The Best Way to Overcome Anxiety Is to Become a Willing Student

Have you ever wondered why you keep suffering from anxiety even though you have done all you could to get better?
You have a strong desire to feel better and live free from anxiety, but regardless of what you do, your anxiety seems to be getting worse. You have spent an enormous amount of time and money on anxiety treatments, and you still have not recovered. What seems to be the problem and what can you do about it?
This will sound weird to you. But the reason you are still struggling with anxiety is that your recovery efforts are misdirected and therefore counter-productive. It is not your desire to feel better that makes you overcome anxiety. It is your willingness to learn and grow that makes you live free from anxiety. You don’t get rid of anxiety. You learn and grow from it. That’s the solution.
There are two questions that anxiety sufferers ask me all the time:
What should I do to stop my anxiety?
How can I get rid of my symptoms?
My answer to all anxiety sufferers is this:
To overcome anxiety, you have to become a willing student.
You do not need to stop anything. You do not have to get rid of anything. You have to shift your focus from getting rid of anxiety to learning and growing from it. You have to accept and allow anxiety to be present in your consciousness, while learning and growing from it. When you allow this shift to take place, you cease to be an anxiety sufferer, you become a willing student. You will begin to enjoy more the process of healing and recovery.
There are two things you have to learn very quickly-
1) Trying too hard to stop anxiety and eradicate its symptoms will only make it worse.
2) Your willingness to embrace anxiety, learn from it, and grow from it will make it go away.
There is a key difference between those who successfully overcome anxiety and those who do not. People who genuinely recover from anxiety are willing students and those who do not recover are unwilling students.
You can either remain an unwilling student and work hard to eradicate, conquer and resist anxiety and keep suffering. Or you can become a willing student and embrace anxiety, learn from it, grow from it and overcome it. That’s the choice. You decide.
Unwilling Students are individuals who are not willing to learn and grow from anxiety. These individuals are committed to fighting anxiety. They see anxiety as a threat and they resist it fiercely. They try too hard to eradicate and conquer anxiety. They spend their precious time and hard earned money chasing after treatments. Unwilling students are more desperate to recover. They put timetables on their recovery. They say „I have to recover on such and such a date“. Let me be honest with you. That’s a recipe for disaster. I have been there. I have done it. It didn’t work. It brought me more pain and suffering.
Willing Students on the other hand understand that anxiety is an opportunity. Willing students understand that it is through learning and growth that you overcome anxiety. There is no need for you to do anything other than learning and growing from it. There is no need for you to resist anything. There is no need for you to get it together. There is no need for you to go over each and every symptom you have. Your own willingness to embrace anxiety, learn from it and grow from it is the key to your recovery.
You have to make the transition from being an unwilling student to a willing student. Yes, your symptoms will remain for a while as you make this transition. That’s OK. Your symptoms developed overtime and it will take time for them to go away. You do not have to worry about your symptoms because they are not the problem. Your symptoms are just indicators of the real problem- your unwillingness to learn and grow.
You are the problem. You make your symptoms come and go by how you react to your anxiety. Stop fighting and start growing up. Your recovery is a process and you can enjoy that process if you are a willing student. No need to put your life on hold. The more you resist, fight and try too hard to stop your anxiety, the worse you are going to feel and the more miserable you are going to be.
The more you fight, the more you get trapped into the anxiety. The more you resist the more entrenched the anxiety becomes. When you embrace your anxiety and walk through it, it loses its power and gets dissolved. Your willingness to stand still and feel it is what makes all the difference. The moment you become a willing student, you cease to be an anxiety sufferer.
To genuinely overcome anxiety, you have to become a willing student. You have to understand anxiety not judge it. You have to embrace it not resist it. You have to walk through it not run from it. You have to embrace anxiety and let it have its say. That’s how you overcome anxiety.