2013-09-29

My Anxiety

Anxiety is naturally occurring and an inexhaustible part of being human. It’s more or less like the hair on our heads, because just as with anxiety, it too has to be managed. The reason for this is essentially because any form of anxiety or stress produces subtle forms of paralysis. Not physical paralysis, but the sense of being overwhelmed can stop anyone from pursuing a dream right in its tracks. This undermines success and it also undermines one’s ability to lead one’s own life with confidence.

Never was this more apparent in my life than when I started to have what is called the “yips.” The “yips” occurs when a baseball player cannot throw the baseball accurately. I developed the “yips” in high school and carried it with me for many years. Although I did improve my accuracy over time, I knew that my condition was not fully healed, because I was not throwing the baseball with the same confidence I had before the onset of this condition. However, I was able to make a breakthrough that I now apply to not just baseball but other parts of my life as well. The breakthrough came in managing the anxiety I have in throwing the baseball that caused the “yips” to occur in the first place.

What I realized that the reason I was having such an issue with throwing was not the baseball itself, nor my arm, nor my stance, nor my follow through. Those are just minor details to the one thing that derailed me from being successful throwing the ball. I had allowed my anxiety to get out of control and did not take steps to remedy that at any point in time. Once I realized this, I began to practice certain techniques that have always been used to help anyone manage anxiety. I began to do breathing exercises, eating healthier, and working out. The breathing exercises came in very important when the time to throw was nearing. Now I can say that I am free of the anxiety that undermined my ability to succeed in a game that I played since I was a child. Over time as I continued to throw I naturally began to throw the ball even better than I did before.

I say all this to say that anxiety can be very debilitating. It undermines success and our want to achieve our goals. Yet at the same time it is also something very natural and something that every person has. It’s for those reasons that anxiety is here to stay but that does not mean that I allow it to hold me back from my dreams and aspirations. It is something that can be managed and that should give you hope that once you manage it you will have the freedom to achieve any goal you set out. So go out there, work on managing your anxiety through a healthy diet, exercise, and breathing techniques, and bring out the confidence and success you always had within you.