Don’t Panic!
Don’t panic!
Two little words, but some of the best advice you can receive.
I woke up this morning, and I was feeling pretty good. Decent night’s sleep, looking forward to taking care of some business and writing today. But then a little voice in my head reminded me of an issue currently on my plate. My heart rate began to accelerate, I got butterflies in the pit of my stomach, and my mind began racing through all the terrible, awful, no-good “what if” situations.
Panic is a completely useless emotion. It is not a warning of impending danger, nor is it a rational emotional response. Panic is fear running wild. This is when your mind begins to analyze something, and becomes completely overwhelmed by it.
This can take on a lot of different aspects to itself. Panic can easily manifest into physical illness, ranging from allergic reactions to hyperventilating to heart attacks. A panic attack turned physical can mimic far worse medical issues, and utterly ruin your day.
After my accident, I didn’t do so well with spending time in hospitals for any reason at all. ERs were particularly bad. When a friend got hurt, and we were all in the ER with her, after about fifteen minutes I felt the panic attack coming on. Knowing the signs, I got out before it could hit…and instead of letting it incapacitate me, I walked it off. Literally, I walked it off, as I covered 18 blocks in NYC in less than 10 minutes.
This is one of the most irrational, terrifying, and incapacitating emotions we can feel. It is a product of over-thinking, overwhelm, and letting a whole lot of negative possibilities hit you and drive you slightly mad. Hysteria is a miserable feeling.
Recognizing panic before it becomes full-blown is important.
I have written about fear, and how we developed certain fear responses in order to protect ourselves. While some useful fear responses still kick in from time to time, most of the fears modern humans face are self-made. The fear is not a warning that there is a wild animal out there ready to pounce on you, it is an intangible like failure, abandonment, and disappointment.
As a reader of this blog, you probably can see that I tend to think a lot. There is a great deal of analysis about the human condition, choices, and the notion of conscious reality creation. Sometimes you might notice I potentially over-analyze things.
The Law of Attraction states that like attracts like, and when we recognize this we can use it to manifest incredible things for our lives.
Yet there are basic necessities in everyone’s life. When you are working on manifesting great, incredible things, but are having trouble attaining those basic necessities, it’s only human to become concerned. Concern is all well and good, it’s an alert that you have something that requires your attention. The trouble comes when concern is turned to fear.
How am I going to do ‘x’? is the concern. If I do not take care of ‘x’, I am going to have consequence ‘y’. Now you are becoming fearful. Once this happens, it is important to recognize you are going down this path. Why? Because like attracts like. One fear can easily lead to another, then to another, then another…and now you are overwhelmed. Overwhelming fear leads to panic.
When this happens, and I am pretty sure it happens to us all, knowing it is coming on we can take steps to combat it. We can take control of our dread before it manifests into physical illness.
Panic can be subdued.
I felt my heart rate begin to accelerate, I got butterflies in the pit of my stomach, and my mind began racing through all the terrible, awful, no-good “what if” situations. How could I fix this? What could I do? I was heading towards a real overwhelm.
Feeling this starting to come over me, I took a deep breath, and I reached into my own mind and had a conversation with that little voice in my head that had begun this. Yes, this is a problem right now. No, I don’t have an immediate solution. Panicking about this, however, does me no good. I need to be rational, and to stay calm if I am going to deal with this.
I focused on my ever-increasing heart rate, and willed it to slow. More deep breaths, and thinking about calming images and happier things made the butterflies in my stomach stop. Before it could manifest into anything more problematic, I subdued my agitation, and focused on the here-and-now.
This is a huge part of why living in the here-and-now is so very important. Right here, right now, I am. Period. I am sitting in front of my computer, glancing out the window at a rainy landscape, watching the wind play with the trees, and feeling in the moment, I am calmer. Now, in this moment in time, there is nothing overwhelming me. I just AM.
Emotions can be overwhelming, in particular negative ones. But I have said in many a Pathwalk that we are the only ones in control of how we feel. This is true for EVERYONE. I am the only one who feels how I feel. As such, if I am panicking, I have the ability to stop it. To subdue it. To not let overwhelm overwhelm me.
Don’t panic!
It requires some pretty major self-awareness to get control of your emotions when panic starts to set in. But if I can do it, so can you. Life can be pretty challenging, and as such rather overwhelming. Still, we are empowered to do so many amazing things, and to take control over our thoughts, feelings, and action. I’ve got this. Whatever you have going on, you’ve got this, too.
As always, thank you for crossing the bridges between my worlds with me.
This is the seventy-fifth entry of my personal journey, the Crossing the Bridges series. My collectively published writing can be found here.
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