Let me tell you a story about how I accidentally used the relaxation techniques for anxiety I’m about to show you today…

I stood up to a bully, won the respect of my classmates and boosted my self-esteem.

This happened in middle school.

One of our teachers was sick that day, so my classmates and I snuck out of school and went to play basketball.

We played for about an hour.

And as we were about to pack our things and leave, a teenager came up to us.

Let’s call him Hamid.

He lived in the projects near the school.

He was some big-shot karate tournament winner.

But, unlike the Karate Kid, he was using his skills for evil.

He was infamous for his streetfights where he allegedly would knock out his opponents.

So, he comes up to us and suggests that we “play a little”.

We say that we need to go.

He disagrees.

He thinks we should stay and play.

But we really need to go. Our next class will begin in about 10 minutes.

He takes away the ball and starts playing with it.

Nobody from our group is willing to confront him.

So, I start “playing” with him.

Turns out, he wasn’t that good at basketball.

I take away the ball and pass it to my classmate who owns the ball.

He packs the ball into his bag.

Hamid sees that he lost and what does he do?

Does he accept the defeat gracefully?

Does he bid us farewell and leave?

Of course not!

Instead, he starts screaming at me.

He starts threatening me.

He wants to fight me.

He wants to decide the date and time when we’ll fight.

To be honest with you, I was scared.

I didn’t want to become another of his “KO wins”.

But that fear just wasn’t strong enough.

You see, when you use the techniques I’m about to show you, you can override your fears.

You make them weaker.

You will still fear, but you do the scary thing anyway.

You become brave.

And that’s the definition of bravery: being scared but doing the scary thing anyway.

So, what do I tell Hamid?

I tell him: “Sure! Let’s fight. No problem. Let’s do it HERE and NOW!”

I figured that the best time for me to fight would be right there and then because:

He didn’t have his friends there.
I had my (albeit scared) friends there.
I was warmed up after playing basketball.

Thanks to the basketball game, I naturally used the relaxation techniques for anxiety below and didn’t go into panic mode.

Even in face of real physical danger.

I was breathing right.
I was mindful of my body.
I was “in the zone” (meditative state).
I was relaxed.

These are all the relaxation techniques for anxiety.

So, did they help me in this instance?

Read on to find out.

I tell Hamid: “I don’t wanna fight you. But if you wanna fight, let’s do it. I’m ready!”

Hamid sees that I’m not intimidated and that intimidates him!

“Why is this guy not scared?” – he may have thought.

“Is he a good fighter? Will I get my ass kicked?”

Now he was anxious!

It became obvious to me that he didn’t really want to fight.

Long story short, I managed to deescalate the situation.

We took our bags etc and left.

He was still aggressive and loud.

But we didn’t mind.

I didn’t mind.

I had already won.

I never talked to him again.

Sure enough, my classmates told everyone about me standing up to the bully.

“Holy shit!” was the consensus of my class.

I hope you’ll feel the same way about your own ability to handle stress if you employ the techniques I’m about to show you.

As I mentioned in the article “Want To Overcome Anxiety Forever? Rebuild your Resilience!”, exercise is the best way to fight off anxiety.

In fact, I personally believe that not exercising is mistreatment of your own body.

But sometimes you do need a little extra boost for your self-control.

Let’s talk about that.

TOP 4 Relaxation techniques For Anxiety

Relaxation techniques for anxiety will help you stay calm under pressure and lower your stress.

If you want to overcome your anxiety, you need to stop making it worse, and start overcoming each experience that comes your way.

There are a number of relaxation techniques you can use before or during stressful events.

But you need to practice them.

Practice them not when you feel anxious, but when you feel good and relaxed.

Another point is to focus on one or two of them.

You don’t have to use all of them. You just need to find one or two that work for you.

Or make them yourself.

You can develop your own techniques.

It’s OK.

We’ll talk about the following relaxation techniques:

Progressive muscle relaxation
Meditation
Breathing
Massage

I tried each of them, but so far I’ve only seen consistent success with my own breathing technique, massage, and my own form of meditation.

We are all different, so here are some techniques that may work for you.

You’ll never know until you try.

The following techniques are here to give you hints and ideas.

You can either use them as-is or you can develop your own techniques.

Also, physical movement incorporates most of these techniques, so if you struggle to just “sit down and relax”, try walking, running, cycling etc.

Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR)

What is PMR?

It’s a method where you systematically tense, then relax different muscle groups in your body. This helps reduce stress and anxiety.

How does it work?

Find a quiet spot: Sit or lie down comfortably.
Start with your toes: Tighten them for about 5-10 seconds.
Release: Notice the relaxation for 20-30 seconds.
Move up your body: Repeat the process with each muscle group, from your feet to your face.

Why try it?

PMR can help you feel more relaxed, reduce anxiety, and even improve sleep.

It’s easy to do and can be done almost anywhere.

Meditation

Among all the relaxation techniques for anxiety, meditation gives you the most bang for your buck because it improves many brain functions – not just lowers anxiety.

There are many forms of meditation.

Studies showed that mindfulness meditation can significantly lower people’s stress responses.

For example, one US-based study tested two different approaches: a Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction and a Stress Management Education course.

They measured the results using 4 different stress measures, including the Trier Social Stress Tests, a very unpleasant test designed to make you feel as stressed out as possible.

In this test, the participants are asked to perform tasks like public speaking and mental arithmetic.

At the same time, they are assessed by other people and given negative feedback.

For example, while you’re delivering your speech, the listeners will cross their arms and legs, roll their eyes, sigh, and show you that you’ve just said the most ridiculous thing they have ever heard in their lives.

The goal is to trigger your stress responses, which are then measured through physiological markers like your cortisol levels and heart rate.

So, what did the study show?

It showed that both Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program and a Stress Management Education course lowered people’s anxiety.

However, the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program led to significantly greater reduction in anxiety and distress.

(Source: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3772979/ )

Meditation, especially mindfulness meditation, is a skill that helps you notice and identify your states.

Are you worried? Tired? Anxious? Relaxed? Sad?

If so, what caused it?

This is a great skill to combine with the pause and plan technique we talked about in this article: How to overcome anxiety with just 6 mental skills.

In my Outsmart Anxiety course I give you a long list of emotions so that you can identify yours easily.

Meditation is like giving your brain a mini-vacation from worry.

There are various forms of meditation.

The basic one is this:

Find a comfortable spot, close your eyes, and take slow, deep breaths. Focus on the sensation of breathing in and out. When your mind wanders (and it will!), gently bring your attention back to your breath. Even just a few minutes can make a big difference.

However…

This basic may not work.

Some people (like yours truly here) can’t sit still for long.

We need movement.

So, in my case, I use cycling as my meditation.

It only works when you don’t need to constantly worry about your surroundings.

Being hit by a car isn’t exactly relaxing!

So, I prefer using my exercise bike.

Another way is to ride in cyclist-safe places like parks, cycling paths etc.

Other options include swimming, walking (again, in a safe and boring environment), jogging, or any other type of sport that you can engage in on your own.

Moving your body while meditating kills two birds with one stone.

You let your body do what it was designed to do (move) and you let your brain relax and decompress.

Breathing

Body movement will also train your breathing muscles.

There are several breathing techniques that help you overcome anxiety.

When you feel anxious, your breathing can become shallow and rapid. Slowing it down can help calm your mind and body.

Breathing techniques work well with Pause and Plan.

My favorite technique is…

Take a deep breath and pause. Hold the air for a couple seconds and exhale. Done!

Most of the breathing relaxation techniques for anxiety are too complex for me.

Just inhale as deeply as you can and hold for 3-5 seconds.

Why does it work so well?

I think it’s because it’s fast and simple.

For example, there’s another famous breathing technique: the 4-7-8 breathing.

How to do it: Breathe in through your nose for a count of four, hold the breath for seven counts, and then exhale slowly through your mouth for a count of eight.

This technique works great, but guess what…

4+7+8 is 19 seconds!

Imagine: someone calls your name and you feel startled.

Do you have 19 seconds to respond “yes, what is it”?

No, you don’t.

So, you won’t do it.

My “oversimplified” technique, on the contrary, takes 5 to 7 seconds.

A much more reasonable time frame.

It can also be repeated a couple times if necessary.

The most important part, in my opinion, is holding your breath, not the inhale or the exhale.

This pattern helps to relax your nervous system and can be very soothing.

Another breathing technique is the door breathing technique, also known as box breathing or square breathing.

Here’s how to do it:

Inhale: Breathe in through your nose for a count of four.
Hold: Hold your breath for a count of four.
Exhale: Exhale through your mouth for a count of four.
Hold: Hold your breath again for a count of four.

Repeat this cycle a few times.

Imagine you’re breathing around a box, with each side representing one of the four steps.

This technique helps regulate your breathing and brings a sense of calm.

I find that breathing helps with amygdala-based anxiety.

It shows your body that you can take a deep breath in this situation.

Therefore, the situation is not dangerous.

It also gives your mind the time to react to the situation and send a message to the amygdala: “It’s OK. We’re safe”.

If you have cortex-based anxiety, breathing techniques will give you time to pause and plan.

But after the initial breath, you need to use other mind-oriented techniques (like the ABCD technique we’ll discuss in other articles)

Massage Also fights anxiety?

One of my favorite relaxation techniques for anxiety and stress.

Why?

Because you don’t need to do anything, and it just feels sooooo good!!

When I say “massage” you may imagine going to a massage salon or a chiropractor etc.

These are the best case scenarios and work great if you can afford it in terms of time and money.

If not, then there are some great alternatives.

If you have a family member who can do it, that’s probably the best.

The second best is a massage chair.

But, again, they are expensive.

The third (and the option I use) is a massage device.

A couple years ago I noticed that after neck and shoulder massage I can sleep much better.

So, I bought a special neck massage machine, and you know what?

It works!

Not only can I sleep better, but I also found that it relaxes me.

I just sit back in my chair and relax.

So, it’s like meditation, but pleasant and relaxing.

And best of all, these machines don’t cost a fortune!

How Relaxation makes you unbreakable

To summarize, these relaxation techniques will make you stronger.

How?

Well, relaxation makes you soft.

And you can’t break soft things.

Nobody ever was able to physically break water.

But when water gets hard (ice), it shatters.

The same applies to your mind.

If you’re soft, you won’t break.

When relaxing, you will spend less energy on needless tension and more energy on actually solving your problems or unlearning your anxiety (we’ll talk about it later).

Relaxation techniques are not to help you avoid stress.

They are to help you save and recover your energy faster, and feel better, even if you still experience anxiety and stress.

And when you have more energy, then you’ll be able to start working on undoing the damage anxiety may have caused.

The most important step in this direction, in my opinion, is retaking control in your life.

True Freedom from Anxiety and a sense of Control

Imagine this situation: you’re waiting for a bus at a stop.

There are people around you.

Suddenly, you hear a tyre screeching sound.

A car plows into the bus stop, injures (or kills) several people who were standing next to you.

You’re unharmed.

How do you feel?

Not good, right?

But why?

Physically, you’re fine, but mentally…?

Let’s find out what changes in our mind that makes us feel so bad.

When I was studying trauma, PTSD and how to recover from them, I found that at the core of each mental trauma is lack of control (called lack of agency).

In the above example, you didn’t suffer physically, but your lack of control was exposed.

You didn’t control the movement of the car.

You didn’t control where you were at the time. It was random.

You didn’t control what happened to the people who got hit by the car.

And this is what can be the most traumatic.

The loss of control.

Sometimes you see people without limbs who lead a happy life.

Some people who lost everything in their life, can go on living and not let their past events traumatize them.

But how?

By regaining control.

How do you regain control?

So far, we’ve already talked about many techniques that help you not only overcome anxiety, but to regain control over your life.

Outsmarting anxiety is all about regaining control.

In general, this process looks like this: To get a sense of control, you find your zone of control and grow it.

This zone of control may be “I can control my actions”.

For example, “ I can control what I look at”, “I can control what I read”, “ I can control what I say”, “I can control what I do”, “I can control where I go”.

It always starts within.

You can never completely control what happens around you.

You can’t control the weather, the people around you, the events in your life.

But you can control YOU.

One quote I particularly like in this respect is:

“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are” by Theodore Roosevelt

Find what you can do right now, exactly where you are and exactly how you are.

And do it.

This is how you regain freedom from anxiety.

Remember MIST.

I mention it here: How to overcome anxiety with just 6 mental skills

Identify your emotions.
How are you feeling? What are you thinking?
Identify the problem you’re facing.
Why am I feeling like this?
Why am I thinking this?
What is the problem that’s causing these feelings and thoughts?

Once you identify the problem that’s causing your anxiety, then start gathering the necessary materials, information, skills and tools.

The materials may be supplements, time, your energy.

Information – is learning about how anxiety works. If this page isn’t enough, you can search online. Take notes. Find a book (or an audiobook) and learn from it.

Skills – practice breathing, meditation, relaxation techniques. Try the pause and plan technique.

Tools – can be your journal and a pencil, or a google doc, or a massage machine.

You see, you can’t control the world around you, but you can control what you do and what you think.

One great example of how to deal with cortex-based anxiety is the ABCD technique.

The ABCD technique from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is a helpful way to manage anxiety. It stands for Activating event, Belief, Consequence, and Dispute. Here’s how it works:

Activating Event (A): This is the situation that triggers your anxiety. For example, giving a presentation at work.
Belief (B): These are the thoughts or beliefs you have about the event. You might think, “I’m going to mess up and everyone will laugh at me.”
Consequence (C): These are the feelings and behaviors that result from your beliefs. In this case, you might feel anxious and try to avoid the presentation.
Dispute (D): This is where you challenge your beliefs. Ask yourself, “Is it true that I’ll mess up? Even if I do, will everyone really laugh at me? What’s the worst that could happen?”

By disputing your irrational beliefs, you can reduce anxiety and respond more calmly to the situation.

It’s a practical way to reframe your thoughts and manage stress.

Overcome anxiety slowly

You can develop anxiety quickly.

And you can get rid of it quickly too.

But most people don’t.

For example, did you know that playing tetris after a traumatic event can lessen the severity of PTSD, depression and anxiety?

(read about it here: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7828932/ )

When I was bit by a dog, I was in a slightly traumatized state, but then I went home, where I had my own dog.

So, my brain couldn’t learn “all dogs are dangerous”, and so I never developed any dog-specific phobia.

These two examples show that it is possible to prevent or even overcome anxiety quickly.

But you need the skills and knowledge to do it.

Most people don’t, so they develop anxiety.

Their anxiety grows stronger over time.

That means that they need to “shrink” it over time.

As we discussed in the article 50 shades of anxiety: How to identify and destroy yours? , a lot of anxiety is learned.

Just like you can’t suddenly forget how to spell or speak English, you can’t immediately forget the anxious thinking patterns.

The good news though…

It’s possible.

Many people overcome their anxieties every day, and you can too.

Be patient and persistent and you will do it too!

Let’s talk about how to do that.

Desensitization

Desensitization is a technique used to reduce anxiety by gradually exposing yourself to what makes you anxious.

Think of it as building up a tolerance, like slowly getting used to cold (or hot) water.

There’s a fun experiment I used to do with my preschool age students that illustrates our amazing powers of…

…getting used to anything.

Prepare three buckets.

One should have hot water, another should have room temperature water, and the other one should have cold water.

Next, the participant puts their hands (at the same time) into the “hot” and the “cold” buckets: one hand in each.

After a minute, the participant takes their hands out and puts BOTH hands in the “room temperature”.

What do they feel?

Surprised!

They are surprised because the same water will feel like cold water to the hand that was in the hot bucket, and will feel hot to the hand that spent a minute in the cold bucket.

Same water.

Same person.

Feels different!

The same principle works when you turn off the light in your room.

At first, you can’t see anything.

Gradually, however, you start seeing things, and after a minute you can walk around the room – no problem!

Desensitization works best for amygdala-based anxiety, but you can use it for cortex-based anxiety too to face your fears.

Here’s how desensitization works: start with something that causes mild anxiety, and then move up to more challenging situations.

For example, if you’re afraid of public speaking, you might start by speaking in front of a mirror, then to a friend, and eventually to a small group.

Each step helps you become more comfortable and less anxious.

The key is to take it slowly and be patient with yourself.

By facing your fears in small, manageable steps, you can reduce your anxiety over time and build confidence.

It’s a practical way to take control of your fears and feel more at ease.

You can also “cheat” a little.

Instead of actually experiencing an event, you can vividly imagine it.

Some parts of our brains can’t tell the difference between reality and imagination.

But you need to stick to the principle of gradually exposing yourself to it. Imagine only mildly distressing situations.

In my case, to overcome my social anxiety, I practiced smiling at people. First, I’d mentally practice it, and then I’d go out and try it in the real world.

I found that it’s much easier to do it in the real world after some mental practice.

There are two components of desensitization:

Exposure (Fear Ladders)
How you deal with your experiences (Surf the wave + AAR)

Fear Ladders of Anxiety

Fear Ladders technique is a helpful tool for overcoming anxiety by gradually facing your fears.

Think of it as climbing a ladder, one step at a time, towards overcoming your anxiety.

Here’s how it works:

First, write down your fear and break it into smaller, manageable steps. If you have multiple fears, do it for one fear at a time.

Arrange these steps from least to most scary, creating your “ladder.”

For example, if you’re afraid of dogs, your ladder might start with looking at pictures of dogs, then watching videos, standing near a calm dog, petting one, and walking by a barking dog.

This is oversimplified, but you get the point.

You can add many more intermediate steps.

You start at the bottom and work your way up, spending time at each step until you feel comfortable before moving to the next.

This gradual exposure helps reduce fear and build confidence.

When you reach the “step 2” of the ladder, you can say to yourself: “I’ve dealt with step 1, so I can deal with this too!”

If you find that a certain step is too stressful, you can break it up into smaller (or just different) chunks by mixing up:

Who are you doing it with? (Alone? With someone?)

Where? (At home? Outside when there’s nobody around? In a crowded area?)

What is the “object” (Are you looking at a small dog? Big dog? Making eye contact with an average-looking stranger? Attractive stranger?)

Surf the Anxiety wave

But how exactly do you deal with each step of the ladder?

How do you deal with your fears, stress and anxiety?

Do you “just do it”?

No.

You need to “Surf the wave”.

“Surf the wave” is a technique for managing anxiety by riding out your emotions instead of fighting them.

Picture your anxiety as a wave in the ocean. It starts small, builds up, and eventually crashes and fades away.

Most people “chicken out” when the wave builds.

They use coping techniques to feel better.

Anxiety wave sucks!

But remember our approach from the SMART process.

We’re treating ourselves as we’d treat our own child.

How would you teach your kid to swim?

Gradually, right? We’ve talked about that in the above part (fear ladders).

But what if the kid is afraid of waves?

You know that they’re not dangerous.

The waves come and go.

But your kid doesn’t yet realize it.

How do you teach him or her to try?

By telling him or her in relatively safe waters: try it and see how it goes.

Same principle applies here.

You try NOT coping with your anxiety and see how it goes.

When you feel anxiety coming on, imagine you’re on a surfboard riding this wave.

Instead of resisting, go with the flow. Focus on your breath and remind yourself that the wave will pass.

By observing your anxiety without judgment and letting it run its course, you can reduce its intensity.

You will see that your brain can’t keep up the intense anxiety for long.

Your anxiety will subside.

And then, you can use the After-Action Review technique we talked about before here: How to overcome anxiety with just 6 mental skills

Write down how it went.

Remember how it went.

Write down what happened, what you did and how you felt.

Focus on what you did, not on how you felt.

For example, here’s what I could write after one of my driving anxiety experiences:

“I drove in a city I didn’t know. Behind me there was an ambulance. I was freaking out. I had a full-on fight-flight-freeze response. I was sweating. I managed to pull to the side and let the ambulance go past me without delay. Then, I continued driving and got to my destination”

You see?

It’s a success story.

Yes, I felt anxious and stressed, but I DID the right thing.

In its core, desensitization is creating many small success stories for yourself.

“But Anxiety hurts!”

“Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional” – Haruki Murakami

As you go through the process of desensitization you will experience pain.

Is pain normal?

Or is it a sign of something wrong?

Let me tell you a story that may help illustrate my approach that has been helpful in my life.

Once, I injured my foot.

I was doing long jumps at a park.

After one jump I landed the wrong way and felt strong pain in my left ankle.

I was in so much pain that I wasn’t able to walk normally.

Later that day, every (even the tiniest) leg movement was causing pain that I just couldn’t ignore, forget or distract myself from.

I called a taxi and went to a hospital.

I was in so much pain that I could feel every bump in the road.

There was no position I could find in the taxi that wouldn’t cause me excruciating pain.

At the hospital, I found out that there was no fracture.

Just pain.

Long story short, it took about 6 months to heal the injury.

In these 6 months I noticed something weird…

If you don’t use the injured area, it doesn’t heal well.

If you avoid pain completely, the injury doesn’t recover.

Ask anyone who’s ever broken their bone and had a cast on for a long time.

After the docs take off the cast, you still can’t move!

Your muscles get weak.

Your tendons get stiff.

So, what do you do?

You stretch, you train.

And when you stretch, what do you feel?

Yes, you feel pain.

But how much pain is OK?

According to Dr Paul Mason, a Sports and Exercise Medicine Physician from Australia an acceptable level of discomfort during exercise is 3-4/10. It is more important that the exercise does not make your pain worse over the next 1-2 days.

I believe this principle applies well for mental recovery too.

You may have heard of the “growth zone”, or the learning zone.

It’s sandwiched between the comfort zone and the panic zone.

The idea is that you can only “grow” outside of your comfort zone.

Being outside of your comfort zone, usually, means having some amount of pain or discomfort.

So, aim for pain and discomfort.

But not too much.

Too much pain will make you give up.

Too much pain is a sign that you may be causing further “injury”.

My personal experience shows that pain in the 2-4 (out of 10) range is the best.

We already talked about the fear ladders approach.

If you feel too much discomfort on your recovery journey, then make a new rung (step) on your ladder, something that causes manageable discomfort.

Is there a way to tolerate pain better?

Yes, there is!

Make it mean something (change attitude)

It’s called meaning.

And we’ll talk about it in this article on the last step in overcoming anxiety: Thriving. ==LINK Coming Soon==

Having a strong sense of meaning won’t protect you from pain, but it can protect you from suffering.

Your attitude matters.

We, humans, are meaning-dependent creatures.

We need to understand what’s happening in the world around us and within ourselves.

Unlike Misa, my cat, humans need to understand why they are feeling pain and discomfort.

We seek meaning behind events.

When no meaning is available, we either search for one, or make one.

The same events can have different meanings.

Let’s take the example of the bus stop car crash.

In that example, the car killed and injured several people, but you were unharmed.

Why?

What’s the meaning behind that?

Different people will come up with different answers.

God saved me for a purpose.
I killed people by not standing in their place.
I was standing in that particular place because I felt safer there. I was cautious and survived.
A conversation with my friend delayed me and I stood there because of when I got to the bus station. My friend saved my life.

I can go on forever.

There are a billion possible reasons for events.

And you’re free to create one for yourself.

Feel free to create your own meaning for why you need the pain.

The same principle applies to traumatic events.

For example, according to Stephen Joseph PhD’s book “What doesn’t kill us” 75% of people experience trauma.

Yet, it is proven that only a small subset of trauma victims develops PTSD (<10%).

Source: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1524838009334448

This number is higher for severe trauma cases (20-25% severe trauma -> PTSD)

But what happens when there’s no PTSD?

What is there instead of PTSD?

After all, that’s the majority of cases.

It’s called post-traumatic growth (PTG).

It doesn’t always happen, just like PTSD.

But what I personally find fascinating is that the symptoms of PTSD and PTG can happen at the same time.

I witnessed it first-hand when Stephan had cancer.

When your loved ones are sick you often can’t do anything but wait.

And so, to use my time better, I started learning.

At some point, I didn’t know if he’d survive, but I knew that it was a traumatic event for everyone.

Like many people, I thought: Trauma must cause PTSD! I and everyone involved will be scarred for life!

But as I started learning more about it, I found that PTG is much more common than PTSD.

PTG doesn’t lessen your pain by much.

Every day before Stephan’s eye operation was a living hell.

What’s worse, it was during COVID-19 and we couldn’t even stay with him for longer than a couple hours per day.

But there was one question that helped direct the pain and thoughts in a better direction:

How is this making me stronger?

This question can help you find growth where there seems none.

This question will also help you find meaning where there was none.

It is hard to find the answer.

But if you keep looking, you will find it.

In my case, our cancer experience definitely made me stronger.

That same year, a couple months later, I lost my job (the company went bankrupt).

“No biggie!” sounded in my mind.

I used most of my savings and started a new school?

“Even if I lose everything I’ve been saving for years, it’s not the worst thing in the world” – I thought.

My partner in the new school suddenly quit?

“What’s the worst that can happen? I just fail at business! Could be worse!” -sounded in my mind.

The pain I had experienced made me stronger and more resilient.

So, when you feel fear, pain, or discomfort on your path to overcoming anxiety, ask yourself: “how is this making me stronger?”

The answer will give you a reason to keep going where the “old you” would have given up.

You will learn to appreciate the pain.

You will stop running away from it and it will open a door for you to start your recovery.

How I Stood Up To A Bully (and Won!) Using These 4 Techniques For Anxiety