Living with anxiety is like having a loud TV with no remote; it's basically you not having control over yourself, and a lot of times, or all times, it hurts not being able to steer the ship of life and mind. The brain is good and smart; it knows the questions that will upset us and brings them up at times when we perceive a potential threat.

For most people, a threat is an attack, a fire, or diffusing a bomb. For anxious people, a threat could be a simple presentation to be given in class or at work in 3 weeks. During those 21 days until the presentation, our minds are fixated on one thing only: "How we wish we could be tasked with diffusing a bomb and not giving a presentation.".

The truth is, an anxious person would do anything to avoid being at the center of everyone's attention; they might even call the army to see if they need a bomb diffuser.

I have lived with anxiety all my life, and yes, I know they say everyone gets anxious, but I'm sure not everyone gets as anxious as I do. When your brain has a knack for seeing patterns and connections, things that could or couldn't happen (in most cases) consume you because, to you, if it's possible, THEN IT'S POSSIBLE.

Because of this, I watched countless videos, and yes, I found those that advised me to imagine the guest naked. Yeah, no.

I saw videos that said to speak from your diaphragm (I Googled the spelling), What they didn't know was that my stomach was in my feet and my feet were under the ground. 

The gist is, the advice never helped, and every time I had the spotlight, I would be upset at my inability to construct a sentence without looking like I had a vibrating device in my heart.

A trait of mine that hid in between my anxieties was my hastiness. It was this fear of trouble that was deeply ingrained in me—the fear that I needed to act immediately. So if I was called, I would immediately leave what I had been doing to answer who had called for me. If I had to be somewhere, I'd walk fast, like there was a shadow chasing me. The common theme here was that I always felt the natural urge to react to my external environment and react fast.

Maybe it was something in my childhood, but I had this worry that if I delayed my response to a call or if I deviated from how things were supposed to be, then I would be in trouble.

It wasn't until recently that I realized that a large chunk of my anxieties were the result of this. One day, I was called, and instead of going immediately, I took a while on my seat to breathe, and after about 5 seconds, I approached the stairs, where I walked slowly, taking my time. When I got to the person, there was a relief in my body. I was still a little anxious, but I was a lot more confident. It was almost as if how I moved made me realize I was okay and that I was in control.

My body saw me calm, so it decided to be calm as well. Noticing this, I started to repeat it more and more, and more and more, it seemed to work. I had given myself the keys to my life, and with it came confidence. Fear still lurked, but the confidence outweighed it.

This was also noticeable in how I spoke; rather than speaking like I had hot food in my mouth, I started being more deliberate with how I spoke. I wasn't afraid to take my time, which in turn allowed my mind to come up with the best possible word or phrase for the situation I was in..

If you're an anxious person, you probably allow yourself to react rather than act; you allow others to dictate the play while you watch, so of course your body feels the need to submit to them. This can be combated; the trick is realizing that the key was always with you, and you just gave it away, but now, with this knowledge, you can keep the key tight to you, not allowing anyone a sniff at it.

Because this has become a habit for you, it will take time to get rid of it, but constant and deliberate actions to slow down will be highly effective.

Take back your power.

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