Quote:
Originally Posted by Ygrec23
But you can't learn about the nature of the conflict directly from the anxiety (she says). You have to poke around "behind" the anxiety to find out what's causing it, which means that while you're "poking" you have to put up with the anxiety. I don't know about you, but when I'm anxious, putting up with the anxiety is counterintuitive. I just want out, ASAP.
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Yes! In my version of this, I am able to "sit with the feelings." I'm not sure if I learned this somewhere in T, I suspect from my self help survivors group years ago, or what. For me, it's not just anxiety or fear that I have to sit with, but all kinds of feelings that may be off and running at any given time. But when you STAY with the feeling rather than automatically dissociating from it, you make a conscious choice to engage with it, which I think takes some of the punch or power it has over you. As in, f you feeling, you're not so big and bad that I can't tolerate you, ha ha ha. Actually, I don't think it's quite that hostile for me, but it does give me the teeniest charge to observe the big bad feeling deflate as I make some sense about what this is about.
Best, Anne