How valuable is it to not have anxiety?

(Click on the title of the post to read the entire post )

Only you have an idea of the emotional cost of anxiety (and the related shame, guilt, and fear of disapproval).  There is always an emotional cost, but there are also costs in terms of the time that is used up in dealing with the symptoms of anxiety (trying to tamp them down) and the attention it takes away from living life itself, from paying attention to those whom you are around, to being able to have perspective on life in the present moment, to being able to make vital life-determining decisions.

An anxious person will often fill up his/her time with lots of activities and then become too busy, which then makes him/her more anxious.  They are unable to say "no", to discriminate between what is of high value and what is of low or no value.  They just do what is put on their plate...

[I recommend that you see and understand the definition and what anxiety includes:  Anxiety And The Anxiety Cure - Widely Felt, But Simply Reducible and The Anxiety Trade-Off - Costs Versus The Benefits Of "Relief" And Distraction - The Greatest Cost Of All?  (If you don't read the latter, at least read the excerpted piece of it, after this piece.)]

There is a huge cost in terms of anxiety in terms of the effects of fear (yes, Virginia, anxiety is related to fears!).  Fear triggers the fight/flight response which turns off the higher brain as unneeded in the moment, so we do not "think", make poorer choices, and definitely are not able to rise to a higher perspective and to think about what will be the best choice in major aspects of life.  Indeed, anxiety can prevent a person from learning to the point where one can create better results in life.  An anxious person can, indeed, after subtracting the lost effectiveness from the anxiety, learn things to the point of being able to talk a good game, but the person ends up not being able to implement effectively in life what is needed to get actual results.  They are often "stuck in their minds", incapable of getting results, pre-occupied (occupied!) by their anxious thoughts.

Aren't the obvious costs much greater than, say, $5,000 and one week of time where one eliminates most of the anxiety by correcting the underlying fear beliefs and the way of thinking.  If it corrected 10% wouldn't it still be worth it?.  If it has worked for others to a high degree, and you don't know how it will work for you, isn't it still vastly worth the "risk" of that comparatively small amount of money and time?  Wouldn't it save you much more time than that, just by having a clearer mind? Wouldn't it clear up the distraction of it so that you can be present to whatever is to be harvested from the present moment?

Wouldn't the benefits be somewhere above 100+ times the cost????

One can increase the certainty/confidence level by taking a proven program with proven results and effectiveness.  Such a program (the only one I've found in all my searching) is the week retreat at The Hoffman Institute.

You can also use, on the site, The Fear/Anxiety Management Program - Test, Then Learn And Build Fearlessness.  But the question would be whether you would stick with it and how far you would go. Look at your track record and current ability and err toward taking the more proven program as being much more likely to get the results you want to get, to make your life much, much, much better!

Surely, you cannot justifiably continue to tolerate this plague upon your life!  If you heed this, it could be the biggest turning point in your life!

I wish you well in making this decision the right way, for your very life is at stake!


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EXCERPTED FROM "THE ANXIETY TRADE-OFF"

Anxiety keeps us down in the weeds of life, unable to rise to a higher perspective where we can be objective and marshal our resources to make those crucial decisions that will most direct and impact our lives!  Even the most intelligent anxious person fails to use the higher brain to make the higher decisions that will most beneficially cause a great life - and then he/she is left wondering why he/she hasn't progressed further in life.  Well, this effect of anxiety is the reason.  I suggest you fix it as soon as possible! (The activities in using the higher brain are listed in Quadrant II, of the four activity-productivity quadrants.  The anxious person is busy, trapped in the other three quadrants.) 

The loss of productive hours from having to seek "relief" from anxiety, either completely or by suppressing the feeling, is huge, yet we often forget about the huge losses of productivity resulting from not using our "productive hours" well, with huge declines in our efficiency-effectiveness ratio.  If we but shifted the latter, we would have so much time left over that we could do anything we wanted to do and have no anxiety. 

The benefits of anxiety are only based on illusional (delusional) beliefs of there being benefits, beliefs that the constant vigilance and review have protective value.  They do not.  Correcting that belief is essential to freeing up one's emotional entanglement and dysfunction.