I got rid of my anxiety. Maybe your T doesn't see too many people doing it so he is basing his beliefs on what he has seen?

These are the things that I worked on to get rid of my anxiety:

1) self worth - this caused my anxiety because I was always trying to hide my low self worth or protect it. Talk about not being able to relax!

2) poor personal boundaries - how can you relax when you can't even protect yourself? Once I learned how to protect myself I could relax.

3) stuffed old feelings - this really causes anxiety. Trying to keep a lid on all of this will keep you jumping.

4) meeting my needs - if I can take care of myself in all situations I can relax!

5) learned social skills

6) learned empowerment - if I have power I can relax.

7) learned to live in the present - we avoid living in the present because we want to escape our feelings. This leaves mostly living in the future. Boy does this cause anxiety! Learning how to live in the present begins with unloading all of those stuffed old feelings and learning how to express your feelings as they occur today. This way living in the present isn't so uncomfortable anymore. It sort of works with self worth too because not feeling good about who you are also makes living in the present painful.

8) Doing relaxation exercises and now I don't even need to do them anymore. I can now relax on command.

9) Understanding how you developed anxiety. I feel that we develop anxiety because we grew up feeling insecure and not safe. I also believe that you need to be genetically vulnerable to develop anxiety. If you can understand what in your upbringing caused it, I think that this understanding helps.

10) Work out your triggers. You can work on all of the above but still get triggered and feel instantly anxious. When I would get triggered I would tell myself right then that these feelings are coming from the past and then I would focus on the current situation and tell myself that I am fine right now and I don't have any need to feel anxiety. I would command myself to relax (after I gained this skill from doing relaxation exercises). After doing this several times a trigger would be extinguished. If you have trauma work to do you have to work it from that end too by talking about your traumas in session and releasing all the emotions.

11) integrate your personality - the inner child (children) needs to finishing developing, get beyond what is making her stuck. When your whole personality is whole and all grown up, this is very comforting, and helps you carry yourself with confidence and security.

My new goal is to tone down my reactions. My husband tells me that I react so quickly and strongly to things (I guess it makes him nervous!). For example if my child comes to me with a cut I'll respond "OMG". (I never worked on this because it never bothered me, it bothers others and I finally now understand what my husband is talking about - I guess because I'm ready.)

Other then this I feel really good and it is so nice to be rid of all of that anxiety.