Last night I watched an episode of Dr Phil - an American talk show programme.
The topic was about "Fear".
Dr Phil had a few people on the show discussing about how fear had taken over their lives.
One of the ladies interviewed was afraid of dying, this affected every minute of her life.
She had been to the emergency room about 15 times with fear of various illnesses like for example a heart attack, she was even afriad that whilst walking down the road something might fall on her head and kill her.
This poor lady cried through the programme.
Another lady experienced fear of driving or even being driven for fear that she will be involved in an accident with every driving experience she undertook.
Dr Phil talked about how it was not the specific fear they feared but that free floating anxiety brought about a specific fear, basically you can be afraid of anything it does not matter what it is - it all boils down to the same thing which is FEAR.
I could relate to this because I believe this is how it does happen.
We have all this free floating anxiety within us, this fear and we have to attach it to something, I don't know why we pick the fear we do but something needs to justify the anxiety.
In my case with my ocd I seem to latch on to being accidentally responsible for someones death in way of say if I spilt water on the floor and did not mop it up, I would worry about someone slipping on it, falling over banging their head on the ground and subsequently dying from this.
This ocd was with me for quite a while making my life really hard constantly worrying about causing someone death indirectly.
But what I feel is clear is that when we suffer from anxiety which is really "fear" we cling on to some fear and feel it to be real because we think it, although we know deep down (and really not even that deep down) that these thoughts are irrational and not true.
So its not so much what we fear - that we have to cure - its the fear behind it that we have to remove.
I think also as Dr Phil stated, we feel we are losing control - of not being in control that we mainly fear.
To get over fear I feel we need to know and accept that its only a thought a thought that we have latched on to and because we think it, we also feel it in our bodies and therefore feel it to be something to worry about and constantly watch.
We therefore have to know the facts about anxiety - and accept it as an illness that is one of fear - that gives us fear - period.
Therefore we have to accept the thoughts as just that - thoughts - we have to allow them to be - we have to think them but not react to them - its the reaction to them that keeps them alive and keeps the cycle going.
If we can but just stand in the face of fear and allow it to pass - we will begin to desensitize and the anxiety level will begin to reduce back to normal.
The topic was about "Fear".
Dr Phil had a few people on the show discussing about how fear had taken over their lives.
One of the ladies interviewed was afraid of dying, this affected every minute of her life.
She had been to the emergency room about 15 times with fear of various illnesses like for example a heart attack, she was even afriad that whilst walking down the road something might fall on her head and kill her.
This poor lady cried through the programme.
Another lady experienced fear of driving or even being driven for fear that she will be involved in an accident with every driving experience she undertook.
Dr Phil talked about how it was not the specific fear they feared but that free floating anxiety brought about a specific fear, basically you can be afraid of anything it does not matter what it is - it all boils down to the same thing which is FEAR.
I could relate to this because I believe this is how it does happen.
We have all this free floating anxiety within us, this fear and we have to attach it to something, I don't know why we pick the fear we do but something needs to justify the anxiety.
In my case with my ocd I seem to latch on to being accidentally responsible for someones death in way of say if I spilt water on the floor and did not mop it up, I would worry about someone slipping on it, falling over banging their head on the ground and subsequently dying from this.
This ocd was with me for quite a while making my life really hard constantly worrying about causing someone death indirectly.
But what I feel is clear is that when we suffer from anxiety which is really "fear" we cling on to some fear and feel it to be real because we think it, although we know deep down (and really not even that deep down) that these thoughts are irrational and not true.
So its not so much what we fear - that we have to cure - its the fear behind it that we have to remove.
I think also as Dr Phil stated, we feel we are losing control - of not being in control that we mainly fear.
To get over fear I feel we need to know and accept that its only a thought a thought that we have latched on to and because we think it, we also feel it in our bodies and therefore feel it to be something to worry about and constantly watch.
We therefore have to know the facts about anxiety - and accept it as an illness that is one of fear - that gives us fear - period.
Therefore we have to accept the thoughts as just that - thoughts - we have to allow them to be - we have to think them but not react to them - its the reaction to them that keeps them alive and keeps the cycle going.
If we can but just stand in the face of fear and allow it to pass - we will begin to desensitize and the anxiety level will begin to reduce back to normal.