Fear is nature's way of protecting you from real and current danger.
It prepares you to escape from harm. Anxiety is the fear of future or the remembrance of
past hurt, danger, or loss. Anxiety varies in form and intensity and can be based on real or
imagined situations. You can feel uncertain, edgy, apprehensive, worried, insecure, nervous,
or terrified, and may experience physical symptoms such as "butterflies in your stomach."
You sense that something bad is about to happen. Sadly, many people create anxiety gratuitously
by dwelling on negative possibilities with "what if's."
To understand how you create anxiety, you can ask questions like:
 Why do I feel anxious?
Am I afraid that something bad is about to happen?
What is causing me to feel threatened?
What am I afraid of losing?
What am I thinking or doing to create this?
What can I learn from this?
Feelings of anxiety are best eliminated not by defensively denying or ignoring them, but by removing the threat that's causing them.
By taking the best actions possible, you optimize your self-reliance and achieve the highest
level of control over your environment. You can minimize your anxiety by asking questions to
invite resolution and by focusing specifically on the best ways to achieve what you want.
Allow your anxiety to protect you by answering these Optimal questions:
What is the best thing I can do to remove the threat(s)?
Which changes in my thinking are necessary to create safety/security in my life?
How can I best prepare myself to handle this?
What's the best action I can take to prevent the loss and minimize the pain?
What's the most constructive action I can take to achieve what I want?
What is the wisest action I can take under the circumstances?
Here's how a successful writer used his anxiety to optimize a nasty situation.
John was in the middle of an acrimonious divorce. He had already spent eighty thousand dollars
on attorney's fees and did not see an end in sight. His days were fraught with anxiety,
and his nights offered little relief. He could barely function.
During an Optimize Your Emotional Life seminar, he learned about emotional mastery.
After answering the questions on his three-by-five card, John realized he was extremely
threatened by his wife's vindictiveness. He was terrified of being helpless and persecuted.
The attorney's fees were escalating and out of control, and if his wife got her way, he would
be wiped out financially.
John needed to find out if his wife would consider a fair settlement.
He wrote down all the benefits she would gain by agreeing to his proposal and rehearsed his
conversation with her until he felt confident that he could maintain his composure.
He decided that if she was not willing to settle the matter, he would meet with his attorney
the following day to discuss how he could best contain costs. Armed with his Optimal strategy,
he was able to minimize his anxiety when he called his wife.
Dr. Glickman's best-selling book, Optimal Thinking: How to Be Your Best Self our
100-Day Optimal Thinking Audio-CD Program for Permanent Results and our Emotional Mastery Wallet Cards provide optimal roadmaps with specific questions to understand and master feelings of helplessness, discomfort,
anxiety, hurt, anger, disappointment, guilt, depression, grief, envy, loneliness and more.
CLICK below for more information about these optimization signals.
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Optimal Thinking Emotional Mastery Wallet Cards |
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