Can you believe this is what I was told by my therapist in just the 3rd session together? I may have just got one of the 'bad batches' of therapist during the time I was dealing with anxiety (and I truly hope so for the sake of the 6.8 million American adults), but deep down I believed that the continuous heart palpitations, dizziness, and lump in the throat symptoms of anxiety would some day be gone and I could live a 'normal' life again. 

Digging Deep

When I started to dig deep (I mean real deep) into what brought my generalized anxiety disorder on and what kept it going for so long, I found a very important false belief that was preventing me from stopping my irrational fears. This false belief was deep rooted and was set on auto pilot as it controlled the way I communicated with people as well as the actions I took in my life. This was a huge find in my books and the belief was that... 

This Is A Personal Problem 

"This is the way I am, and this is a character flaw that I have to live with"... is this you? Do you believe that this is incurable, and the best you can do is cope with the symptoms of anxiety for good? The quote "the grass is always greener on the other side" is actually true in this situation. Why is it true? Because being caught up in symptoms of anxiety even for a short while can make you think that this is your permanent reality when it's not, there's a whole new unknown world out there and it begins with changing this belief! Simply put, if you don't think you can change... you won't, so drop the external stuff you purchased that says it cures your anxiety because they are as useful as heading towards a carwash on a snowy day!

No Problem Is Permanent

The day I was walking on to the tennis court about to play in another tennis tournament, and felt ONLY butterflies in my stomach was the day I knew I had overcome my GAD and with it my panic attacks. After 9 months of working on myself to recover how did I know? Because fear in small doses is a good thing, which was signified by just the butterflies I was experiencing and nothing more. It was at that moment that I knew The unfortunate part about having generalized anxiety disorder and that is that we can't choose WHEN it may end, but we can continue to grow in confidence that will fuel our ability to deal with whatever may be causing our generalized anxiety disorder.