Dear gj:

Feeling powerless, or believing that you are powerless is tightly connected to anxiety. When you believe you don’t have power to take care of yourself, to be effective, you are afraid because without the power to take good care of yourself, who will…?

This is why a child needs to see his parents as strong, powerful, so to believe that they can take good care of him and feel safe. An adult has to see himself as powerful enough, adequately powerful, so to feel safe.

To experience passion that is positive you have to learn to endure the anxiety. It takes a long time and work, and quality psychotherapy may be required- it was in my case. My therapist at the time started his work with me on what is called “emotional regulation”, the skills and practice that I desperately needed to reduce my own distress when distressed, guided meditations were the first in such practice.

There is no easy solution to anxiety (my definition of anxiety: an ongoing fear, unsettled fear that gets triggered again and again). Fear is very powerful. You cannot settle fear by rational thinking. It takes work and lots of discomfort along the way, lots of it.

But much progress there has been for me and there is hope for you too, if you take on the healing process. I am still at work on the matter.

anita