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0 By Nicola Openshaw
When you’re anxious you take a lot of things the wrong way, because you’re always on the defensive, ready to protect yourself against potential harm.
In the same way we over-analyse everything that’s said to us, in case maybe, just maybe, one word or phrase might give us a warning to put up our defenses, to shield our hearts from getting hurt yet again.
We are preparing for battle,
between the heart and mind.
To let people in and to truly trust them is a big risk for us, and every time they say or do something that remotely reminds us of a past hurt, we just want to retreat to a safe place like a tortoise in its shell.
The surprising thing is, when real life danger presents itself to us, we don’t always react as others would because that’s an opportunity to actually use what is so familiar to us… The ability to react quickly to stressful situations or protect ourselves and others from harm. This is our ‘fight or flight’ instinct. When danger surrounds us we know what to do, instinctively. It’s when our brains tell us to react to non existent danger, that’s the part that doesn’t make sense and sometimes causes us to panic even more.
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