Video 1 – What we’ll be covering Copy Copy

Video transcript

Ok, so this is the first video of 7 on this How to Handle Anxiety mini-course.

Video 1, this is where I’m going to be just giving an introduction to the course itself and a little bit about me and what to expect.

Video 2 will be looking at anxiety in general.

In Video 3, we’ll start having a look at some of the approaches for handling anxiety, so the first one here being the idea that we can turn towards anxiety.

Video 4 – what we put our attention on grows. This is all about the importance of our attention and the choice that we have with that.

Video 5 – being good enough. This is a common issue that we can all have and it can be linked to experiences of anxiety.

Video 6 is having a look at life in general and the fact that change is a constant, so how can we align with life? How can we trust life? How can we feel at ease with life and how we can flow with what ‘is’.

and in Video 7 I’ll give a summary and give some extra information around resources that can help with taking this anxiety course further.

So what this course is about. It’s a stand-alone course to help with anxiety, a 101 course essentially that will whizz through the main principles that I’ve used with myself with my own anxiety journey, and also with the clients that I’ve worked with over the last 15 years. And it will also be a lead-in to more in-depth and specific well-being topics that I’ll be doing through 2021.

What this course is not about – it’s not a replacement for going to see your GP for example or other therapists. It’s not a replacement for more detailed personal therapy. It’s not an instant fix. Anxiety cantake time to build up and we need to be patient with how we’re working with anxiety, because actually to be impatient and to try and get rid of it can actually exacerbate the problem. And so yeah, this is not a replacement for accessing support.

This is something that can be included as part of your support program and as Barack Obama says here “asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it’s a sign of strength”.

Ok, so who am I? I’m an experienced psychotherapist and coach. I’ve been practising for the last 15 years and I’ve taught on the counselling diploma locally here in Worthing. I also run a counselling practice with 10-15 other counsellors, here where live. Prior to that I worked in London in banking and I.T. in the 90’s and early 2000’s. I’m married, with 2 teenage boys and a cocker spaniel called Oscar.

So why would you listen to me?

So I’ve got in-depth knowledge of anxiety personally. My anxiety journey started when I was 33, commuting up to London on the train and started having panic attacks on the train going up and panic attacks at work and experiencing anxiety when I got home, and that sent me into a real tailspin.

So I started seeing a therapist and took a look at my childhood history, and started to make connections with some of the experiences that I had when I was sent to a boarding school when I was 7, and some of the coping mechanisms that I would have developed at that point in order to feel safe. These were starting to unravel when I was in my 30’s because they weren’t really up to the job of managing all the pressures that I had at that age. And as I said previously, I’ve worked with a lot clients who also experienced similar anxiety. And the premise that I use with myself and others is that there is actually some hidden gifts to anxiety.

It seems to be that we have to go through some difficult journeys in order to face some fears and turn inwardly and learn more about ourselves. Joseph Campbell was an academic from the 60s and 70s and he had a look at all the different cultures around the world, and historically as well, from Greek mythology onwards, and he noticed that there is a running theme through all the narratives of all the stories that existed in all these human cultures, and that it seems that we have to go through the process of facing our fears in order to grow. Facing our fears in order to get some of the gold that exists within. It is hidden where we least want to go.

In the case with anxiety when we turn towards it, actually we then explore what’s happening at a deeper level for us and find hidden reserves of confidence, freedom and more choices about what we want to do in life.

So that’s a quick look at the course overall, what it is, what it isn’t, a little bit about me and the hidden gifts of anxiety which I hope is going to give you some some hope. The next video is going to focus on the topic of anxiety in general.

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