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Living In The Present Not The Past.

© Jennifer Salt

For people who are agoraphobic looking backwards before stepping forwards is a common occurrence. While I was in the deepest part of my struggle with agoraphobia many steps I took, whether it be from going out onto the street or perhaps to a shop I was continuously taking my negative past experiences of anxiety and referring them to what I was about to do. An example of this is perhaps a trip to the shops. Because previously at times I had struggled to control my anxiety in such situations I would relive those memories in my mind and assume that the coming experience I was about to attempt would or could have the same outcome. Naturally logic tells us that if we have had a bad experience in a certain situation in the past then it may occur once again. We use this thinking in many areas of our lives. It is how we learn, and how we teach ourselves not to make the same mistakes twice. It is a very important and useful tool in keeping ourselves safe. However unfortunately at times we can have a very selective memory, especially when it comes to fears and negative experiences. We do not often remember those triumphs we have had as readily as our bad experiences. For example we often fail to focus on the times we have been to the shops and have overcome our fears, even enjoyed the experience. In this article I want to talk about how we can attempt to stop looking at our past negative experiences as a blueprint to our future ones.

Looking to the past to protect ourselves in the future is a good example of a self-defeating way of thinking. I have many times myself not even attempted certain tasks while I was very agoraphobic due to looking back and feeling as though I will with almost certainty have the same dreadful experience. In this way I would completely give up on my goal even before I have tried to step a foot out of the door. The main problem with this process is that like many other types of negative thinking it can be quite automatic.

A good tool to use to combat this type of thinking is that you literally try and live in the present. This can be quite hard to do in the beginning, but like most other things the more it is practiced the easier it becomes to do. Thinking in the present sounds like an easy solution, however for someone who has been living with their past fears and memories it can be a very hard thing to do to begin with. If possible however, when you are about to enter a situation in which makes you feel agoraphobic take all the thoughts of what may, might and can happen and turn them to simply focusing on what is really happening. Often when we do this, we realize that it isn't so much our anxieties that cause us fear, but it's our fears that cause our anxiety. We can see that the way we think really can cause us a lot of our stress, anxiety, harm and worry. The realities of our present situations are never as bad as our fears of what may happen.

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