Picture Yourself Free from Anxiety
Anxiety can be overwhelming, and it can be hard to picture yourself free from anxiety. However, sometimes picturing ourselves free from anxiety is exactly what will help get rid of it.
Picture Yourself Living a Life Free From Anxiety
When we're consumed by anxiety, we see anxiety. We feel it. We live it. We hate it; but often we don't know what we can do to break free. A powerful first step can be to intentionally ponder how, exactly, you will be when anxiety is gone from your life and what exact steps you will take to become free from anxiety.
It's important to move beyond, "I don't want to have anxiety," because with this, the focus remains on anxiety itself and it's hard to know what will take anxiety's place. Consider your whole self when visualizing the anxiety-free you:
- What will your thoughts be like? Be aware of negative thought patterns that contribute to your anxiety and replace them with healthier ones.
- What will your emotions be like? Fear, anxiety, worry, despair, and other such unpleasant emotions truly can recede into the background, allowing room for joyful feelings.
- What will your behavior be like? In other words, what will you be able to do, what actions will you be able to take, once you are free from anxiety?
Take Action to Achieve the Vision of Your Anxiety-Free Self
Picturing ourselves living free from anxiety is, indeed, an important first step. We must go beyond imagining ourselves living without anxiety and take action to achieve it.
This involves determining what steps we need to take in order to embody the image we have for our ideal, anxiety-free self. Solution-focused anxiety therapy offers practical, realistic, easy-to-follow ways of working toward and ultimately achieving your goal. Essentially, we want to inch our way toward our anxiety-free life. What will move us toward our vision today? What little things can we do to make it happen?
Through visualizing how you will be when you are free from anxiety, and then taking action to move toward that life, you just might find yourself becoming your vision. In the video, I talk more about this and share a powerful metaphor (it relates to the above image) that has helped a great number of people, myself included, in meeting goals, not the least of which is living free from anxiety.
https://youtu.be/yd59VLvn1K0
You can also connect with Tanya J. Peterson on her website, Google+, Facebook,Twitter, Linkedin and Pinterest.
APA Reference
Peterson, T.
(2015, March 26). Picture Yourself Free from Anxiety, HealthyPlace. Retrieved
on 2024, November 5 from https://www.healthyplace.com/blogs/anxiety-schmanxiety/2015/03/picture-yourself-free-from-anxiety
Author: Tanya J. Peterson, MS, NCC, DAIS
Great post! Yes, it is indeed important to be free from anxiety and prevent it for good, and not take it for granted.
Pamela
http://haartfelt.com
I love your sunflower analogy! Thanks for all the great posts you do...they help me so much.
Hi Sheila!
I'm so happy that these posts are helpful. I like to share info/tips/etc. that have been helpful to me personally and that have been helpful to others professionally. It was fun to share the sunflower analogy because it really is meaningful to me. :)