[birdie_man]

All,
With all due respect....

Does not one of you feel that anxiety can be reversed?

Just curious.

My next post will be elaborate - but first, please, think about anxiety...how it is acquired....


Please.

I don't think it can be eliminated.....Anxiety as a feeling anyway.....but if your confidence in your skills "outweighs" your doubts, and you have the resources, everything is going well, etc. I think it can manifest itself positively.....more as energy than anxiety (assuming you think of anxiety in the way people normally think of anxiety- negatively, that is). I guess that's what happens when you're in the zone.

Anxiety is your mind readying your body for something.

I think it only becomes negative if we attach something negative to it (with our thinking.....or doubts that stem from certain things- bad experiences that are hard to shake, a chain of failures, etc.....doubts that initiate thinking)....if we're not prepared for the anxiety.....not "up to the task."

....

As I've learned anyway, anxiety can be reduced. You have to know how though.

Things that have worked for me:

-first step usually (along with Clear Key): deep breath.....sometimes I get tense and start breathing very shallow or not enough.

-occupying the conscious mind....with Clear Key...this is huge, IMO. In my experiences, the quickest way to reduce anxiety is to simply get whatever is fueling it off your mind. Negative thoughts fuel it.....trying to figure it out fuels it.....any conscious thought that adds to anxiety. This can be a tough pill to swallow....but next time you catch yourself thinking (err- worrying) about something just sing a song to yourself or something. If it starts up again.....supress it again with the same song. Keep doing it.

-stay within your style. If nothing else works....and I'm having trouble getting my mind off something, I usually just concede to not trying so hard and to getting back to my Craftsman style (easygoing). This is my last step because I figure that if my mind if completely off something (non-conscious) I'll likely fall back into my style pattern anyway. I dunno if this is consistent with what Carey would say but it makes sense to me.

-to reduce physical tension and release stress: take a short breath through your nose, overgrip your club, hold breath for a few seconds, release...start Clear Key and execute shot.

This stuff is from Carey Mumford's book...The Double Connexxion.....I really would recommend getting it.

http://doubleconnexion.com/