Interpretations From Fear...

Anxiety is fear. Yet, it’s not the type of fear that arises in life-threatening situations, but a low level form of fear directly related to threats against one’s psychological self-concept as opposed to one’s physical body. It deals with survival of the ego-self  ("I-me"), as opposed to survival of the body. If your boss pointed a gun at you, with the intent to murder you, there is no doubt you would experience FEAR. However, if your boss points a pink slip at you, with the intent to fire you, you would experience ANXIETY.

Anxiety is a specific human emotion because it pertains almost exclusively to the self-concept you refer to as “I" or "me.” From nail-biting to crippling depression and sleep deprivation, self-cutting and anorexia/bulimia, drug addiction/alcoholism and even extreme physical violence, anxiety leads to all types of reactive behaviors. Anxiety is indicative of threats to the “self” that are not related to physical survival or attack to the body, but chronic daily anxiety can lead to all types of severe physical symptoms if not relieved.

Anxiety is an interpretive response to external situations/events/people based on past conditioned beliefs. Chronic anxiety is based on maladaptive and dysfunctional interpretations of outside events, often occurring on an unconscious or subconscious level. Such chronic interpretive effects can result in neurochemical imbalances which negatively affect sleep, appetite and result in symptoms of depression. Untreated depression can progress to a form of crippling hopelessness and helplessness that can eventually result in suicidality and the need for hospitalization to stabilize neurochemical imbalances through medications.

However, medications, though helpful, only stabilize chemical imbalances and if the maladaptive interpretations are not identified and remedied, continued medication changes will be necessary resulting in an over-reliance on drugs to relieve symptoms.

Dysfunctional and unreliable interpretations can be altered and must be changed in order to relieve the anxious physical reactions/responses that result and cause long-term suffering. Psychotherapeutic interventions help with identifying faulty beliefs and dissolve the filters that these beliefs construct and for which you see the world and others. Past Trauma and other discordant life events can result in the unconscious construction of beliefs causing maladaptive anxiety responses to normal non-traumatic events. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, Obsessive/Compulsive Disorder and many Phobic disorders create symptoms that cause maladaptive responses to what are often normal life events.

Many of these anxiety responses were subconsciously constructed in childhood as means to protect the psychological ego-self from threat. Unfortunately, self-conditioned protective mechanisms useful in childhood have become dysfunctional in adulthood and impair a persons ability to achieve happiness and also obstruct the capacity to engage in satisfying relationships.

Identifying discordant knee-jerk interpretations, replacing with more adaptive beliefs/perceptions and anxiety responses can be subdued and even dissolved entirely.


"Why then 'tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or
bad, but thinking makes it so. To me it is a prison." - Shakespeare

Artwork by Decker Fantastic