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FranniePilgrim said:
At the moment, I am thinking that being calm is a literal choice we make. That anxiety is a choice as well. Along with all our conflict in daily life.

These seem to be choices we make. ....

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RJ Tubs 202 said:
Amen!

Chronic anxiety and depression are activities we choose to engage in.

We don't "have" anxiety anymore than we "have" anger. Language can reveal confusion & lack of understanding. .

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RJ Tubs 202 said:
Language can reveal confusion & lack of understanding.

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Q.E.D.

'Anxiety' and 'Depression' being two such labels which are overexploited and misunderstood - rather than us appreciating of all individual causes, possibilities and characteristics pertaining to each, which are both nothing more than words to loosely describe resulting conditions.

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RJ Tubs 202 said:
"Anxiety is the royal road to discovering illusions."

Theodore Rubin, (former President of the American Institute of
We live in an age when we pathologize many experiences that are not brain defects or malfunctions.

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laughingdog said:
and the above examples have perhaps some emphasis on the physical

from the the more mental side, Freud , who was wrong about many things, seems to have nailed it in regards to Defense Mechanisms. And of course to think one has none, is evidence of having at least one!

see for example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_mechanisms

"Defense Mechanisms

Defense mechanisms may result in healthy or unhealthy consequences depending on the circumstances and frequency with which the mechanism is used.[2] In psychoanalytic theory, defence mechanisms (German: Abwehrmechanismen) are psychological strategies brought into play by the unconscious mind[3] to manipulate, deny, or distort reality in order to defend against feelings of anxiety and unacceptable impulses and to maintain one's self-schema or other schemas.[4] These processes that manipulate, deny, or distort reality may include the following: repression, or the burying of a painful feeling or thought from one's awareness even though it may resurface in a symbolic form;[2] identification, incorporating an object or thought into oneself;[5] and rationalization, the justification of one's behaviour and motivations by substituting "good" acceptable reasons for the actual motivations.[2][6] In psychoanalytic theory, repression is considered as the basis for other defence mechanisms.[2]

Healthy persons normally use different defences throughout life. An ego defence mechanism becomes pathological only when its persistent use leads to maladaptive behaviour such that the physical or mental health of the individual is adversely affected.

Among the purposes of ego defence mechanisms is to protect the mind/self/ego from anxiety or social sanctions or to provide a refuge from a situation with which one cannot currently cope.[7]

One resource used to evaluate these mechanisms is the Defense Style Questionnaire (DSQ-40).[8][9]

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In 1936, Anna Freud enumerated the ten defence mechanisms that appear in the works of her father, Sigmund Freud: 1. Repression, 2. Regression, 3. Reaction formation, 4. Isolation, 5. Undoing, 6. Projection, 7. Introjection, 8. Turning against one's own person, 9. Reversal into the opposite, 10. Sublimation or displacement.[14] "

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my comment ... note the phrase ...."and to maintain one's self-schema [or other schemas]"...
this is a definition of ego or self -- in other words the self is inherently anxious -- as many have pointed out -- it feels separate, knows it is mortal, and at least un-or subconsciously knows it is subject to pain at any moment, and that ultimately life is extremely uncontrollable, & that many or most (of its) desires are unfulfillable, hence mechanisms to avoid this scary stuff, are necessary, to be able to function; as well as mechanisms to  avoid awareness of one's faults and or 'shadow side' or socially unacceptable impulses.

So the idea behind self work or therapy or growth... (or whateveryouwantocallit) is to face anxieties in one self, feel them, have the patience to experience them, and understand and work with them and not to deny and banish, and pretend one is perfect, boast about it and wonder why life seems flat.

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