Is it possible to give your anxiety no respect.

[charlieHungerford]

This was something James Morgan wrote about last week, that you should take a positive mindset and have a determination to succeed in what you are faced with and give the anxiety no respect. Do you think this is possible to do?

This weekend I have been working at trying to overcome my fears of public speaking as I have an imminent training course and I want to overcome my fears. But its been hard, the anxiety I feel has been sickening. I just feel however that its like there is a person in front of me stopping me from succeeding in getting a treasure chest and I can either give in and accept I cannot succeed and take a defeatist attitude, or I can shove this person out of my way and go get it. Do you know what I mean? I just feel I can either give in to the anxiety and take a defeatist attitude and be a slave to this anxiety and be a victim or I can take a positive approach and a determination to want to succeed and beat this anxiety and handle the situation and succeed.

I feel if my life is to progress this is something I need to overcome now. I hate the thought that my anxiety is stopping me from speaking out loud around people, when the other day I bumped into an old friend who was equally as intelligent as me, same sort of looking, same sort of friendly personality and he is a teacher and has to speak out loud all the time and he is good at it and has a good career and social life and is engaged to be married and here is me threating about having to speak out loud.

I want to now adopt a determination that I can succeed and belittle the anxiety by saying for god's sake, its speaking a few words man, I can speak no problem, get a grip. Anxiety has ruled who I am over the last 7 years, i.e. career prospects, social life, meeting someone nice, etc. I feel I want to take control of anxiety and boss it about and be in control instead of my anxiety.

But is it possible?

 

[random]

Charlie,
I believe that you can overcome your anxiety. I think you are describing one of the arrows in your aresenal that you can use to defeat it. You may find that your anxiety falls to defeat after this next mighty battle or you may find that a series of battles is needed to defeat it. But I believe it can be beaten.
ONe therapist said that after years of anxiety I was afraid of feeling axiety and that I was now 'getting in my own way' and experiencing 'fear of fear'. I definitely think there is something to accomplish in not placing too much value on the sensation of fear. I like the quote that says "Feel the fear and do it anyway". In the book where I read that phrase it went something like "Yes - I feel fear. I know it's there when I try new things but new things are not bad. SO I won't pay attention to the fear - it's not useful right now."
Public speaking is hard even for those who don't have SA but we've all seen people who have overcome that. It sounds like it is your turn.
I am thinking now of what thoughts go through my mind when I listen to someone else speak in public. I don't sit there thinking "He's an idiot - look at the way he talks!" I tend to think "Oh he is braver then I am - I have such a hard time speaking" even if the guy is plainly nervous.
I can't imagine listening to someone speak and just thinking one negative thing after another about him - unless you count the guy at work who cheats on his wife while sexually harrassing my friend to the point where I have to walk her to the restroom and the vending machine. By this I mean to point out that someone would have to be through and through malevolent for me to 'filter' their public speaking through a negative lens. I imagine most people will focus on what you have to say - a few might be thinking "wow he's doing better than I would" and anybody negative must have showed up that way and would choose to think negative things about everybody - nothing anyone can do about that.

 

[random]

Charlie,
Your post reminds me of a class I had to take to graduate from college titled "Senior Seminar". It required each student to give two 20 minute presentations. For me this was a marathon and I was sure I would die in the attempt.
The class first focused on helping us design presentations - then the Monday came when the first person was to get up and talk. By chance I still had visions of my experience on church on Sunday still in my head. So when the first guy sat down after giving his speech - and he quietly slipped into the shock of a young person having to talk in public for 20 minutes for the first time - I did what they directed us to do in Sunday school. I forced myself to walk over to him as the class ended and praise his performance. Of course, because I have SA, this felt as bad (in my self pitying mind) as having to GIVE a 20 minute talk. But I made myself do it - I mumbled something like..."thanks....that was good" and from his stupor he awakened himself a little out of habit to thank me for my comment. A student heading for the door paused - came back and said "Yeah...that was cool.." and others in the class then headed past him as they left - each saying something positive - and the boy began to revive. He went from assuming our silence was negative to hearing us say positive things - he began to interpret the experience he just had differently. After that - this became our pattern. It was indeed self serving in a way - we all knew that we would have to get up there...twice....but it was also true that we wished each student well. We had no reason to want them to do poorly or suffer - we learned something from the presentations and we wanted to acknowledge the hard task that the student had accomplished. We were telling the truth. With each presentation we grew stronger that way. So the silence of listeners is not negative - and the act of one person ub te audience can make public speaking experience more positive. I don't know if you will have the opportunity but perhaps you may - perhaps you will have a chance to learn over and whisper 'good job' or 'well said!' or 'you are doing good - keep it up!' to others who struggled through their own public speaking. Or maybe just taking care to nod your understanding or somehow indicate enouragement or interest with your facial expression. THe others may be too spooked at the time to acknowledge or return the kindness but when they reflect on it later - it could make the experience a learning, healing experience for them.