Living Proof

The Courage to Change It's not about fear dissipating in order to feel better. It's overriding the fear itself with courage. Why didn't anyone tell me this for the past 30 years? I always thought that it was "courageous" to not feel the sensations of fear. If you were diagnosed with anxiety disorder, you know that the "disorder" is fearing the fear itself---a vicious cycle of feeling sensations in our involuntary functions that make us think that something is wrong. For instance, whenever we feel bodily sensations from anxiety, like palpitations or breathlessness, we think "heart attack." That one thought snowballs into panic mode, straight into feeling the need to call for medical help---'usually' in order to ease our minds. Once we get that clean bill of health, we may start more of a positive start for the first couple of weeks, until that "disorder" kicks in again with that one initial thought when a bodily sensation arise...

Anxiety & Derealization Panic attacks can often feel like you're losing control, or perhaps going to lose it and go crazy. Some experience derealization---a sense of a surreal world---as if you're in your own home, but it's a different place somehow. Many people are experiencing this derealization these days ever since the pandemic has come to a low simmer. I'm sure you know many people who don't go out as much---or at all. And once we step outside, it feels different---surreal---weird---foggy, right? It's not the same world, we think to ourselves. It doesn't feel like the same place. That's how people who suffer with agoraphobia feel. Long periods inside their home, or long periods avoiding places can make some feel as though they're in a different world altogether. I sometimes chuckle, because a lot of these 'spiritualists' on TikTok claim that the world ended in 2012 and that we are living in a different universe, which is why we feel ...