Anxiety (Negative Emotional Energy)

*From my old Friendster Blog site written on Dec 22, 2006.

Are you one of those people who suffer from Stage-freightophobia? Or even worse, experiencing Wussy-nitis when you see that attractive woman you always wanted to talk to across the room? All of these problems boil down to the same principal - Anxiousness. Get this one down and you'll generate confidence inside you.

So, here's what we're gonna do:
- Step ONE, Know what causes Anxiety
- Step TWO, Learn what to do when you become anxious and PRACTICE it

The figure below shows how everything is related - study it carefully:

So, ask ourselves: What are the things that contribute to the feeling of anxiousness?

There are two of them:

1) Low on Confidence
2) Loss

Low on confidence is as clear as it is spelled out. You lack confidence. You have so much insecurities haunting you. You're too attached to the outcome, or you've been holding on to that of embarassing-moments in the past. You sell yourself short.

Loss, on the other hand, is a kind of stress or threat that something will be taken away from you. This consists of everything including your time, love, property, life of the one that you love, friends, belongings, or dignity. When you feel that you might be losing one of these, notice how you would feel anxious.

These things happen all the time, so how do we face ourselves when we become anxious?

Yes, talk to yourself. Observe yourself and stop from making stupid decisions.

If you don't, you'll end up either making no decision, or that stupid decision. If you make no decision, you'll either act impulsive without knowing why, for example, overspending or overeating. If you're not this type of person, it'll just be another opportunity being passed (You might think you're passing the chance but you're actually missing it)

What's the best thing to do? Correct, make a DECISION.

But make sure it's a good one.

A bad decision will be when you practice massacism. It's the "poor me" attitude. "Oh I'm the victim of the situation. Don't you feel sorry for me?". It's being childish, and to add fuel to the fire, it only worsens the situation. If people act like they don't give a damn, you'll cry even louder and experience more of what we discussed as a LOSS. But if people do care, you feel good but you're not getting anything more out of it. Your maturing process is stagnant.

Therefore, you definitely wanna start practicing this one.

Do courage - every single time anxiety comes. Talk to yourself. See yourself from a third-person view. Like how you see yourself in the main character of that favorite movie of yours. This might help: Ask yourself - WHICH ONE IS MORE IMPORTANT? MY ANXIOUSNESS OR THE RESULT THAT I MIGHT GET IF I DID COURAGE? If you're not retarded, you'll know you have to choose the latter. In fact, the act of courage itself is an act of maturity.

But of course, in the process of learning, we'll choose the former during the first few times. This is absolutely normal. Just keep practicing. As long as you know you're working on this, don't worry. You're on the right track. Always remember to stop for a while and start talking to yourself every single time you're surrounded by anxiousness.

By the way, notice that I used the word "MIGHT GET" instead of "WILL GET". Why? Of course it's because we don't know what might happen as the outcome, but no matter if we succeeded in the courage, or even failed, there's one thing that we can be sure of. That one thing is discussed in depth in the next paragraph.

The most important thing is, when you act courageous, you WILL get CONFIDENCE. The bigger the anxiety you're facing, the more confidence you'll earn after doing courage. When your confidence tank eventually becomes full after doing a gazillion of couragous acts, that's the moment when being courageous is just part of you. It blends in so well with your personality, you won't feel like jumping off the cliff anymore when doing it.

Again, the consistency reminder. This is not an easy thing, but we can all do it. It doesn't matter if you're four feet tall or have one eye. I've seen myself a three-feet-tall eternally-disabled man on a wheelchair radiating so much power from his confidence. Nothing is impossible. Invest your effort and energy and time and the power of your mind to achieve confidence. It's priceless, in every sense of the word.

p/s: It's not courage if you're FORCED to do something and in the end, you say "Phew, finally I don't have to think about it anymore". It's not courage when you're just going with the flow because you didn't really make any decision. I hope this one is pretty clear for everyone.