At Renew, we believe that when Psychological Stress isn’t handled healthily and effectively,

this can develop into Anxiety.

 

Anxiety is the fear based, habituated stress response to the possibility that ‘life may not go to plan’, and is out of our control. The anxiety sufferer usually has an inability to separate their innate, intrinsic Self-Worth / Value from the achievement of goals (life turning out the way we desire) and the approval of others. They

often find it challenging to cope when life does not go how they hoped, believing this is proof that that they were not ‘good enough’, therefore less Valuable and Worthy.

 

Their mindset is focused on the future and they are usually going to extreme measures to ‘control’ life and prevent certain bad, unwanted and unpleasant things from happening. They experienced this unpleasant feeling in the past and they set lots of goals so that never happens again. In this way Anxiety may be seen as the FIGHT response to Psychological Stress. “If I am in control of life, I can prevent anything bad from happening thereby preventing the threat”

 

Most of us will experience some level of anxiety during our lives, which can in turn, give us the energy and motivation to ‘get things done’. The problem then becomes that we believe that this is the only way to deal with life and through repetition it becomes habituated. Most people that are dealing with Anxiety are not even aware of it, they see it as normal, just who they are, and just don’t realise there is another way to cope with life.

 

When we get to the extreme end of anxiety, Generalised Anxiety Disorder (GAD), and other such disorders, the relationship to control has gotten to the point where the sufferer believes that most things are out of their control and most of life is a threat and they can become so frozen by fear as not to be able to leave the house.

Anxiety, which can often lead to severe self -medication, eating disorders and insomnia, is a very serious condition. Individuals need to understand that these conditions are chronic; they have been learned and practiced (unconsciously) over a long period of time. As mentioned before this puts undue wear and tear on the system and can lead to ‘burn out’, adrenal exhaustion, heart attacks, nervous breakdowns or any number of other stress related diseases.

 

After spending time at one our retreats you will come away with a different relationship with your anxiety. Firstly you will understand that your anxiety is a natural coping mechanism and has been there to try and keep you safe. Its not bad, or wrong and neither are you. You don’t need to be ‘fixed’, it’s just that the coping mechanism you have habituated is not the most effective way of dealing with all of life’s situations. We will help

you create a more effective way of coping with life and its stresses. By letting go of the need to control all of life’s experiences you gain more control of your thoughts, feelings and emotions. You will no longer see life’s events going wrong as a threat to you Self Worth or Value. So, you will still go out and try to achieve your goals but the approach and therelationship to your goals will be different. By practicing changing the way you look at life’s situations and strengthening your relationship with the present, you will move through life with less effort and with less stress and anxiety.