Anxiety

[Certain Hope]

More from Ian Heath ~  http://www.emotion.discover-your-mind.co.uk/E2-characteristics-of-emotion/em2f-anxiety.htm


Anxiety = (fear + vanity)

Anxiety is a cerebral emotion : when it is intense it ‘fogs’ the mind, producing mental tiredness and the incapacity for intellectual work. I feel it most in my eyes as a regular ache, which generates a sensitivity to bright light. When I am writing or typing under a bright light I control the eye-ache by regularly splashing my eyes with cold water, perhaps every half hour or so. Both the mental tiredness and the ache are intensified when combined with any mode of self-pity.

In social company, anxiety (in vanity mode) stimulates a compulsive need to speak (I get embarrassed by my silence) or compulsive behaviour (such as smoking, drinking alcohol, nail-biting, over-eating). When I have this fuzzy head at home I usually relax on the settee and doze. The cessation of anxiety can be quite sudden and produces an immediate clearing of the head – I ‘wake up’ from my semi-consciousness. The need for a long sleep time each night is usually due to the presence of anxiety or to a mode of self-pity.

Anxiety keeps the person focused on negative emotions ; if I am absorbed in narcissistic joy or jealous love, then if anxiety arises I usually switch out of them into self-pity modes or even hostile feelings.

 

The fear mode of anxiety is generated by a dictatorial conscience, or the ‘voice of authority’. This voice has two origins.
It can originate from the family setting : the parents’ commands become internalised into an oppressive conscience – ‘do as you are told’. The voice of authority also comes from one’s soul : the soul directs oneself to practise self-control (here the ‘voice’ is not a clear verbal one but more like an intuitive prompting). If I do something that my soul does not like, then I immediately feel a burst of anxiety in my eyes. However, this ‘voice’ is a subtle one and is unlikely to be noticed by a person who has not developed sensitivity.

More ideas on anxiety are described under the article What is Anxiety ?, in the chapter, A1 : The Nature of Abreaction, as follows:

Anxiety is the sense of uneasiness that is experienced in the individual’s relationships with other people (and in his / her relationship to their own conscience). In any situation where the person’s vanity is undermined, fear arises. The conjunction of this fear with the vanity creates anxiety.

Anxiety = fear + vanity

Anxiety is a compound emotion and consist of two simpler emotions. I call each of the separate emotions a mode. So anxiety is experienced either as anxiety (in the mode of fear) or as anxiety (in the mode of vanity). Since it has two modes, so it can give rise to two different responses.

When a person is oppressed by their conscience, then the fear mode is accentuated. This leads to the unconscious idea ‘control yourself / do as you are told ’. [2]

When the person is in a social situation which makes them uneasy, then the vanity mode becomes restricted and they wilt. The person becomes vulnerable to hostility, rejection or manipulation by others. This leads to the unconscious idea ‘I am uneasy in the presence of other people’.
[This mode of anxiety produces an affinity with paranoia, whose unconscious idea is ‘ I do not trust other people’.]

 
Anxiety increases the intensity of a person’s reaction to any situation. Take a person as they are, without anxiety. They will have developed patterns of reaction to any situation. Generate anxiety in them and, though their patterns will not be likely to change, the intensity of their reactions will change. For an extrovert, the vanity mode of anxiety is emphasised. Therefore the person over-compensates in order to annul the uneasiness : they magnify their responses, even to the point of seeming to be theatrical. For an introvert, the fear mode of anxiety is emphasised and the person contracts and inhibits their responses, and may even appear to be ‘wooden’ (or emotionally non-responsive).

 
Anxiety keeps a person de-stabilised. Can there be any meaning and purpose to this ? . Can anxiety ever be useful ; can anxiety ever have a positive value ?

Yes. In my view, the evolution of personal consciousness (that is, personal evolution) is produced primarily through anxiety and secondarily through idealistic aspirations. Anxiety eliminates complacency and facilitates change. Therefore it provides the psychological spur for us to generate our ideals and to achieve something in life. Most ideas of a good life are generated as antidotes to an anxiety-ridden conventional life. [3]

The meaning of anxiety is that it eliminates complacency.

The purpose of anxiety is that it facilitates change.

[penelope]

wow - boy do I feel better about my anxiety 

Change is good.  Anxiety forces changes. 

[Certain Hope]

 

((((((((Pb))))))))

Cutting caffeine intake hasn't done me any harm, that's for sure.
Now if I could just stop yawning.... 

Hope

[teartracks]

Hope,

Thanks for putting this up for us.  This is new information for me.  A handy tool to defang fear!      ()

teartracks