“It’s not the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog” (Mark Twain). Our mind can be our ultimate weapon, or it can be our ultimate weakness. Nobody can affect your mental state more than you. You are the ultimate master of your mind, that is if you know how to control it. Unfortunately, most people are unaware of this and keep on flowing through mood and anxiety swings. I realise that this is one of the core issues of the modern society, but I feel like it has been sort of a taboo subject. I feel like many perceive anxiety and depression as something abnormal, something crazy. It feels like most people think that having anxiety or depression is a sign of insanity. Well, let me tell you – it’s not. Anxiety and depression is a common mental problem many, if not most people deal with earlier or later during their life. What I want to focus on in this article is my experience with anxiety and on some tips to reduce it or to get completely rid of it. Bear in mind that I am not a professional psychiatrist. What I will be talking about is my personal experience and the methods that I have read about and personally applied in real life.
Everybody Is Judging Me
It is almost impossible to not experience the feeling of being judged by everyone. Especially in the era we live in. We are constantly exposed to the examples of how we should look like or how we should behave. We live in the information time, where media is the core of everything. From the moment we open our eyes when we wake up to the moment we fall asleep, sometimes even when we’re sleeping, we are exposed to some kind of digital input. This ranges from the social media on our phones, the news in the tv or on the billboards in the streets. We can never escape it unless we really, really try. Now this can have its upsides, but it also has its downsides. If you know how to utilise this fact, you can make an enormous impact on peoples’ lives, but if you don’t know how to protect yourself, you can fall into that judgment trap of the modern society very easily. Why do we care so much about what others think? Because we are led towards that concept. Social media is based on people caring about others. That is what drives it. Most people spend loads of time on social media, thus most people consume this kind of culture. What do you think happens once you step out from your house? You will instantly feel judged like you do on social media. Only that now you can’t filter stuff. You are you, the real you. When I was younger, anytime I would step outside I would feel like people would instantly start judging me. I would not necessarily think about it, it was more of a subconscious feeling, something you think that your can’t control, unless you know that you can. As a result of this, there is huge amounts of people feeling insecure, looking into the ground when walking on the street. Or on the other side, people feeling insecure, running their egos high by insulting others to make themselves feel better. Yep, you heard it. If you laugh at others, you are only giving in to your own insecurity. This is something I have realised only a short while ago. The people who bully and offend others are themselves very insecure, sometimes even in pain. But they don’t know how to communicate it, so they choose to hide it and try to push others down to raise their self-impression higher.
Can I Control Anxiety?
As I mentioned above, anxiety is something that comes unconsciously. It’s not like we consciously decide to be anxious… Does that mean we can’t control when it comes, or whether it comes at all? Not really. We can control it, it is only that most of us have no idea how. There are quiet a few methods I have studied and applied to control the state of my mind, which has helped me maintain its clarity. Let’s first look at some ways I personally use to control both my conscious and subconscious mind.
The Spoken Word
The way I speak to myself is probably the most effective way I use to control my mind. Show me what your words are now and I will show you how your future looks like. You become what you speak. When I spoke negative, I got negative – both in the physical world and in my mind. However, when I started speaking positive and good stuff into my life, I started seeing a positive change not only in the way I thought, but also in everything that has started happening to me. When I realised the power of this, I have started utilising it. I have started speaking gratefulness into my life, I have started speaking my goals as if they have already happened. And guess what, they actually started happening. I started talking about my business growing, I started speaking about me building other leaders who want to do the same – make this world a better place. And the law of attraction has started kicking in. In short, you need to speak not what you have that you don’t want, but what you want that you don’t have. And you need to speak it in the present, as if you already have it. “I love the people around myself, I respect them and they respect me back. I love my life and the people in it. I am so lucky, because (…) and that is why I am grateful to be where I am, alive.” Create something like this sequence and speak it out loud many times a day. I know mentors who have scheduled their alarms for every hour of the day just to consciously speak out a few sentences like that. Why so often? Because what you do consciously regularly will be embedded into your unconscious. Make that happen and you will see the results. To learn more about the power of the spoken word, check out this article of ours!
We All Have Something
You are special, but not in this sense. Everyone has their own issues and you are not an exception. We all have something we are insecure about, something we are not proud of. The difference between the people who are anxious about it and the people who are not is that the people who tackled anxiety learned to be proud of their weaknesses. They understand that we all have something and that the only person who decides how we deal with it is us. At the end of the day, you are the only one who determines whether you can handle anxiety or not. It is completely in your hands, but it is a long-term fight. You can’t shift your mindset in a period of a few days. It takes a continuous effort and consistence.
They Actually Don’t Care
When you step out of your room and you feel like everyone is constantly judging you because of your acne, your new jacket that you’re not used to wearing or some other external thing, you need to understand that most people actually don’t care. Look at is from your own perspective. When you see someone on the street who has a funny hairstyle, how long do you think about it? Probably like 5 seconds and then you mind your own business. This is true for most people. The people who see you with that new jacket will probably think about it for a few seconds and then will forget about ever seeing it. Like I said before, everyone has their own issues that they care about much more than about what kind of clothes you wear.
A Little Tip on How to Calm Down When It Comes
But what if it comes before I learn how to control my mind? How can I “escape” that feeling in the moment? There is a technique I personally find super useful not only for anxiety attacks, but also for getting my body to fall asleep. It’s called the 4-7-8 breathing. It essentially helps you calm down and reduce your breathing frequency and pulse by oxygenating your body. Click here to learn how to use it. WARNING – don’t use this if you already have a slow pulse.
The Bottom Line
The bottom line is, we all have something to be insecure about and most people mind their own business. At the end of the day, not many people on the street really care about how you look like or what you do. You define you, you are loved, you are important and you are amazing! Focus on yourself, grow as a person, learn to control your mind and laugh. Who doesn’t laugh doesn’t live.
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