YOU DON'T HAVE ANXIETY: Your self-revival guide to confidence, inner freedom and radical self-trust

By Tara Swann

DO YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT TRUE SELF-LOVE & CONFIDENCE REALLY FEEL LIKE?

You’re tired, always thinking, “what is wrong with me?”, a constant battle in your mind, and feeling like anxiety and low self-worth is just something you must live with. That confidence that you wish you had, you believe it’s something only lucky people possess.

I once believed anxiety was something I’d have for the rest of my life. Diagnosed, like it was my fate. Here’s what I wasn’t told… anxiety should NOT be a diagnosis. It’s a symptom, a manifestation of a deeper issue AND it’s only a small part of a broader picture.

In one day, I freed myself from my fear of speaking. In two years, I freed myself from all insecurity. I found out what self-love and confidence truly felt like.

In this book, you will learn:
• How I went from chronic anxiety to confidence, and where my biggest transformation took place. Hint: emotions
• How to choose yourself, honour your boundaries, and quit people pleasing.
• How to choose self-love and live empowered.
• How to recondition the mind and body, to live a life that is truly aligned with YOU.
• How to cultivate unconditional happiness.

Confidence is a direct reflection of your willingness to be exactly who you are. And who you are is buried beneath the layers who you believe you “should” be.

Tara Swann is passionate about helping heart-driven people free themselves from fear to step into their true power and potential. Her highest intention is to raise the collective consciousness.
Through her work as an Emotional Empowerment Coach, she inspires people to think outside the box, break up with their insecurities, and show up with confidence to consciously create a life they adore waking up to every day.

Tara is an ocean-obsessed Pisces, a mumma of two crazy beautiful boys, and she loves health, adventure, and play.

To find out more, go to www.taraswann.com

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312499805

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

SELF-RESPECT

Ok, so obviously this book is not just about anxiety. That’s because anxiety is only a small part of a broader picture, hence the title. I once believed that my diagnosis meant I’d be living with anxiety permanently. I was so wrong. Anxiety is a symptom, a manifestation of a deeper issue, and many of us suffer from it in differing degrees. Regardless of your experience with anxiety, the practices throughout this book are designed to be your self-revival guide. They are here to help you come home to yourself and gain more awareness on what it is that could be blocking you from your confidence. My journey started with respecting myself enough to find out who I was beyond the labels and beyond who I thought I should be.

What does self-respect mean to you?

I never really had a clear understanding of self-respect. I remember hearing, Girls who sleep around with a lot of men lack self-respect, but what did that mean exactly? Among the many things not taught to us growing up, self-respect, in all its many forms, was somewhat foreign to me.

Truthfully, I didn’t know what it meant. Not only that, but it also wasn’t what I’d been shown as an example growing up, with my mum never being respected in her marriage, therefore falling short in the self-respect arena herself (or, should I say, the other way around). Although she stayed in that marriage for years too long for many reasons, this was my example of what love in a relationship and self-respect looked like.

This is the case with a lot of women, having been suppressed for so many generations. The majority of our behaviours as adults were formed from what we were shown as examples by our parents. Maybe this begins to paint a picture of the relationship between your life and what you saw as reality growing up.

It’s in your awareness of these things that you can begin to form a deeper relationship with yourself, shift unwanted behaviours and habits for good, and create a life full of love, trust, confidence, abundance, adventure, and empowerment. It’s in your awareness, as the absolute foundation, that you can begin to create radical change in your life. At this point, you may not even be aware of the power you hold to create change, but by the end of this book, you will. Not only that, but you’ll also have the tools to do exactly that. Be excited!

Self-awareness is the foundation. For me, having run the majority of my life in a highly anxious, stressed, and depressed state, I had very little awareness of what was happening in my body and mind. My thoughts controlled me, and I was afraid to be alone with them. I was afraid of self-abuse in mental, emotional, and physical forms.

I used to seek out physical pain to feel again, following periods of numbing emotional pain. Physical pain never scared me much, but the pain of what I felt inside of me, that was scary. I’d numb with alcohol, starting at around thirteen years old, and for a period in my early teens I’d keep a bottle of rum under my bed to drink myself to sleep. I found different substances in my later teens. I’d numb myself to not feel what was happening inside of me, to take myself away from the fear, self-hate, and horrible self-talk, to escape for a short period of time. This was effective… temporarily. Long term, it led to much more intense episodes of anxiety and depression, though at this point, I knew no other way.

At twenty-seven years old I met the soon-to-be father of my children. This was a few months following the separation of my marriage, which lasted all of one year. I knew when I decided to leave my husband that I wanted to be alone for a while, but the woman I was then still craved the attention of a man, and so there wasn’t much resistance to falling for the next man that gave me attention. And wow, did he give me attention. Little did I know, I wasn’t the only woman he was giving this attention to – hello, familiarity. Still, I quickly became attached.

Not long into our relationship, we were at one of his friend’s parties, and another friend of his, whom I’d met only once or twice before, took me into the bathroom. It was there that she laid out a line of white crystals for me. This was the first time I had touched any drugs, let alone meth, since I was nineteen. In the mental state I was in, which was ‘all over the place’, drinking a bottle of wine, if not two, every single night, and craving further ways to lose my mind, I did it.

A few days later, I found out he also did it on occasion. With my addictive mindset at the time and the pain I didn’t know how to process within my heart, I of course wanted more. Within a few months of being together, we went from doing it once per month to every second weekend, to every weekend.

About five months into our relationship, I went on my six-week adventure around Europe with my housemate at the time. In what should have been the most joyful, fun, and epic time of my life, I’d never felt so depressed. I was drinking daily, from early hours. It was fitting, and no one looked twice because almost everyone was drinking. On the last week of our trip we were sailing Croatia. It was beautiful and probably the most fun I’d had in my life. At the same time, while jumping off boats, floating in the Mediterranean, exploring the cobblestone streets, snorkelling, and partying, it was probably the most fragile I’d ever been.

I remember one morning, after being up all night, drinking, everyone else had gone to bed. The boat quiet, apart from the engines roaring as we sailed to our final destination. I was sitting on the side of the boat, watching the water spray from the side of the boat. In this moment, as I sat there, I contemplated just falling in. No one would find me, I thought. I’d be free. Was this freedom? The short answer, NO.

Prior to my big Europe adventure, we were partying and using every weekend. After returning home, we went from using every weekend, to then using throughout the week, including me sneaking it in the mornings before work. I’d even drive home from work at lunchtime to have more without telling a soul.Partly because I didn’t want to eat so I could remain skinny (sorry body), but also because I didn’t want to be in my reality. This was my way out, but not really.

Six weeks after returning home, and far too many days high, I went to see the doctor. Having babies was something we’d spoken about as it was something he saw for his future. I remember trying for quite some time with my ex-husband and not being able to fall pregnant (for which I am thankful now). And so, I believed that it wasn’t possible for me to have children, but I wanted to find out for sure. I had an appointment with the doctor to check if I was fertile. I sat nervously as they took my blood, hoping that they wouldn’t detect the concoction of chemicals in my blood from the previous weekend’s four-night bender. Two days later I received a call to come back in urgently. I was nervous.

When I returned to the doctor a few days later, all I remember is her asking me to do a pregnancy test straight away. I felt confused. She explained, We picked up something, which basically indicates that you’re either pregnant or may have cancer. You can imagine my confidence at this point.

I took the test in the toilet of the clinic and returned to her office. She watched, silently, for probably the most uncomfortable few minutes of my life. I went to the doctor to find out if I could have children; it turns out, I was already five weeks pregnant. My baby boy saved my life. If I hadn’t have fallen pregnant, I may not have stopped using.

I am forever thankful for both Felix and my second beautiful baby boy, Milo, for inspiring me to be better.

Why am I telling you this story?

To give you an idea of where I started, and because my two boys are my biggest inspirations and they were the catalyst for me changing my life. I wanted to be a better example for them. I didn’t want to teach them self-neglect and self-abuse. I wanted to be an example of self-respect for them so they could take that on and into their own lives. I wanted to show them what else was possible. I wanted to show myself what else was possible.

When Milo was seven weeks old, I started my business in network marketing. Unbeknown to me at the time, I was starting a deep transformational period of personal growth and inner healing. I had no idea that as a result of saying yes to that one opportunity, I would eventually be led here, writing this book. The only way I could start that journey was to begin with the foundations. Starting with a strong, emotionally backed intention.

As you can imagine, coming from anxiety and addiction, none of the practices in this book were an easy feat for me. I had A LOT of healing to do. If you feel the same, don’t let that discourage you. Baby steps! They’re called practices because they take practice.

YOUR INTENTION

If you learn anything from this book, it’s that to live with intention is to live on purpose. This means that you’re no longer unconsciously going about your days, forgetting to find joy in all the little moments, never allowing yourself to be present and enjoy life exactly as it is. It means you’re no longer allowing the days, weeks, months, and years to go by without being unconditionally happy in them. It’s natural for us to always crave more, and that’s ok. It’s part of the evolution of self. The only time it becomes an issue is when you’re not enjoying the more that you’ve created along the way, you’re not enjoying the unfolding of the more you desire, and you’re constantly stuck in a loop of unhappiness waiting for the next thing.

The desire for more at this point becomes a creator of your suffering, not your evolution. Happiness is here now, right where you are, and to achieve it, a promise and commitment to yourself are necessary. This is where your intention comes into play. Your intention is NOT just the reason you’re here, reading this book and doing this work. It’s your driver, your inspiration, your go-to when you begin to lose faith or when you feel like you’re backing out of that promise to yourself to stay committed. Your TRUE intention is the EMOTIONALLY CHARGED REASON inspiring every action you take going forward. Intention is everything.

Why are you here?

Your answer is likely a surface-level reason, such as, because I want to be free from anxiety or because I wanted to learn more about self-love or because I want to feel better or because I want to feel happier. Write it down.

This isn’t the real reason you’re here. Underneath