Accepting

Dr Claire Weekes talks of accepting - when I was ill it took me a long time to understand what this meant exactly.  I'd get cross and say 'ok I understand I'm ill, so how does that help'?

Accepting does mean that and more.  It means you of course understand you're ill but you have to also understand that those thoughts and feelings are going to be with you for quite a while yet and that you need to work with them there.  You can't get rid of it all in an instant.  That's acceptance.  Acceptance of it all.

I often pass this on to others and they often come back and say 'ok I understand that, BUT I have this particular thought .......' or 'that makes sense, BUT I'm sick of the thoughts and desperate to be better'.  That is not accepting - they've done exactly the opposite.  How can you accept something but still complain about it?  Accepting means accept / put up with everything, completely everything without question about what is happening to you.

Of course there'll always be questions and doubts - I was exactly the same.  Am I on the right path, are the meds working, why have I got this thought etc etc., but though those thoughts kept coming I just let them come, I accepted they would and learnt to not engage with them.

The anxiety was rife, it peaked and eased throughout the day and though I longed for it to go away I again learnt to accept the anxiety would be there ... for now anyway.  I allowed it to be there (well, where else was it going to go anyway)?  So I let it be, I let it do its worst, and even in those darkest times I just let it do what it had to do.  That was accepting its presence.

Of course there were times when I just couldn't take it anymore, I crumbled and I felt like a failure.  You will too, and thats perfectly normal.  We're only human, and remember ... Rome wasn't built in a day.  After each crumble I'd just pick myself up and carry on as before.  Accepting.

If you had a cold you'd just accept you had one and wouldn't spend your day trying to work out why you had it or try and rid yourself of it.  Yes you'd take some headache pills and hot drinks no doubt, but you'd know it was a cold and you'd just put up with it until it went away.  This is what you need to do with anxiety and its thoughts.  Let it be, accept you've got it, don't question why, but understand the thoughts are only there because you have anxiety and the anxiety is there because you may have been stressed or something else thats brought it about.  Stop trying to fix it.  Stand aside, let it be and your body will do the rest.

Accept it all and let it pass.  It will - it always does.

Fearful Unwanted Thoughts

I often talk about letting thoughts be there and not engaging with them, so here’s another way of my explanation:

You know how annoying it is when you get a song in your head that just plays over and over, you may find yourself humming along without thinking of it and then finally shout ‘oh just go away’.  It happens all the time, doesn’t it……

So - what do we do when we have a tune stuck in our head?  We just let it be there and get on with life and that tune slowly disappears - in fact a few days later we can’t even remember what the dam song was.

Imagine when you have that tune you do the same to it as you do those fearful, obsessive thoughts that haunt you.  You go around worrying why you have this tune going round in your head, you try and sing something else, you over analyse it and realise maybe its because it belongs to an album and … oh my gosh, all those other songs on that album must be important too and so you then become fearful about them too …..  On and on that song goes and now the others also play round and round in your head, daily, whilst you struggle to rid yourself of them.  This is tiring (hence the weird head detachment), the frustration and the added anxiety.

So - as said, when that tune pops into your head we simply just get a bit irritated with it and just get on with our life and that song disappears.  THIS is what I mean about not engaging with it - let it be there and it will go.

Ok so those thoughts you have come fired with anxiety compared to the song, but whatever feeling they bring its no different.  I know how difficult it is letting a thought AND its anxiety be there, but you let both do the same.  You have to take that anxiety with you as you stop engaging with the thought, let that anxiety rage and as the thought disappears so will that anxiety too.

Fearful thoughts are a side effect of anxiety - and those fearful thoughts bring anxiety too which keeps you in a constant loop.  This method will break that loop, the fearful anxious thought will ease and it’ll stop piling on more anxiety to the anxiety you fear.

You can get rid of any thought like this.  Let it be ……