“If you are breathing then there is more right with you than wrong.” Jon Kabat-Zinn
Yesterday, I spoke about using your strengths to motivate yourself in a positive way. I spoke about self-acceptance and healthy self-talk. Jon Kabat-Zinn is a pioneer in mindfulness training developing mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) which helps individuals learn to act from a place of acceptance and health even during difficult times.
Jon Kabat-Zinn speaks to the nature of life as changing. He also speaks about the possibility of difficulties becoming overwhelming which may initiate this self-defeating pattern of thinking that we are not enough and/or that our very nature is flawed.
Personally, I believe we are inherently great. The thing is we often forget this about ourselves leading to overperforming and secondary anxiety. Yes, there is such a concept as secondary anxiety. This is where our response to an initially anxiety producing event creates distress. Now instead of having to face the first problem presented by the initial unpleasant event we now must address the fallout of our unhelpful response to that event.
Magnifying our faults leads to being overwhelmed and underprepared. I am not suggesting that you magnify your strengths instead. I suggest you take an honest view of who you are as an entire person to embrace your ability to adapt to the changes life proposes.
JOURNAL PROMPTS
1. Are you prone to secondary anxiety?
2. If you are prone to secondary anxiety what do you think you can do to practice more acceptance over your ability to meet challenges with grace?
3. If you are not prone to secondary anxiety how to you keep this from happening?
GUIDANCE
Secondary anxiety simply put is anxiety about your anxiety. If you find yourself experiencing secondary anxiety it may be a sign that you have expectations of how you should think and or feel. I offer you this encouragement… you can accept something and dislike it simultaneously. Also, you have all you need to overcome anything. If you do not have it within you it is possible to ask for help from appropriate sources. YOU ROCK!