Okay, so you’ve committed to change, and you’re ready to learn new skills and practise them.  The next step is to accept that sometimes during this process you are not going to feel great.  One of the problems with taking medication to remove our anxiety is that it can work too well.  We take the pills, our anxiety goes away, so we feel great!  We stop taking the pills and our anxiety returns, so we feel terrible.  In this scenario we are never going to learn to deal with anxiety, because it is either overwhelming us, or it is absent, so we cannot begin to learn how to deal with it.

Our society has become used to being comfortable at all times.  When we are uncomfortable, we believe something is wrong and needs to be fixed, preferably as soon as possible.  There is a quick fix for everything.  Headache?  Pop a pain pill.  Too cold?  Turn on the heater.  Too hot?  Turn on the air conditioning.  You get the idea.  We can’t stand being uncomfortable even for a minute.  What we need is a shift in our thinking.  Maybe we need to learn that a little discomfort really isn’t that bad.  Sometimes it may even be necessary.

If you want to learn to deal with anxiety (without numbing it away with pills), you are going to be uncomfortable sometimes - maybe for quite a while, because the new skills can take some time to learn.  You need to fully understand that it is all right to be uncomfortable.  Discomfort won’t hurt you - it just feels a bit unpleasant.   I really want to emphasise these points, as they are so important:

1. Experiencing discomfort may be necessary to the process.
   
2. Experiencing discomfort is OKAY.
   

Important: the discomfort referred to here is that produced by anxiety symptoms.  Some more serious medical conditions could produce similar symptoms, so be sure to get a medical check-up.

Warning: if you are taking medication for anxiety, do not suddenly stop taking it.  See the resources page for a link about this.

Someone once said “If you keep on doing what you’ve always done, you’ll keep on getting what you’ve always got”.  We are all hoping for a magic cure for whatever it is that ails us.  We hope that the result we want will be provided for us by our doctor, our medication, our psychologist/therapist/counsellor, the expensive workshop/seminar/retreat/book/CD/whatever-it-is that we bought.  The bottom line is:  nobody can really change you except you.  It all comes down to you making changes, taking some action. 

In general this action will need to be taken repeatedly, in order to build new patterns and habits.  It takes sustained effort.  It doesn’t come in pill form.  Yes, there are pills that can be prescribed for anxiety, but being dependent on a pill is disempowering, and comes with its own set of problems.  Instead you can empower yourself with tools you can carry around inside you for the rest of your life. 

Some people may try to convince you that you have some kind of permanent defect and will need to be medicated for the rest of your life.  Do not buy into this attitude.  You are not broken, and you don’t need fixing.  There is something in your life that is not working well for you, and you want to change it.  This is a learning process.  We don’t send children to school because they are broken and need fixing, we send them to learn, to expand their knowledge and skills.  If you really want to help yourself, then you need to learn new skills and practice using them until they work well for you.  Gaining new skills is incredibly empowering.  Commit to this process as a positive learning experience.