Hi Ckgage,
Have you seen the easycalm course for anxiety??? Multimedia file viewing and clickable links are available for registered members only!! You need to
because what you are saying is exactly what he says, watch his chapter 1 video and you will see what I mean. Control or lack of it is always an issue with people experiencing anxieties. The site looks a bit gimmicky but the guy talks a LOT of sense and certainly knows his stuff.
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Hi George,
Thanks for taking the time to post that message; I for one appreciate you input immensely.
I can relate to a lot of what you said, although I have only been here for a few months I too can frequently anticipate the general direction of the forum - new member comes here worried, RLR responds giving reassurance as scientific fact, the new member thanks RLR and is very relieved, probably thinks they can now relax and get on with lives, but when the symptoms don’t go away, or even worse go away for a day or so then come back in a different form then the member is back with pretty much the same question, and so the loop begins.
I know RLR knows that this reassurance is not curing most people, hence his post and question to us all.
I agree with 100% of your statement
"The key, then, would be to learn how to let go of obsessive worries and anxieties over symptoms which perpetuates their presence". Palpitations might have started for some due to a gradual increase in stress / anxieties or by a sudden GI disturbance which gave a frightening run of missed beats etc. I think if the start was caused by some deeply seated emotions then tracing back could really put things in to perspective and reduce or eliminate the palps. In others it might not help.
I think personally I had gradual increased anxieties which finally resulted in IBS, then after that Palpitations. But I don’t want this to be about my story so I’ll leave that there.
In others if they fear a heart attack due to palps then simply exercising and thus PROVING the hard can work hard and survive might stop their palps.
But in my opinion the more a person ruminates and tries to think his / her way out of this thing the deeper they can be pulled under - does that make sense??? The compulsive searching makes it an obsession, which also has physical symptoms.
George in the book I sent you it states and I feel clinically proves, that the cycle of obsessive thoughts we are now in is pretty much wired in our brain, similar to Pavlovs dog / bell. Which is why I think we feel so helpless lots of the time, out of control of our own minds - it's quite frightening for sure. But it can also be undone - not that I have managed it yet - by reverse engineering, deliberately stopping the obsessive behaviour, pulse checking etc and forcing yourself to get on with other things, a little at 1st then increasing, eventually the neural pathways should return to normal. Basically it is pushing yourself back to normal life and normal activities.
I also fully agree with your statement
"Surely it would be logical to focus on creating a new outlook on life and the symptoms themselves" but did you mean "and the symptoms" or should it have been "than the symptoms"? I think the answer as I mentioned in my post above IS looking forwards in life, but I think that, as best we can, we should try not to focus on the symptoms at all.
What we focus on certainly grows.
And if that is true, then coming to this forum daily searching for elusive answers is not helping at all. This particular thread is excellent and thought provoking to say the least, but by RLR not posting on it for weeks then it has made me come here much more often in anticipation of his answers, waiting for the enlightenment. Then when I see nothing has been updated I almost always have a quick look at the other new posts, which are usually just talk about symptoms – stuff you don’t really need to be looking at when your not feeling to great yourself, but it’s hard not to look.
I honestly feel that once this thread reaches it’s conclusion then there is little more to gain here other than reassurance, and we’ve talked about that enough. NORMAL people don’t search anxiety / palpitation forums etc daily, so we shouldn’t either, if we want to get back to normality.
I hope all the people that come to this forum don't just read this thread passively but also adds their opinions to it, it's the only way we are going to get ourselves up and out of this quicksand. EVERYONE has something of value to say on this topic, reading the posts about symptoms is not going to help you much at all, continuing this thread just might though.
That might well have been the longest, most boring post ever done on this forum, but hopefully some of you have managed to read through it and relate in some way.