When you’re prone to anxiety, chances are that you will sometimes misinterpret your bodily sensations. In this section, you’ll learn to intentionally bring on physical sensations that are often experienced when someone is anxious. Even if depression is the reason you are taking this program, you may still experience some of these sensations since depression is often accompanied by increased anxiety, and so this section will still be useful for you.
You might be saying to yourself at this point, “Why would I ever want to intentionally bring on all the sensations I try so hard to avoid?? That sounds crazy!!”
Before you stop reading, there are actually a few reasons you might want to consider this. First, you’ll be triggering these symptoms on purpose, so they won’t be catching you off guard. This will give you an opportunity to see that, in and of themselves, they are just normal physiological experiences that are not dangerous in any way. Perhaps most importantly, you’ll see that the sensations go away all on their own, without your having to do anything to make them go away.
This last point is particularly important to remember when you find yourself experiencing similar sensations in a situation where you are feeling anxious. The sensations will go away all on their own, even it feels in the moment that they will last forever and get continually worse. Think about the last time you had a hard work-out or ran to catch a bus or cross a street. Did you notice your heart beating quickly? Did your heart rate return to normal? What did you do to make it decrease? Nothing??? And it decreased all on it’s own?
After doing the following exercises, you will have the experience to know that the physical sensations are not dangerous and that they will go away on their own without your having to leave the situation – which as you now know, only helps to maintain your problem.