Anxiety – accept or fight

Some people are advised to just accept anxiety. This is a behavioural approach adopted by Australian Claire Weekes several decades ago. I believe this is a good approach still and has benefited many people. It is not the only approach and to make it work you need to understand the paradox. The paradox is that you accept the anxiety, even welcome it, even though you want it to go. It doesn’t therefore follow that if you look for a way out you are not accepting properly and thus the anxiety will last longer. Actually, the accepting approach can be combined with other approaches, as long as you try to accept the anxiety while it is being felt.

It is true that when you avoid a situation the phobia or fear grows. But by looking for an end to anxiety being a major player in your life you are not going to do any harm. Acceptance is just one approach based on overcoming anxiety that has been "learnt".
When you look for solutions to problems -although you may have to try several things before you find success- you don’t automatically make them worse. Trying to uncover root causes with therapy might or might not work – it is not a 100% guaranteed cure as nothing is. But it is worth a try if it is available to you. As the old adage goes – if you always do what you’ve always done you’ll always get what you’ve always got! So I think you should let your setback guide you towards new ideas – without necessarily dismissing the old!

Also, when my anxiety changed it moved from being physical (lots of hyperventilation, panicky stuff) to "mental" – negative intrusive thoughts, more constant lower level anxiety, which i didn’t mind so much – but quite low mood and worrying negative thoughts.
Felt bad, but change is good in my book as change allows you to learn, it also seems to take you nearer to the causes.
I should add that the "mental" anxiety I felt was much more disabling than the physical in some ways. So progress actually made me worse before better! Didn’t realise it at the time!