Introduction.
I want to begin with the end of this book (serialised in blog form here). Bear with me. The reason I want to do this is that in reading this book I am inviting you to make changes in your life to dramatically bring down
your Anxiety. Here’s what I write later on;
“Einstein is often wrongly quoted as saying “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” The thing is as humans we are often deeply flawed and we do, well, just that! So if your aim is to reduce your Anxiety what is it that you are going to do that is
different?
What changes are you going to make?
None? The results will be the same. Einstein supposedly said so...High Anxiety.
To spur you on I want to tell you what I see time and time again with people I work with. They
make small, small, tiny changes. But here’s the thing...We think they are small, they are not.
The effect of those seemingly tiny changes is huge. They snowball, you gain self-belief, self-
control – you gain autonomy and direction and guess what...you have started an incredible
journey to reduce your Anxiety and have a better and more fulfilled life.
What is your first change, however seemingly small, going to be?”
So my invitation to you as you read this book (here in serialised blog form) is to think carefully of what your changes will be. I work with a lot of people with Anxiety. I use the analogy of Anxiety being like monkeys running around in our head with my clients. They are out of control, they chatter endlessly,
run around and get very, very noisy – the monkeys, not my clients. One of my clients (she
gave me permission to include this) looked at me and said “John. I don’t just have a couple of
monkeys running around up there. I have a whole wildlife park!” She paused. Looked at me
intently and then added “And they’re ripping the windscreen wipers off the car!!!” If you are
reading this book you might well be able to relate to that analogy and this book is written for
you.
I have worked with many, many clients who are variously highly successful, personable, high
achieving, generally fulfilled, have successful relationships and have achieved many
important life goals but they are plagued by one thing...Anxiety. So I want to deliberately start
with a huge positive that you / we / all of us are not defined by, or limited by the condition
that is Anxiety. If you pause and think for a moment, you will see in your life that you have
achieved many, many positive things despite your Anxiety and in fact it really hasn’t limited
you. Quite the opposite. Given that you are reading this we can thank Anxiety for keeping us
alive! This is why this book is called “Dramatically Reduce Your Anxiety” and not “Remove
Your Anxiety”.
You see, we don’t under any circumstances want to remove our anxious responses as they
keep us safe. They serve to keep us away from danger and alive. They stop you thinking things
like “I’ll pick up that spider”, “Stroke that rattlesnake.” “Wrestle that bear...” OK, exaggerated
and simplistic examples, but I hope you take my point.
It is also reassuring to know that Anxiety is a completely natural state, even desirable
depending on the situation. The good news is that standard Anxiety will always come down,
the body’s fight / flight response that Anxiety triggers will always, always return to “normal”
or to equilibrium. Before you metaphorically throw something at me, a spider or a snake
perhaps, I know that you are reading this particular book because your Anxiety is not
“standard” at all. It, perhaps, is almost permanently elevated or is overpowering when it
arrives and it is for you that this book is written as you are suffering from an Anxiety disorder.
Before you plunge down a chasm of despair there is reassurance here too. Over 30% of us will
experience Anxiety disorders in our lives – that’s a huge number of us. Changing the way you
think, often referred to mindset, has a dramatic impact on lessening Anxiety but we need
some practical tools to do this.
Already I am beginning to reframe for you how you see your levels of Anxiety and this is key
to how this book will work. This is the process that I work through with clients in my therapy
practice. But not everyone is able to access or has the time for the therapeutic process.
Instead I want to give you real / concrete ideas and processes that are going to help you
dramatically reduce your Anxiety.
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