Anxiety is the disease of the 21st Century. It creeps into our lives and takes over, piece by piece. It effects our health, our relationships, our joy. We can wake up feeling anxious, go through the day with the feelings of stress and go to bed feeling worse. It can impact on all aspects of our lives and yet all too often we do not know how best to manage it. We put up with it and let it dominate our thoughts, hope and dreams. Anxiety is a ravenous beast that demands feeding. It has a voracious appetite and is never replete. If steps are not taken to tame anxiety, it can be all consuming.
Anxiety is just a word. It is a construct of our over active imagination. We imagine disaster, embarrassment, failure, loss, pain. We struggle with conversations where we should have, could have been so different. We worry about people and how we have offended them, why they seem distant. We ruminate.
What we fail to do is ruminate on the good things. The positives that are in our lives, the successes. This takes discipline, to look on the bright side. However, it is still a choice. We can choose to look for the chinks of light rather than focus on the shadows. I wrote this workbook to help shift mindsets!
“I have been working as a Counsellor for some time now and I would say that a constant theme for most of my clients is anxiety. For some this is unexplained, it is just how they have always been from a toddler onwards. For others there is an obvious trigger- a traumatic event, a loss of a loved one, a crime committed against them. These traumas can be worked through but in the meantime anxiety is invading their daily lives.
Anxiety is a small word and is often minimised, but for the person suffering from it, it can be crippling. Upon searching the internet for solutions I discovered that there is a lot written on the subject but not enough simple interventions that a person can try, before seeking specialist help or medication.
I thought that it may be useful to share one of the tools that I have developed in my practice. I use it with adults and teenagers alike, sometimes as a starting point to alleviate distress and then deeper work follows on or sometimes this approach is enough.
This workbook gives control to the individual. They can see where things are going wrong for themselves and can then change things. I have found that change is the key to feeling better. Whether that be a change in behaviour or acceptance of the things out of their control, change is at the root of managing anxiety.
I have included some theory, but have deliberately not made this workbook too wordy. There are many books available on this subject and I will include some links if you desire more in depth knowledge but it is not essential to know all of the theories before using and benefitting from this book.
It can be used by you, no matter your age, or with you by a parent ( if you allow it!), teacher, pastoral person or a counsellor. The worksheets can be copied and therefore used more than once.”