Dear Cesar:

If you stayed in your current job, you’d be anxious. Going back to the start up job, you will be anxious. If you don’t work at all.. you will be anxious. Healing from anxiety is a slow, slow process but it is possible. I am engaged in this healing process myself. It is not a condition that you have to live with for the rest of your life.

There is no  easy solution and a short term therapy is not enough. You should persist in therapy, maybe take a break here and there but return to  it. The therapy should aim at healing from anxiety, learn tools to regulate your emotions (emotional regulation), practice those tools, get into Mindfulness, get insight into your childhood and process feelings from then, feelings that get activated in your current daily life.

This is a long term pursuit, don’t quit when you feel better. Most people do and therefore they don’t heal. Whether you engage in the healing process of not, you will experience this anxiety for a long time to  come no matter where you work or if you work.

Relax best you can, take deep breaths, take long walks in nature, visit a sauna perhaps, let the sun melt away the distress… and keep going. Post here anytime.

anita

Dear Cesar:

You are welcome.

“I just want to be happy”- a happy, joyful, excited feeling, that cannot be a permanent state of experience. It appears and disappears. If we try to hold on to it, it will disappear sooner than later. We have to be flexible, to allow feelings to appear and disappear, to come and go.

To be content often, not anxious, not distressed on an ongoing basis, that you can achieve through the persistent practice of tools, such as guided meditation, other Mindfulness practices, regular exercise, effective problem solving, daily routine, and so forth.

It is not about reading what I wrote above (and the massive literature on the matter), but about the persistent practice of what works.

I hope you do keep me posted, looking forward to read more from you!

anita

Do you know when it started? Maybe you can find the root of your anxiety and fix it. If you’re still anxious in a place where you thought you would not feel anxious, then the cause of your anxiety must lie within you.

Once I acted on anxiety and almost ruined my whole career. Using your situation for example, I ran back to my friends at my other job to feel less anxious but then I missed up on a great opportunity that would have benefited me in the future, and that gave me even more anxiety.

I was so upset with myself. How am I so anxious that I would let it ruin my life? Isn’t it just a feeling?  I kept on passively dealing with my anxiety until it built up and pushed me into making the wrong decision of choosing my friends over what was best for me –  all because I was anxious and didn’t want to be alone in my own thoughts.

A friend of mine noticed how I was always in my head and recommended me to counseling. I went and found out that I haven’t been honest with myself on a lot of things, especially with what I wanted. If I had been honest with myself, I would have made the right choice by sticking with the job and not running to my friends. That counseling session made me realize that my anxiety stemmed from me not being real with myself and instead believed all the unrealistic, anxious ideas that were running through my mind.

My anxiety did not end there though. Some things just sound better in writing. I’m still anxious now and don’t know when it’ll stop but I’m working on it. The counseling did make me feel the least bit better by giving me a place to start. I used to deal with my anxiety by just ignoring it and acting like everything’s fine. I thought if I acted fine I would feel fine, but I just felt worse.  Knowing where my feelings were coming from made them easier to deal with. I hope you’ll find your own place to start too. It won’t be quick but it’ll be good for you.