Escaping the box. Breaking free from anxiety.

years and built her career despite suffering from anxiety, panic attacks and OCD for 40 years. Over the last few years through she has done a lot of work to try to find freedom from the disorders that have disabled many areas of her life.

According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, anxiety-related disorders are the most common mental illness in the United States, affecting more than 40 million adults aged 18 and older. Anxiety disorders also affect more than 25 percent of teenagers ages 13 to 18.

Wendy considers anxiety as being the feeling of being in a constant fight of flight mode. She grew up in chaotic household with untreated, generational mental health issues. She took on ideas and thoughts about her safety, the safety of other people and the safety of the world - things a child is not equipped to deal with. From the age of six she suffered from panic attacks and the feeling that she needed to control her surroundings to try to calm down her anxiety.

By achieving things externally Wendy felt it would cure her from what was going on internally but she reached rock bottom with her mental health issues when she had had achieved all the things she thought she needed. Although she had a house, a husband and a career she loved, inside the box she was still struggling.

Wendy now realises that she tried to mask her anxiety by adopting perfectionism and people pleasing traits.  Her role as an attorney involved a huge amount of work and it’s something she was, and is, proud of. It provides a sense of achievement and makes her feel that she is helping people but now she thinks it was also another way of trying to make her parents proud of her and to make her feel better about herself.

Finally though Wendy realised that no physical sensation comes without a thought preceeding it. That you need to cultivate awareness and recognise where your anxiety is being stimulated and what thoughts are behind it. The roadmap to change is to find the thoughts behind it, understand that these thoughts are optional and then choose new ones that serve you better. Thoughts create an emotion or feeling which stimulates an action that creates the result that you live with. You’re reacting based on an emotion.

You can listen to the podcast in full and find out further information about Wendy here. Our previous podcasts, upcoming guest list and previous blogs are also available.

You can find out more about Wendy at www.WendyTamisRobbins.com Wendy is also the author of The Box: An Invitation to Freedom from Anxiety,