second of

every day, it’s about your attitude towards it. I admit, these

past three days, there have been times when I have felt

absolutely HORRIBLE, but I kept saying to myself “do it

anyway. Talk to your room mates. Go to dinner with a

friend. Get your work done at work. What has anxiety done

to me so far? It hasn't killed me”


“if I do TRY to feel better then it is actually causing me to care

about how I am feeling, which causes the worry and

obsessing habit to return. I think I am on track with something here. It’s that basic need to be in control that

holds us back.”


“Don’t “try” to let it go, don’t force it away and

don’t try to make yourself feel better. Don’t try to talk yourself

down but invite every bit of it in. Live it, experience it, realise

that it’s all a part of what you are going through. Don’t fear it.

You WILL NOT collapse and die. So what if you look a bit

weird in front of people? This is you now (just for now and that’s okay) getting better and you will soon be back to your

old self. Remove the fear and you remove the problem”


“Why do I feel like this? Why am I not getting better? Will this

ever go away? What if I do this, that and the other – will it help? I

never gave myself a break from the subject and made the mistake of

trying to fight and think my way better. This has the same effect as

hitting a broken leg with a hammer, it will never recover.


“just living my life and not

living it trying to rid myself of anxiety each day, I felt the old me

returning and I began to feel more normal. My day consisted of

something else other than being immersing in how I felt. My mind

had been given a break and had something else to concentrate on.”


“When you learn to accept this and give it as little attention as

possible, you may find it eases as your head muscles relax. I always tell

people not to try to do anything about it. Symptoms hate to be

ignored and this applies to them all.”



“To release yourself from fear, you have

to become present to the experience of fear itself rather than simply

trying to get rid of it or running away


“She had finally got it. It was the fighting, trying to control the anxiety

that made her sink deeper into the condition


The one thing I learnt is that you have to

lose the need to be in control. At one time, if I did not feel right then I

felt I had to fix it, but I eventually learned to go with the ‘craziness. your attitude towards it, you need to reach a stage where it no longer matters”


“My mind is a little tired at the

moment, there is nothing I can do about it and worrying about it “does not help. Anyway, it will not be there when I recover”


“accepting feeling strange means not trying

to work out why you feel like you do, not trying to get rid of these

feelings and not running away from them. It’s about being prepared”


“bad today, when you felt so good last

week. It is not important so just accept these days as part of your

recovery.”


“what happens when you decide to just get on with your day and not

add more worry and fear to how you are feeling, it is the letting go

that calms the nerves”


“Don’t try to stop feelings of panic

coming – just let the adrenalin come without fighting or pushing it

away. Don’t try to stop scary thoughts coming”


“Worry just brings stress, and it was one of the first things I stopped doing when I was on the road to recovery. I knew it was just counter productive and it would do me no good at all. The less I worried, the easier it became”.


“I have now realised that I don’t have to analyse the hell out of this”. Never has a truer word been spoken.”


“Once I had practiced the whole ‘whatever’ attitude it came naturally”


“Personally, I just gave up the daily battle and stopped putting all this

pressure to feel better on myself, fighting my way through each day.

I now realise how all this just increased my feelings of anxiety and

added to the way I felt. I was not giving my mind and body one

minute’s rest.”


“ we’re anxious because

we’re anxious. Do you know what I mean? All the “Oh God, I hate

this, I just want it to go away. When will this ever end?” This is what

keeps your nerves tense; you are not giving them chance to calm

down. It does not matter whether you feel anxious or not, your

nerves will have a chance to rest as long as you don’t fall into this

trap.”


“It's time to put your fear aside, and allow your mind/body to find its

own natural balance. It will do so when and only when you begin to

step out of your own way. This will happen. Trust your body by

stepping back and allowing the natural process of rejuvenation to

occur. Without worry, the fuel for continued distress is removed”

 

This is very aligned with practices such as radical acceptance, stoicism, outcome independence, etc. Thank you for sharing!