relationship anxiety

Dealing with anxiety is quite a complicated matter. I know you're expecting a short, easy answer, but that's simply not how it works.

Anxiety comes from attachment, if you didn't care about anything you wouldn't feel anxiety. But you do care a lot. Mainly about yourself, about what will happen to you and, more to the point about what you feel. The problem here is that you associate certain feelings with external events. You're happy because you have a girlfriend, right? Well, not quite. You're happy because dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin and/or endorphin is released into your brain. And you having a girlfriend and talking to her, being intimate with her etc is one of the things that puts these substances in action. So what's the difference, why the distinction? Well when you associate your girlfriend with happiness, instead of realizing it's an internal process you create or reinforce the idea that you can't be happy without your girlfriend. Which is not true of course. You do this with many things, actually, from your smartphone to your left hand. You believe that some things are vital for your happiness so you get anxious about loosing them, And if you lose them you become upset, not because of the lack of happiness that was provided by those thing before, but because of your assumptions that you need to have those things in order to be happy. To rid yourself of anxiety realize that your happiness is not strictly dependent on external events and circumstances. You can be happy without your computer, without your house, without your girlfriend. Hell, theoretically you can even be happy without your body, if your brain could somehow survive and communicate with the world without it. Sadly, you've been conditioned all your life to believe these things and getting rid of them is quite hard. Keep reminding yourself what I wrote here and you will eventually come to accept it. Meditation helps.

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>>18093201
And you care a lot about what might or will happen, even if you can't influence it at all. This is a failure of evolution (or God, whichever you fancy). Anxiety is supposed to help us do what we have to do in order to survive and prosper in the future. But more often than not you get anxious about things you can't change. This is the first thing you need to realize. When something bugs you ask yourself "Can I do something about it? Is it worth doing it?". If the answer to both questions is "yes" then do it. Otherwise stop worrying about it. Yeah, I know, easier said than done, but if you make it a habit it will help a lot with any kind of anxiety.

Another thing you should consider is that everything will end, sooner or later. That piece of chocolate you're eating, your favorite series, your relationship and, of course, your life. But you act like these things will last forever. You cannot accept changes or endings. This is another source of anxiety. You live in the future or in the past. Always worrying about what will happen next, making up scenarios in your head and obsessing over them. Or, you get nostalgic about the past, trying to relive your memories. So you never really enjoy the moment. The main reasons vacations and nights out feel so good is not because you're dancing or you're in an exotic location, but because you live in the moment. You're focused on what's happening now, not on what could happen in the future. You should try to do that more often. Again, easier said than done, it takes practice. Try clearing your mind of thoughts about the future and the past and notice your surroundings. When you have a task at hand don't obsess over the goal of that task, just focus on the task itself. Again, meditation helps.

>tl;dr: stop worrying and enjoy life, dickhead. It's only your thoughts that make you unhappy, all you have to do is ignore them and change the way you think.

>>18093211

Cheers for the assistance. I will look into it; this is actually quite interesting.