HELP!!! I’m hitting the panic button
- Have you ever hit the panic button?
- Do you ever get mad at yourself for panicking?
- Have you ever considered this is a way you learned to keep yourself safe?
I think I’ve only said this about a hundred times before, but the more I do this work, the more I realize it’s all about self acceptance… of all of our aspects.
Panic is one of them.
See if you can consider this… panicking is a tactic that you learned some where along the way. In other words, your fight or flight response has kicked in and… you’re off and running… internally.
It’s much like trying to stop a thought…try this sometime. Just try and stop your next thought. Eckart Tolle has a great little exercise to help you realize that you can’t stop a thought.
Close your eyes and ask yourself… “I wonder what my next thought will be?”
When I did this, the first thing I noticed is that it took a little bit for my next thought to occur and there it was… my next thought…” It seems to be taking some time for the thought to come. No way could I have told you that would be my next thought.
So in relation to panicky. I have never been able to tell when panic might strike. I can’t stop it from happening. It’s an automated response that’s been programmed for decades, but I can interrupt it and I can notice it and just by virtue of the fact that I notice I’m panicking I also interrupt it. It might not stop the panic, but it definitely interrupts it and that’s the best thing you can do for yourself.
This is another thing I do, that has really helped me. When I notice I’m panicking. I’ll consciously say to myself&…
“I’m panicking… so what.”
This serves to remind me that it’s my knee jerk response that got programmed in my over time and it’s really just simply… OK.
By first accepting that the panic exists, I begin to free myself from it.
“I’m panicking… so what.” It’s what I learned to do when I get stressed like this.
Here’s to learning to accept ALL of you!!!
Marti