Take the first step

I am often contacted by sufferers who say that they have tried every possible way to break free from agoraphobia, but seemed always to end up against a brick wall. They tell me about the multiple professionals that they have consulted, medications that they have taken, therapies that they have tried and advice that they have taken from friends and family, yet agoraphobia continues to cripple their lives.

They may have read my story and or one or more of Dr. Weekes’s books, but are still hoping to find the magic cure to avoid having to take the recommended action.

I did exactly the same thing, and only got serious about following Dr. Weekes’s teachings one whole agonizing year after reading Peace From Nervous Suffering for the first time.

During that year I was like a person lost in the wilderness, not knowing where to turn and without any skills to survive. I frantically spent my time fighting and looking for something that would miraculously cure me.

Only when I was utterly exhausted, despondent and depressed, did I pull out the book again. Reading it for the second time, I realized that it not only contained all of the skills that I needed to survive in the wilderness but also a clear map out of it.

Then I took action: I closed my eyes and began my first right-action-readiness practice session.

From that moment on, I focused on every word that Dr. Weekes had written. My life became living the action plan that came out of her book, and in a relatively short time I emerged from the wilderness.

If I had not taken action in that way, then today, 40 years later, I would most likely still be suffering from agoraphobia.

Every journey starts with its first steps. In chapter 7 of Peace From Nervous Suffering, Dr. Weekes guides you in taking them by first acknowledging your four main fears about starting to practice her method:

• Believing that it can’t work for you.
• Not trusting yourself because you have failed so many times before.
• Understanding it but believing that your fears are unique, and so it won’t work for you. (My favorite).
• Finally, believing that the effort that the method demands is simply too overwhelming for you.

These were also my thoughts. However, I decided not to allow them to paralyze my life any further, but to instead take action on Dr Weekes’s last words in the chapter:

“Make the effort and take that first step:

• However long you may have been ill;
• However much you may distrust yourself;
• However afraid you may be;
• However tired you think you are.”

I did, and it worked for me as it has for man others. Will you also trust Dr. Weekes and take that first step today?

For more information, please read my blog post: Who was Dr. Claire Weekes?

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