Developing a 'still mind'

[LittleMissMuffet]

A few new revelations are helping me to understand other peoples' thoughts about how to cure anxiety, I think.

The thing I am considering is that.... perhaps a BIG part of curing an anxiety problem is just learning how to 'still' the mind. To learn things like meditation and any other similar 'cures' that are about letting go of (constant) thoughts. ....This way, we can have/develop better control over the kind of thoughts we wish to have.
And I suppose, that the opposite of anxiety is calm; so to just develop this feeling and to train to be able to produce it, is a pretty basic but smart solution.

(Then social situations could unfold naturally and much more easily. And even making 'mistakes' or what have you, is not as harmful as experiencing long-term anxiety.)

What do others think?

 

[Alexp]

Hi Missmuffet,

Been really really busy lately, but wanted to respond to your post.

Yes I completely agree with that idea. Every time I try to figure out anxiety, it goes back to how do we stop the painful thoughts that create anxiety? It’s the one part of the anxiety puzzle that we have the power over. The problem is that its so primal and its second nature for many of us to dwell on the pain in an automatic way to try to change something we don’t like about ourselves.

We need something to effectively override it to some degree. I think meditation and control of thoughts could certainly be a big part of it. If we can still the mind, we could stop the constant barrage of thoughts that lead to anxiety. When you go into a social situation and something goes wrong, instead of dwelling on it and reinforcing the anxiety, if we can learn to effectively still our minds, it would help immensely.

If we can train our minds to not react so harshly, and be calm, then we’ve effectively overrided the sensitivity and perfectionism. If we can do this consistently, then our minds would soon realize that we can make mistakes without as much fear of pain and wouldn’t need to create such high levels of anxiety.

If there is one thing I’ve learned, is that the key is to stop the pain of self-correction, the anguish and pain of thinking that you are too ‘shy’ or too ‘scared’ or the anguish of saying something wrong or doing something wrong. To smile and tell yourself not to worry about the little things or to train your mind to calmness are all great techniques. If I was to go any further I would say that if we wanted complete control over our anxiety we need understanding of what our minds are doing and how our perceptions are skewed (the motivation to know what is needed to change) and then control (like the ability to calm the mind) to effectively put what you know into practice. Barring that, I think just learning how to be calm and to still the mind is a huge step in overcoming anxiety.

 

[LittleMissMuffet]

Hi Alex: good to see you again!

...It is funny that meditation is something that others have suggested to me a long while back, yet it's only more recently that I am really opening-up to it.

Jackb, wrote me a very good PM that suggested a Buddhist technique (mind of stone, I think it's called) for getting a person in that space where they can detach enough from their thoughts to not only not be so effected (attached) by them, but also to even just observe them better. ...really the same as achieving that "3rd (objective) opinion", where a person can see the bigger picture.

And when you consider that anxiety is associated with the need to control (situations) to protect against some fear (of loss): my personal need to think, think, think about what to do and how to fix my anxiety, might be part of what creates it. ...Well, I'm no mastermind -but I'm going with what my intuition seems to be telling me.

And you know, they say that 'social phobes' are 'people people'.
...For a long time, I've been largely about emotions and interpersonal interaction. -These are what interest me. And I also, for a long time have had social anxiety.

So maybe I need to learn the technique of not thinking and analysing people situations so much ...afterall, I seem to have a natural tendency for this.

...When you look at CBT for relieving social anxiety: it is all stuff that is fairly self-evident. Even stuff that we've already tried more than a few times before (sometimes it can even be a bit patronising). Yet, these new thoughts/attitudes are so hard to get into our heads. And maybe that is because the stream of thougts going through our minds is fast and furious; and slowing it down will help us to be able to filter-out our thoughts and even to just have better self-awareness.

One other important thing that I seem to be noticing, is that if I simply think about helping others I seem to escape from the tangled knot of negative, worried thoughts about my self. ...This effect on how I feel and think is big enough for me to take quite a bit of notice. And I'm looking into going with this some more.

Fireworks:
It is interesting that you mentioned 'mindfulness'. ...I think I read somewhere that this is like the filtering-out of thoughts -how we choose what is the best thing to focus on. Whilst some other name is given to the degree to which our minds focus.
...And an accurate way of describing me is that I am a person with a great ability to concentrate and focus, and yet I also have a strong tendency to become distracted and overwhelmed. ...and this is even a good description of my anxiety problems.

And I kind of think that if your mind is hyper then something that does develop your "mindfulness" -whether this is meditation or any other way- would be an obvious great skill to work on.
...maybe a big part of our problems is just that we lack the skill of filtering-out what (thoughts) to focus our minds on, and on the other hand, we also would have a strong skill of concentration etc -like how there is an obsessive aspect to social anxiety.