There are so many people in my life that struggle every day with anxiety, including myself. I have worked with several clients on how they can manage their anxiety. It almost seems like an epidemic in this world we live in.
When I first learned about my own anxiety, I felt helpless. I felt broken. I felt out of control.
I was, what I thought at the time, in a good relationship. What I didn’t know, was that relationship was going to trigger so many things in my life to cause me to start spinning out of control.
The biggest contributor was his inability to hold down a job and our ever-growing debt.
I was a control freak and I could not MAKE him get a job. I could not MAKE him keep a job. I could not MAKE him stop spending our money as if we had it.
The more I tried to control this and MAKE him do things, the more OUT OF CONTROL I became, and the MORE I tried to control.
I was spiraling deeper and deeper into the “oh my God, how are we going to pay this…how are we going to pay that…” mindset.
I was exhausted. I was scared.
At the time, I had no idea what was causing my anxiety or how I could make it stop.
I also kept my anxiety a secret because of the “mental health stigma”, which caused me even MORE anxiety. My God, what if someone found out!
Now, this was many years ago. Before there was an open awareness of this affliction, so I turned to my doctor for help and she prescribed medication and told me to get a therapist.
I was really hesitant to take the medication. My mom was addicted to pills and I have extreme sensitivity to almost every medication, including Advil, so I was hesitant.
I had already done therapy so I knew how therapy worked. I didn’t need to look at my past anymore and I knew enough about what was going on to know that I needed help with right now so I could stop worrying about the FUTURE.
So I took the meds which helped enough to allow me to research my anxiety.
So, what is anxiety?
Anxiety is your body’s natural response to stress and a feeling of fear or apprehension about what’s to come. The what if’s of the FUTURE.
This can lead to physical things happening within our bodies. Rapid heart rate, fast and shallow breathing, sweating, feelings of nausea, and other things. And, one of the big ones…the fight or flight feeling.
Of course, anxiety can affect everyone differently so you may or may not experience some or all of these physical responses.
Anxiety can be normal in stressful situations such as public speaking or taking a test. But, anxiety can also manifest just from thoughts we have or situations we are in where we feel fear. Real, honest to goodness, fear.
And then, everything can spiral out of control and the anxiety takes over, causing you to literally become debilitated from the fear.
But rest assured, no matter how bad the anxiety gets, it won’t kill you. So out of anything you take away today, I really want you to know this. ANXIETY WILL NOT KILL YOU. Even though it can feel that way sometimes.
When someone suffers from anxiety, it’s not enough to change negative thoughts into positive thoughts. Actually, this is probably the LAST thing they need to hear because it is something that can be literally impossible to do depending on how severe the anxiety is. What needs to be addressed goes a bit deeper than just a positive thought.
It starts with awareness. One thing I can say for sure, is I now KNOW when my anxiety is coming on. People with anxiety tend to be hyper-aware of the feeling once they can identify it. Where there is a lack of awareness is what is CAUSING the anxiety. And THIS is where you can actually stop the anxiety in its tracks!
So, how do you get to the root cause?
Some things that you can do when you feel your anxiety kicking in:
- Take some deep breathes
- Sit with the anxiety. Remember, it stems from the FEELING of fear or apprehension about something in the FUTURE
- Try to identify what that something is
- Check-in with your thoughts.
- I then recommend writing it down, acknowledge it. This way, it is somewhere that you can refer to and no longer swimming around in your head.
- Understand that your mind is playing tricks on you, and in fact, could be lying to you so question it!
- And bring yourself back to the present using affirmations, gratitude, and meditation.
- Find someone to talk to. Someone you trust that can help bring you back to your present self.
Lastly, Remember, diet and exercise with adequate sleep are great ways to manage anxiety.
You don’t have to suffer!
If you are ready to dive deeper into this or any other subject you are working through, book a call with me here and let’s get you on your way!
