Have you ever wondered why people often experience setbacks when they begin to tackle their anxiety? Setbacks happen because, as you face your anxiety and the situations that make you feel uncomfortable, the avoidant/protective side of your personality becomes active.

When you decide to tackle your anxiety issue head on, the protective side of your personality would rather that you left well enough alone. Your protective side doesn’t like taking risks and feels better when you don’t put yourself in situations that make you feel anxious.

It’s the part of you that says:

“Let’s stay in our comfort zone today. At least we’re safe here.”

This part of your personality has your interests at heart, but you know deep down that a life cocooned from all adversity doesn’t lead to happiness. When you begin on your healing journey, it’s all new and it can feel like you’re moving into unknown territory. You quickly master areas of your life that were causing you problems.

Your protective side takes a back seat and watches with suspicion as you make this progress. Then, after a while, your protective side becomes more active for fear that, with all this progress, a great fall must be just around the corner.

As you move upward and onward, your protective side gets scared and tries to put on the brakes. This creates a conflict and fuels feelings of anxiety. The feelings can be very intense and might be similar to what you’ve experienced before-such as panic and general unease-or there may be new sensations never experienced before.

You might have been doing really well for a week, but then your protective side pops its head up and says something like this:

“Okay, well done. We’re not worried about dizzy spells anymore -fine. But what’s that ringing in your ear?”

“That sounds like trouble to me . . . LET’S GET WORRIED.

“No panic attacks in a week-great. But don’t be fooled. That means a really BIG one is about to pounce!”

These thoughts undermine your confidence. Suddenly you’re feeling vulnerable again, and the anxiety can return as your confidence dips and you obsess again about the way you feel. This kind of response is natural in recovery, and if you’ve experienced a setback recently, I want to show you how to best deal with it.

The first thing to remember is that setbacks happen. Try to never let a setback convince you that you’re not making progress. It doesn’t mean that all your progress has been undone. In general, setbacks are inevitable, and you need to have an accepting attitude toward them.

Secondly, setbacks form part of your healing. To move beyond the anxiety, you need to work with the protective side of your personality and teach it that there really is nothing to fear. When setbacks occur, it’s an indication that you now need to take your new understanding and work with your protective side, which is resisting the change.

You might want to think of that protective side as a small child who doesn’t want you (the parent) to take risks or do anything out of your comfort zone. Talk to this part yourself. Reassure it that all will be well and that it’s necessary for you to work through the anxiety in order to experience more freedom and happiness.

Setbacks can feel like a big step backward, but they’re generally followed by rapid progress on many levels if you engage fully with this protective side of yourself.

There’s an opportunity here for you to create a new working relationship with your protective self, and this will really seal your recovery. When you educate your protective self that you’re really safe and encourage it to take the steps with you, you become fully empowered to end your anxiety problem. All of your internal energies go in the same direction, and there’s no conflict.

Persistence will carry you through all setbacks and ensure your success.

Keep your confidence intact. Build it on the past, on each time you’ve succeeded.

Play those previous successes like a film in your head, again and again, each night as you go to sleep. All the panic attacks you’ve dealt with, all the sensations of anxiety you’ve felt and yet you still got on with it.

General anxiety disorder and, especially, panic attacks are probably the most frightening experiences a person can go through. In most cases, you feel like you’ve had a brush with death itself. That’s no small feat to deal with while on your lunch break!

Be proud of your experiences. You’re not a cowardly victim, but a survivor of a terrifying experience-and what’s more, you probably stayed at work or collected the kids from school. You continued living. Sure, there may be a few hairy anxiety memories in the past that you’d prefer to forget, but the underlying emotion to build upon is that you survived and you’re here now, alive and living a new day.

Build a wealth of memories, and they’ll be your resource from which to draw strength. Write them down, because that solidifies them and makes them more real in your mind. Read them to yourself regularly.

Be sure to keep a diary as written proof of the progress you’re making-the trips you take that weren’t possible before, the special days when you completely forgot you ever had an anxiety problem. You need to keep a record of these achievements because it’s easy for your protective side to negate the great strides you’ve made.

Confidence, just like fear, is contagious. Soon you’ll find it spreading to all areas of your life, giving you a quality of life even beyond your pre-anxiety days.

Always try to focus on the success you’ve achieved, and it will grow and expand in your life.

Persist with it. Turn a setback into an opportunity to solidify your real confidence. Regardless of what happens, you can handle it. Regardless of how your body feels, you’ll move through the anxiety and come out the other side smiling.

If you remain persistent, setbacks can be quickly turned to your advantage, and you’ll be strengthened by the experience.

Setbacks are delicate periods to move through, so you also need to be kind to yourself. Understand that they’re the result of YOU just trying to protect YOU. Be your own best friend. When you take your protective self by the hand and teach it that there’s nothing to fear, you’ll quickly march toward a greater experience of freedom.

Recovery is not a straight linear process. It will help if you try not to measure success on a day-to-day basis. Some days will be better than others-that’s just the way it is, so don’t get upset if you complete something successfully one day but fail the next.

Keep your eyes on the end goal, and persistence will carry you there.

What If My Anxiety Comes Back?

After a person has successfully moved out of their anxiety it is only natural, to at some stage, fear its reoccurrence. I call this the anxiety shadow. It is a worry in the back of your mind that the anxiety could return with full force and disrupt your life all over again.

Anxiety leaves such a strong imprint on people’s lives that it is normal to have such concerns. Fearing a return of anxiety is common when your life becomes stressful again and you worry that the extra stress will tip you back into a state of general anxiety. If you find yourself worrying in such a manner have faith that all will be well.

This worry is just a shadow of what has gone, it is based on the past not the future. Generally the anxiety shadow passes quickly after a day or two and you forget about it again. Remind yourself of the new tools and education you have. Take solace in the fact that your new understanding will lift the anxiety quickly again were it to return.

To your success…

Barry Joe McDonagh

P.S. If you have experienced an anxiety setback and want to get over it quickly, get the support and information you need in my course Panic Away. Stage 3 of the course deals specifically with overcoming setbacks.

Visit: http://www.panicawaybonuspackage.com/blog/panicaway

All material provided in these emails are for informational or educational purposes only. No content is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult your physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical condition

People who experience panic attacks will often say that they feel out of control as soon as the panic is in full swing. Christian Nevell Bovee once wrote:

“Panic is a sudden desertion of us, and a going over to the enemy of our imagination.”

Doesn’t that sum it up well?

A confident self assured person can suddenly feel powerless and vulnerable as soon as the panic manifests. As the bodily sensations race, the mind jumps from logic and reason to wild fears fueled by the imagination.

The hardest part for most people to get their heads around is why they feel so suddenly powerless during a panic attack?

The automatic reaction for most to the sensations of a panic attack are to fight against it. To shut it down and end it as soon as possible. Coping techniques like deep breathing and distraction are mildly effective at best. When these techniques fail to get results, that is when the person really leaps over to ‘the enemy of their imagination’.

It goes something like this:

“I used all my coping techniques but I still feel very anxious, in fact it may be getting worse!

“What if this keeps getting worse and no help can get to me here?”

Where people run with this type of thinking their imagination will continue to escalate the fear, leaving them feeling more and more vulnerable and out of control.

The secret to regain control and come back to yourself, is to learn how to respond to the panic in an appropriate manner.

The solution is to work with the bodily sensations rather than against them.

Let me give you a small example. If you were sitting on a train and started to feel sensations that indicated the beginning of a panic attack, instead of trying to stop the experience do the opposite.

Acknowledge that you are safe, label the sensations and then tell the sensations that scare you, to get worse. If you are sweating tell your body to sweat more, if your heart is racing, tell it to race faster.

Move into the experience rather than against it.

The real panic only begins as soon as you hand over reason and control to your imagination. By moving into the experience voluntarily, you become the decision maker and therefore retain control. If you’re going to have a panic attack it is going to happen on your terms.

You empower yourself because you are directing the whole experience not handing “over to the enemy of our imagination.”

Learn more about this approach and how to apply it to various manifestations of panic and general anxiety.

Click Here

Here is a small sample of how Panic Away has helped others:

…learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years- I must tell you that out of all the items you can purchase regarding anxiety related products on the internet, I learned more from reading your program than I did from all the psychologists and other practitioners I had seen in the 25 years that I’ve had this condition.

I had been on Xanax and Klonopin for about 10 years, but this December, I decided to withdraw from it thinking I didn’t need the pills anymore according to some of the programs I ordered claiming “miracle cures”. That’s when all my symptoms started again. I felt as if I had wasted the past 20 years trying to get better.That’s when I started searching the web for home based “cures”. I ordered so many programs I started to get confused from too much conflicting advice.

Also, I was promised support but I am still waiting replies from some of the more expensive programs! You are a true gentleman, and I am going to post a very positive feedback on a website you might be familiar about called: Tapir? Talk to ya, Andy

=================================

…I DEBATED ORDERING YOUR PROGRAM BECAUSE I HAVE SPENT APPROX. $8,000 IN THE LAST 5 YEARS, I RAN ACROSS YOUR PROGRAM SUNDAY, FEB. 5th. I DEBATED ORDERING YOUR PROGRAM BECAUSE I HAVE SPENT APPROX. $8,000 IN THE LAST 5 YEARS OF MY LIFE TRYING EVERYTHING FROM PANIC SUPPORT CLASSES, MEDICATION, COUNSELING AND THE LIST GOES ON, ALL TO RID MYSELF OF PANIC ATTACKS. SOMETHING INSIDE ME SAID, JUST KEEP TRYING, SO I DID. AFTER 5 YEARS OF OF LIVING MY LIFE WITH THE WORLD ON MY SHOULDERS I AM EXCITED TO SAY THAT I AM NOW PANIC FREE. AFTER ONE TIME OF APPLYING YOUR ONE MOVE TECHNIQUE, I AM A NEW PERSON. ONE OF MY MANY FEARS THAT I DEVELOPED WAS DRIVING. AFTER READING YOUR PROGRAM AT 12.30 AT NIGHT I WROTE DOWN SOME QUICK NOTES FROM YOUR “ONE MOVE TECH.” I RAN OUT OF MY HOUSE AND DROVE TOWARD THE DARKEST SCARIEST ROAD WHERE NOBODY WAS NEAR BY. THIS WOULD DEFINITLY BRING ON AN FULL PANIC ATTACK, WHICH IT DID. WHILE LETTING MYSELF FEEL THE EMOTIONS RUN THROUGH ME, I DID EXACTLY WHAT YOU TOLD ME TO DO, I WAS SCARED AS HELL BUT STOOD MY GROUND.

I INSTANTLY CALMED AND EVEN TRIED TO BRING THE ATTACK BACK ON, BUT COULD NOT. I LITTERALLY LAUGHED OUT LOUD AND SAT IN MY TRUCK AMAZED. AFTER ALL THIS TIME THAT WAS ALL I HAD TO DO. THE COMPLETE OPPOSIT OF EVERYTHING THAT I WAS TOLD. THIS WHOLE WEEK I HAVE DRIVEN WHERE EVER I WANTED,AT ANY TIME OF THE DAY. I AM SO GLAD I FOUND YOUR PROGRAM. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL YOUR RESEARCH, TIME, AND DEDICATION SO THAT PEOPLE LIKE US CAN NOW LIVE A NORMAL AND HAPPY LIFE. JACKSON CA, AARON ==================================

…I prayed to God to show me what to do I experienced my first panic attack in July of this year and ended up going to the hospital by ambulance thinking I was having a stroke or heart attack! I have had a bunch of attacks since then. Monday morning I awoke to an immediate attack and prayed to God to show me what to do. To make a long story short,I was led to your website but was afraid it was like the other ones where they try to sell you their products. However, your introductory information really spoke to me and I decided to take a chance. I read your book and it gave me the tools I was searching for to deal with my attacks. I could tell immediately that you have suffered from panic attacks yourself because you spoke with authority that can only have come from having dealt with the terrors yourself.

I am 42 years of age and have been noticing the psychological effects of perimenopause (one of which is panic attacks in my case). Thanks again!! Sincerely, Cynthia

===================================

To Learn more about Panic Away:

Click Here

Barry Joe McDonagh

PanicAway.com

All material provided in these emails are for informational or educational purposes only. No content is intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Consult your physician regarding the applicability of any opinions or recommendations with respect to your symptoms or medical condition.