The Fear and Anxiety Solution (38 page)

Read The Fear and Anxiety Solution Online

Authors: PhD Friedemann MD Schaub

1. Did I give my power away by:

     • Taking something or someone personally?

     • Identifying my self-worth with an external goal or an agenda?

     • Trying to please others or meet their expectations?

     • Making myself smaller and holding myself back so I wouldn’t be judged or rejected?

2. Did I not take care of myself by:

     • Neglecting my physical needs or abusing my body?

     • Not allowing myself to get enough rest?

     • Overwhelming or putting too much pressure on myself?

     • Taking on other people’s energy, feelings, or problems?

     • Dishonoring my personal boundaries?

3. Did I leave my center by:

     • Making assumptions and living in a “what if” reality?

     • Battling an inner conflict without coming to a resolution?

     • Acting against my better knowledge, values, and beliefs?

     • Forcing something to happen rather than allowing it to unfold?

     • Underappreciating myself and the gifts in my life?

This list has plenty of room to grow and for you to add to it. I can imagine that you’re already thinking of personal messages fear and anxiety have been sending you that are not tabulated here. Although you may not always like these memos from your subconscious—who wants to be reminded, for example, that once again you’ve handed over your power to someone else?—you can be certain that responding to them will serve you in countless ways.

Having come this far in your healing and breakthrough journey, facing your fears no longer means mustering the courage to stare them down and then act in spite of them. For you, the face of fear and anxiety has changed. You no longer see them as debilitating enemies but as friends and guides that are right there to help you claim your power and to be, express, and love who you truly are. Therefore, I believe that ignoring anxiety is a luxury we can no longer afford. Or to expand on President Roosevelt’s famous words: the only thing we have to fear is
the fear of
fear itself.

Notes
INTRODUCTION

  
1
. J. C. Reed, “Dysregulation of Apoptosis in Cancer,”
Journal of Clinical Oncology
17, no. 9 (1999): 2941 – 2953.

  
2
. Friedemann J. Schaub et al., “Fas/FADD-Mediated Activation of a Specific Program of Inflammatory Gene Expression in Vascular Smooth Muscle Cells,”
Nature Medicine
6, no. 7 (2000): 790 – 796.

  
3
. Y. Barak, “The Immune System and Happiness,”
Autoimmunity Reviews
5, no. 8 (2006): 523 – 527.

  
4
. T. Hayashi and K. Murakami, “The Effects of Laughter on Post-Prandial Glucose Levels and Gene Expression in Type 2 Diabetic Patients,”
Life Sciences
85, no. 56 (2009): 185 – 187.

  
5
. Sherita Hill Golden et al., “Examining a Bidirectional Association Between Depressive Symptoms and Diabetes,”
Journal of the American Medical Association
299, no. 23 (2008): 2751 – 2759.

  
6
. Biing-Jiun Shen et al., “Anxiety Characteristics Independently and Prospectively Predict Myocardial Infarction in Men,”
Journal of the American College of Cardiology
51, no. 2 (2008): 113 – 119.

CHAPTER 1

  
1
. R. C. Kessler et al., “Prevalence, Severity, and Comorbidity of Twelve-Month DSM-IV Disorders in the National Comorbidity Survey Replication (NCS-R),”
Archives of General Psychiatry
62, no. 6 (2005): 617 – 627.

  
2
. Matthew Herper, “America’s Most Popular Drugs,”
Forbes,
August 14, 2009.

  
3
. Jeff Donn, Martha Mendoza, and Justin Pritchard, “Drugs Found in Drinking Water,”
USA Today,
September 12, 2008.

CHAPTER 3

  
1
. J. S. Deloache and V. Lobue, “The Narrow Fellow in the Grass: Human Infants Associate Snakes and Fear,”
Developmental Science
12, no. 1 (2009): 201 – 207. J. S. Deloache and V. Lobue, “Detecting the Snake in the Grass: Attention to Fear-Relevant Stimuli by Adults and Young Children,”
Psychological Science
19, no. 3 (2008): 284 – 289. A. Ohman, “Of Snakes and Faces: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Psychology of Fear,”
Scandinavian Journal of Psychology
50, no. 6 (2009): 543 – 552.

  
2
. Vladin Starcevic, “Review: Worldwide Lifetime Prevalence of Anxiety Disorders Is 16.6%, with Considerable Heterogeneity between Studies,”
Evidence-Based Mental Health
9, no. 115 (2006): 100 – 113.

  
3
. Jeffrey Brewer, “Snakes Top List of Americans’ Fears,”
Gallup,
March 19, 2001.

  
4
. J. B. Rosen and J. Schulkin, “From Normal Fear to Pathological Anxiety,”
Psychological Review
105, no. 2 (1998): 325 – 350.

  
5
. M. Olfson and S. C. Marcus, “National Patterns in Antidepressant Medication Treatment,”
Archives of General Psychiatry
66, no. 8 (2009): 848 – 856.

  
6
. I. Kirsch and G. Sapirstein, “Listening to Prozac but Hearing Placebo: A Meta-Analysis of Antidepressant Medication,”
Prevention and Treatment
1, no. 2 (1998): article 0002a.

CHAPTER 4

  
1
. K. C. Klemenhagen et al., “Individual Differences in Trait Anxiety Predict the Response of the Basolateral Amygdala to Unconsciously Processed Fearful Faces,”
Neuron
44, no. 6 (2004): 1043 – 1055.

CHAPTER 5

  
1
. T. Koyama et al., “The Subjective Experience of Pain: Where Expectations Become Reality,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
102, no. 36 (2005): 12950 – 12955.

CHAPTER 7

1
. To stream an abbreviated version of the Parts Reintegration Process, visit
SoundsTrue.com/bonus/FearSolution
.

CHAPTER 8

  
1
. Tad James and Wyatt Woodsmall,
Time Line Therapy and the Basis of Personality
(Capitola, CA: Meta, 1988).

  
2
. S. W. Askay, D. R. Patterson, and S. R. Sharar, “Virtual Reality Hypnosis,”
Contemporary Hypnosis
26, no. 1 (2009): 40 – 47.

  
3
. Søren Kierkegaard,
The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981).

  
4
. Rollo May,
The Meaning of Anxiety
(New York: Norton, 1996), 355.

  
5
. Rollo May,
The Courage to Create
(New York: Norton, 1994), 58.

  
6
. Kierkegaard, 61.

  
7
. To listen to a recording of the Pattern Resolution Process, stream it online at
SoundsTrue.com/bonus/FearSolution
.

CHAPTER 9

  
1
. Attilio D’Alberto, “Zangfu Theory and Cellular Memory,” article on the Chinese Herb Academy website, accessed June 15, 2011,
chineseherbacademy.org/articles/cellmem.shtml
. Huang Di,
The Yellow Emperor’s Classic of Chinese Medicine,
trans. Maoshing Ni (Boston: Shambhala, 1995).

  
2
. G. E. Miller et al., “A Functional Genomic Fingerprint of Chronic Stress in Humans: Blunted Glucocorticoid and Increased NF- B Signaling,”
Biological Psychiatry
64, no. 4 (2008) 266 – 272.

  
3
. Paul Pearsall,
The Heart’s Code
(New York: Broadway Books, 1998).

  
4
. Claire Sylvia and William Novak,
A Change of Heart
(New York: Little, Brown, 1997).

  
5
. Bruce Lipton,
The Biology of Belief: Unleashing the Power of Consciousness, Matter and Miracles
(Carlsbad, CA: Hay House, 2008).

  
6
. R. Khanfer et al., “Altered Human Neutrophil Function in Response to Acute Psychological Stress,”
Psychosomatic Medicine
72, no. 7 (2010): 636 – 640.

  
7
. J. Bouayed, H. Rameal, and R. Soulimani, “Oxidative Stress and Anxiety: Relationship and Cellular Pathways,”
Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity
2, no. 2 (2009): 63 – 67.

  
8
. Elissa S. Epel et al., “Accelerated Telomere Shortening in Response to Life Stress,”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
101, no. 29 (2004): 17312 – 17315.

  
9
. A. H. Goldfarb and A. Z. Jamurtas, “Beta-Endorphin Response to Exercise: An Update,”
Sports Medicine
24, no. 1 (1997): 8 – 16.

10
. Richard J. Davidson et al., “Alterations in Brain and Immune Function Produced by Mindfulness Meditation,”
Psychosomatic Medicine
65 (2003): 564 – 570. S. I. Nidich et al., “A Randomized Controlled Trial on Effects of the Transcendental Meditation Program on Blood Pressure, Psychological Distress, and Coping in Young Adults,”
American Journal for Hypertension
22, no. 12 (2009): 1326 – 1331. J. Kabat-Zinn, L. Lipworth, and R. Burney, “The Clinical Use of Mindfulness Meditation for the Self-Regulation of Chronic Pain,”
Journal of Behavioral Medicine
8, no. 2 (1985): 163 – 190.

11
. R. Manocha et al., “A Randomized, Controlled Trial of Meditation for Work Stress, Anxiety and Depressed Mood in Full-Time Workers,”
Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine
2011 (2011). J. Vøllestad, B. Sivertsen, and G. H. Nielsen, “Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction for Patients with Anxiety Disorders: Evaluation in a Randomized Controlled Trial,”
Behaviour Research and Therapy
49, no. 4 (2011): 281 – 288.

12
. B. W. Smith et al., “A Pilot Study Comparing the Effects of Mindfulness-Based and Cognitive-Behavioral Stress Reduction,”
Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine
14, no. 3 (2008): 251 – 258.

13
. To stream this guided meditation, “Realign with Your Essence,” visit
SoundsTrue.com/bonus/FearSolution
and the author’s website,
thefearandanxietysolution.com
.

CHAPTER 10

  
1
. S. M. Friedman et al., “Falls and Fear of Falling: Which Comes First? A Longitudinal Prediction Model Suggests Strategies for Primary and Secondary Prevention,”
Journal of the American Geriatrics Society
50, no. 8 (2002) 1329 – 1335.

  
2
. A. Dijksterhuis et al., “On Making the Right Choice: The Deliberation-Without-Attention Effect,”
Science
311, no. 5763 (2006): 1005 – 1007.

CHAPTER 11

  
1
. Aaron Antonovsky,
Health, Stress, and Coping
(San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1979).

Acknowledgments

M
Y INTENTION FOR
this book is to provide people who suffer from fear and anxiety with a step-by-step process to overcome these emotions and to learn and grow from them. The work described here is based upon my experiences with the many clients I have had the privilege to support during their healing journey. I am very grateful for their trust and confidence in my work and for their courage, openness, and commitment to breaking through these emotional challenges. Their changes and breakthroughs are truly inspirational and demonstrate that by consciously working with our subconscious mind, we all have access to unlimited healing potential within.

I am thankful for the founders of Neuro-Linguistic Programming, Richard Bandler and John Grinder, and for Dr. Tad James, the founder of Time Line Therapy. The outstanding work of these pioneers in healing with the subconscious mind has greatly influenced my practice and the program described in this book.

Having studied with Dr. Tad James and his wife, Adriana James, for several years, I greatly appreciate all their teachings and wisdom, which have transformed my life on a personal and professional level.

I want to thank Michelle Sherman of the Vast Institute, who encouraged and coached me to venture off the path of allopathic medicine and pursue my own healing work.

My gratitude goes to my personal editor, the very gifted Kelly Malone, for her extremely valuable suggestions, deletions, and comments—which gave the
book much greater clarity and structure—and for her patience and uncanny ability to uplift me with her great sense of humor.

Thanks to Andrea Rouleau’s creativity and artistry for the original designs of the figures.

I also would like to give thanks to my fabulous agent, Stephanie Tade, for believing in this book and ushering it to the perfect publisher.

I am deeply appreciative for the wonderful people at Sounds True, especially Tami Simon and Jennifer Y. Brown, for saying yes to publishing this book— and to everyone else who makes Sounds True a joy to work with.

My heartfelt gratitude goes to my editor, Amy Rost, for her enthusiastic support and thoughtful attention to detail during the final “midwifing” of the book, and to copyeditor Laurel Kallenbach and production editor Jennifer Holder, who skillfully provided this work with its final polish.

Words can’t describe my appreciation for my beloved wife, Danielle. I thank you for your love, your friendship, and your unshakable belief in me and my mission; for your gentle and persistent nudges to complete the first manuscript; for all your editorial guidance; and for grounding me and reminding me to continue to take care of myself. You are and always will be the greatest blessing in my life.

Index

Note:
Italicized page numbers indicate figures.

abuse,
44
,
102 – 103

acknowledgement,
205 – 206

actualization,
25 – 26

addiction,
11
,
36

adrenal gland,
159

adrenaline,
160

age, flexibility and,
20
,
22

alcohol, self-medication with,
11

alignment,
157 – 172
,
226
.
See also
core alignment

Other books

Taming the Alter Ego by Shermaine Williams
Black Diamonds by Catherine Bailey
After Life by Andrew Neiderman
Her Mistletoe Wish by Lucy Clark
How I Found You by Gabriella Lepore
Love Will Find a Way by Barbara Freethy