Sometimes I think we complicate things that don’t need to be so complicated. Anxiety, worry and fear are often the worst offenders of complicating experiences - they seem to strive for chaos. For what it’s worth, my personal and professional experiences confirm that the most effective strategy for reducing the power of these culprits, is to simply have a plan. The more detailed your plan, the weaker anxiety becomes. Focus of something you are worried about (such as pain getting worse), feel the anxiety rise in your body and mind - then put together a plan and feel the anxiety settle down. Whenever I worried about what people thought of me (if I was consulting or presenting) I had a plan to follow one of my core mantras:
People will forget things you say and things you do,
But they will never forget how you made them feel.
Often the worry and fear are not knowing what is coming, and how it will impact you. If you can develop a plan that activates aspects of your parasympathetic system, at the start of each day, that worry and fear will fade significantly. Many panic attacks have been prevented with this strategy.🙏
