Remember I screwed up in the past and I may just do that again.. This is the ugly face of anxiety and stress. It is made up of two thoughts fear of what if I screw up and bolstered by some past screw ups.
All is however not a reality but imagination. The event is yet to happen and is unpredictable. What it does however is makes you paralysed, you just start living in fear and let your life just pass by. It is a short life and it is a pity to be in such a state.
Anxiety is not an inherent nature but an acquired one. A manifestation of mind and can be dealt with if one is willing to put an effort. Imagine if this was an inherent nature. A child when starts to learn to walk she falls, not once but several thousand times. If anxiety was an inherent nature the child would have thought - God I fell again I am such a jerk! Next time if she wanted to try to walk again the memories of all the earlier falls would just stress her out and she will rise fearfully trying to do again and damn she falls again. If anxiety was an inherent nature all the kids would have been on a wheel chair.
How did we manage to acquire such an ugly trait? And some of us has acquired to a degree that we need tranquillizers. I think it is perhaps the over-dependency on pleasure, anxiety and stress were not so common in the past...about 100 years ago. Life involved some hardship and hardship was considered to be a norm, failure meant hardship it was part of life. Also life meant relationships - it was about the family, not just the immediate family but an extended family, society, etc. You lived your life with them and they never bothered of the screw ups you made, they were always there for you. They did not let the screw up become a live ghost of your mind. Life was beyond it. Life was simple and was about daily living we did not depend on reaching a certain milestone.
In contrast life today is full of pleasures, screw up means pain which we just have to avoid the pleasure is our drug. We have forgotten no pain no gain. Courage which is doing it right even when you feel the fear is a lost trait. To add to it we have moved away from the life around the family and have reduced the life to a series of transactions of success and failure. A lot depends on these transactions and if you screw up you are of course doomed. There is a lot is at stake. It is a situation like the person who has put all his savings on the gambling table, if he loses the hell will break loose. It will and no wise saying can save him. That's the dependency we have created around a few things and if we fail we are bound to feel the stress and anxiety.
Is there a way to reverse it? There is, after all not all end up acquiring this trait so there are plenty of ways to keep away from this disease. To begin with don't put all your eggs in one basket there are plenty of activities which can give you the pleasure which are seeking through life. spread your wings and don't be dependent on only one item for your happiness. If you have been putting all your energy in your job, increase your life invest in friends, family, hobby, anything which challenges you; makes you feel good about yourself. You don't have to climb the Mount Everest begin doing activities which challenge your skill level this will reduce your dependency if one goes wrong you have others to depend on.
All above is good to start but the best method will be to train your mind. After all this is acquired nature of mind, as a child you did not have this, you were full of energy, hope optimism and learning new things. You were enjoying the process and not worrying about the results. If you have to kill this ugly acquired trait you need to clean your mind. How? There are several ways - writing a journal - Build positive stories, acknowledge the good so that the mind does not trick you into just the failures; Meditation - it helps bring a balance in your thoughts; Immerse in the process of life - Train your mind to concentrate on the task you are doing and not overly depend on the result, enjoy the process. If you fail learn from it, don't let it go waste..
Rise and try to walk again. Don't get anxious and end up with a wheel chair...
