anxiety is the avoidance of fear

I think Sam is very smart but her videos are so difficult to grasp in terms of implementing her advice. One video that was inspiring was this one:



Sam explains that 'anxiety is the avoidance of fear'. It took me a while to understand this statement but I think she's right. I know that my brain is very scared and frightened ... perceiving danger ... probably internal threats (health anxiety) as opposed to external threats (social or environmental situations). The root cause of the anxiety/fear isn't apparent ... I feel the emotions but with no identifiable source ... perhaps the source has gone and the anxiety/fear is stuck in a virtual loop.

I try to allow the anxiety and fear and now tell my brain that I am safe and that there is nothing to fear. However, the amygdala doesn't understand language. Helmut says dancing is a way to communicate to the amygdala that "I am safe" in a way it understands.

I wish I could stand in the fear and prove to my brain that I'm not in danger. How do I stand in the fear if the source/trigger doesn't exist? What is your take on Sam's video? This is my take/thoughts: Do you think that chronic fear - when trapped in the mind-body - needs to come out and that symptoms are a way to frighten us? By frightening us we allow the locked-in fear to escape i.e. energy cannot be destroyed so it's got to be transferred out. Perhaps that's what the symptoms are there for i.e. to remove the fear by experiencing the emotion. Thus in allowing the emotion i.e. the fear from the symptoms we reduce it's energy and any resistance will compound the symptoms. The crux is that we need to feel (allow) the fear in a neutral way and engage in life. That is the solution to This is how I understand Sam's video. It's so deep but it makes sense to me.

 

The cruix is: stop fearing the physical sensations of fear to feel them. In other (shorter and less psych nerd out videos) she explains that fear often covers up other emotions eg. rage or anger. Taking the sting out of fear makes those more accessible without having to keep excavating your past life etc. However, this is just one of the elements she suggests we feel - other times she reminds us to feel everything. Nothing is off limits.

 

Whew! Sam really is hard-core. Personally, she speaks to me— But just like you, I’m not always sure how, exactly. lol

I’ve been slowly listening to her videos, getting a big picture of her thoughts. To me, they really speak of internal family systems therapy, which I had the privilege of doing recently for three years.

The premise is: you have a Self— with a capital S. This is the wise, whole Self part of you. (You could say it’s divine or eternal.) And if the Self witnesses and validates the pain, grief or fear that the other parts of you have experienced, it heals you.

When we are kids, we need our parents to survive. If they violate our trust, or hurt us, we still need them. But we have to do something with the hurt and angry feelings. Or else we will be so conflicted we can’t go on. So we make a part (not as drastic as Cybil, not a split personality, but sort of). And this part takes on all the pain, fear, anger of that betrayal and holds it in another place in your brain. In the subconscious. This freed you up to carry on at the time.

As time goes on, you might have 3 or 10 or you name it, any number of these parts, who came into being during traumatic experiences.

What Sam is saying is these parts are expressing their feelings through our bodies now, at this late date. It’s their fear. It’s their pain. They are stuck in time. They don’t know time has passed. They are just trapped holding all of those feelings. With TMS, they are finally letting this pain/fear/anger out. And all we have to do is witness their feelings. Validate them. Don’t make them hide this burden anymore. It’s the same thing you would do for an abused child who came to you for help. Just love them. Let them feel their feelings while you hug them.

I think that’s what Sam’s talking about, if I’m getting it right.

It’s really a different perspective on what symptoms are. And it’s hopeful, if you ask me.

 

I've drifted away from her material a bit. I do like Helmut but sometimes I think Sam talks in circles. Maybe just how I understand and learn best that affects that.

 

She does talk in circles. You’re not imagining it.

 

I can’t watch Sam anymore because the videos are too long. A lot of what she says isn’t necessary or true. For example anxiety isn’t the avoidance of fear so I don’t know where she got that. Anxiety is described as nervousness or worry about the future and fear is the immediate emotional response to danger. Although in my opinion they’re the same. She will also take what a psychologist or scientist has said and spin it too much. “Dr. Soandso says the sky is blue. You can see he was talking about how you feel blue or sad when activating the ego and distinguishing between the self and the blue.” I think she’s a good person when telling her subs about all the different people to listen to and there is a lot of helpful information out there. You can see she’s trying to help people and isn’t only focused on profiting from this. Helmut I watch cause I’m following the Helmut arc and want to see where it goes especially with him throwing jabs at other mindbody coaches. In general im interested in what many mindbody people talk about.

 

@JohnDellatto I think Helmut is fun to watch because he’s just downright hilarious. I love his personality. I also love his success story— 70 symptoms, quite the story. After more than a year of trying all different methods, I’ve pretty much landed on his advice and it’s kind of everything I’m doing right now and nothing else. I love how he doesn’t whitewash things, like he’ll say,”it might take you four years to get better, quit your whining and get down to it.” My favorite things about his strategy are: Having a schedule, and challenging your symptoms. Once I started doing both of those things, I started feeling drastically better— Not necessarily measured in symptoms. But he said, never measure your success in symptoms and I agree. I’m just about to add his visualization process. Thinking about something really good for an hour a day. I love this idea! Are you doing any of his methods? Do you need to do anything anymore? What are your thoughts on him?

 

To be honest I find the terminology all rather confusing as different people say different things. Indeed, I always thought that anxiety is worry about the future and fear is immediate danger. For example, when I'm about to give a speech in public I would feel anxiety and if a bear is running towards me I'd feel fear. However, these days I am feeling an emotion, it feels like anxiety but it doesn't seem to be associated with any thought. It's what I now understand to be agitation (or extreme) anxiety: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/living-with-a-sticky-mind/202505/agitation-more-than-just-anxiety (Agitation: More Than Just Anxiety). It is a change state of being in which I do not feel myself. It's utterly debilitating and I've never experienced this in all my life except in recent months. I do not know what triggered it or how to come out of it. Has anyone on here experienced agitation and what they did to resolve it?

 

Sam’s last few videos are shorter and she stays more on point. Helmut recently mentioned they are working together to make some changes.
I actually agree with Sam that fear is not always an emotion. It can become a state of mind and a distraction from our true emotions, and always accompanies anxiety when it is not allowed to run its course as a sensation in the body.
However, I like that no matter what she says, Sam always circles back to feeling these things as physical sensations and setting them free.
Helmut says the same thing but with more swear words
I think they offer two different perspectives of the same thing because just like in the above conversation to get the message across depending on how the listener can “hear” them.

 

@mikeinlondon
“I've never experienced this in all my life except in recent months. I do not know what triggered it or how to come out of it. Has anyone on here experiencedagitation and what they did to resolve it?”

Watch Helmut’s live from this past weekend.
Listen to how he talks about the symptoms grabbing your attention because they can. This agitation is a symptom and Claire Weekes discusses it too. How do you deal with it? You let it be.
When you can just live with it without pushing it away, fighting it, trying to overcome it or worry about it, it will go. With TMS your mind might latch on to the next thing you feel you need to solve or fix.
That’s behavior you need to stop, and you do it by letting affirmative thoughts float by, knowing this too will pass and letting it be. Engaging your mind in your interests (even if it’s hard) can help. Go for a quiet walk, listen to quiet music and just breathe, try stillness for moments at a time not to change the symptom but to release some energy from the mind and from the body.
It takes awhile but it will pass. It’s just a symptom.

 

Yes, a million times yes! It’s nervous disorder. In the olden days they called it a nervous breakdown. You have been on adrenaline so long it messed you up. Me too! I will say it again: Claire Weekes. She describes it all in full detail and what it takes to get better. It’s working to heal me. But slowly. Which is what she says will happen.

 

Diana .... This video explains it clearly:

I've never identified with anxiety; but agitation or, as you say, nervous breakdown is exactly what I'm feeling.

Apparently, SSRI's and the like can make it worse but there are drugs to control it. Have you considered that as an option or as you taking the non pharmaceutical route?

Agitation is seriously debilitating and I can see why people may feel suicidal because of it. I know Claire W says to let it float by and do not resist it but it's easier said than done.

I truly believe that agitation is 100% the source of the insomnia I experience.

 

Mike,
I watched the video. Interesting. I have a lot of thoughts. First off, I’ll tell you that I’ve had serious anxiety issues all my life. So I’m not coming from a place of ignorance in this department. At one point, I was housebound with panic attacks. I meditated an hour a day (for a year) to calm myself down. I also did yoga and other lifestyle changes.

Then, in the past four years, I believe I went over the cliff to agitation (as you’ve shown me in this video, the highest level of anxiety is now called.)

I’ve been on antidepressants for 30 years. Wellbutrin. I wasn’t able to feel right on SSRIs. Ive used anti anxiety meds (as needed) for years. I don’t like to use them, except in emergencies. But I think sometimes they might be needed, and if it got where I needed them full-time I would take them. I’ve had to take them for a week before.

Claire Weekes is about way more than floating. She elaborately describes the life of an agitated person. Just hearing her describe it instantly helped me not feel so crazy. She has treated thousands. She knows it can be overcome. I was flooded with hope.

She explains graphically how to get sleep, how to go about your day, how to leave the house. I liked all of her advice, in addition to the floating technique she teaches. In all my studying about anxiety through the years, she’s the best advice I’ve found.

She emphasizes how you’re facing a losing battle if you don’t tackle the underlying reasons for so much adrenaline. It made me look at specific things as deadly for me: the news, talking to certain people, thinking about certain things, etc. I started cleaning up my thinking to reduce my stress level. (Yes, the amygdala plays in here. But so does adrenaline.)

My ultimate opinion is that sometimes people need medication, and then it’s a saving grace for them. It has been for me. I also think your own efforts are always needed. And knowledge is power.

Mental health can be life or death—so you shouldn’t mess around with it. Don’t let yourself get in too much trouble. It’s no fun to be hospitalized—and that can happen as a last resort sometimes.

I hope you have good support. I think you’re on the right track. I truly hope you can feel better soon! (I wish you liked Claire Weekes…I think she can help.)

 

I like how Helmut talks about getting out of your comfort zone. I think any mindbody practitioner you follow will work and I think inevitably as time goes on people try different methods because they think one isn't working. Trying a new method gets someone excited to continue Brain retraining and will allow them to continue the process for a long time which is what many people require. I don't do any mindbody exercises anymore except for behavioral changes like always challenging my fear and not feeling guilty about not being nice. But mentally I live on a different planet where almost everything is TMS.

 

“I know Claire W says to let it float by and do not resist it but it's easier said than done.”

Yeah, this is the TMS work.
It’s not done in a day, usually not in a week, perhaps not in a lifetime.
Skills we employ.
We’ve learned to hate feeling uncomfortable, period. It’s ok not to like that feeling but we need to get used to it so we can regulate.
Keep going, and doing the work.

 

I think you are on to something here! @Duggit wrote this about Dr Howard Schubiner's view regarding recovery from TMS, which indicates that any mind/body method or technique can work:

"The most brilliant overarching observation about recovery from TMS that I have seen comes from Dr. Howard Schubiner. He spent some time with Sarno to learn from him and, in my opinion, is the leading mindbody physician currently practicing in the United States. His perspective differs in some respects from Sarno’s because it incorporates contemporary neuroscience research that was unavailable when Sarno developed his approach. But Schubiner wrote in one of his books that he is proud to be counted among the whole generation of researchers and clinicians that Sarno influenced.

Schubiner’s observation:

He said a person must have

(1) a clinician he or she trusts
(2) an explanation of what is wrong with him or her
(3) a technique to fix it
(4) hope and optimism about recovering.

It is the trusted clinician, of course, who gives the afflicted person an explanation of what is wrong that he or she trusts is correct, a technique to fix it that he or she trusts will work, and the hope and optimism. If one factors out the trusted clinician because a person with TMS is trying to recover on a self-help basis, then the elements the person needs are

(1) an explanation of what is wrong (found in, say, a Sarno book or another book or online or wherever) that he or she trusts is correct
(2) a technique to fix it (found in a book or wherever) that he or she trusts will work
(3) hope and optimism that he or she will be able to implement the technique and will thereby recover."

 

Thanks, Diana. My agitation is at an all time high and barely got any sleep last night. My whole body is shaking and trembling. I feel exhausted but no sleep. I feel hot then cold. The pain makes it all worse. I know I’m experiencing a very severe form of TMS. I’m very sensitive to meds and it’s a last option for me. I tell my brain that I know it’s frightening and scared, there’s no reason to be. However with anxiety I can reason with the amygdala but with agitation I cannot even start negotiations with it. I barely have energy to do anything today. I don’t want to be hospitalised and drugged up. I react terribly to meds. I just want my life to be over because I want out of the suffering. I wish I knew why my mind is on high alert. I am safe and not in danger but the switch is stuck to the on position. I’ve never experienced this in all my life except for the past year. Always been strong minded. I have a good support network but it’s too much pressure for them. No one I know understands TMS so this isn’t easy for them to understand. I learned so much about TMS over the past few months like having a schedule, visualisations. allowing …. But without sleep it’s so hard to do any of that. I’m loosing my appetite and that’s also making things worse. Dan always says that there’s nothing wrong with us, it’s just the brain perceiving fear. That’s the thing, something is wrong because there is no fear, there is no danger. I’m living my life now as if I’m in the middle of a war zone. I changed my thoughts over the past few months, started living more etc but the lack of sleep is the biggest obstacle to progressing with this. I know Ellen fixed her insomnia. I know it’s possible.

 

Oh Mike, I’m so sorry this is happening to you! I truly understand the feeling— although for some reason, I’m able to sleep enough. I guess the best picture I have to explain what I think is happening is if you fried an electrical system— only it’s biological. It would take time for it to rest and fix. you’re doing all the right things right now, but it won’t fix right away. That’s what I hate to say. I’m also extremely sensitive to meds. if I ever take any anxiety medication it’s the lowest dose cut in half. And I’ll only take one of those a day in dire situations. I just have them on hand in case I really need some support. I know having no sleep, makes the world completely distorted, and it drains all hope out. I really wish there was something I could do from here. I offer you my understanding and compassion. Please make it out of the war zone. I will pray for you.

 

Thank you for your supportive words, it means a lot to me

 

@mikeinlondon
I wonder if you could get some meds and experiment with a super low dosage. Just to get a little sleep. ??? Claire Weekes talks about needing it in the beginning, but not for long.