Anxiety & What You Are Doing Wrong
You are reading this article because you saw the “A” word, ANXIETY.
You have probably experienced anxiety.
Statistics show in the US 1 in 5 adults are living with anxiety disorders, that is 40 million Americans, and globally it is estimated 300 million people.
While these statistics may sound shocking, the truth is 100% of us experience anxiety in some form or another.
The intensity of the experience will differ, of course. For some of you reading this, like me, you will have experienced panic attacks, maybe daily. For others, it will happen before a job interview, a first date or even flying.
As an anxiety coach, I have helped people across the entire spectrum, and I have learned that no matter where you sit on that spectrum right now, there are things that you are doing wrong when it comes to your anxiety. This is great news, because it means there are small, powerful shifts you can make today that really can change everything. Read on to find out what they are.
Stop judging your anxiety, and yourself for experiencing it.
Your anxiety is trying to help. Throughout our evolution anxiety served us. The ability to sense potential danger and then release hormones so that allowed us to run faster and longer, feel less pain and be more alert, literally saved lives. Our predecessors had strong anxiety skills, meaning they survived and passed that down to us. The world has grown at a rapid rate over the last century, our brains have been around for tens of thousands of years. It will take them time to catch up. You were always going to have anxiety, nothing has gone wrong here.
Stop saying circumstances cause your anxiety, and being powerless to it.
Let go of the idea that your boss, mom or an email you sent yesterday causes your anxiety. That leaves you powerless to do anything about it. Anxiety always comes from our thoughts. Did you know you have 70,000 thoughts a day? Most of which are subconscious thoughts. These thoughts are still able to alert your brain to the potential danger, release hormones and therefore anxiety. Look into what you were thinking, doing, talking about before you experienced the anxiety and be curious. You can find answers from a place of curiosity.
Stop resisting, reacting and avoiding your anxiety, feel your feelings.
Most of you reading will fall into one of three buckets when experiencing anxiety. The first, resistance, literally fighting your anxiety to try and stop it coming to the surface. It can feel ike a tight knot in your stomach. The second option is that you will react to your anxiety, literally acting it out, running frantically from one task to another, opening and closing tabs on your computer. The third, and most common reaction, is avoiding it. If any of you are overeating, over drinking, binge watching Netflix, staying in bed all day scrolling on social media, this is your response. With all three of these, you are feeding the anxiety. The only way to win, is to allow it and feel it. Feeling your anxiety is not scary at all. Your brain thinks it is, because to your brain anxiety = death in the wild. Now it doesn’t. Even a panic attack, trust me, I have been there. I recommend people do a body check list from head to toe, pausing in each place to understand what is happening in each part of your body.
The truth is, nothing has gone wrong here. You were always going to have anxiety. Anxiety literally has a purpose in our evolution. Of course we can learn to manage it, but only from a place of understanding it. There has been a lot of anxiety bashing in recent years across different media, all that does is create more negativity. Instead, I recommend getting to know your anxiety, understanding it, giving it space to be there, allowing it to show up and very kindly letting it know that you don’t need it right now.
If what you are doing hasn’t been working for you, then you have to try something different. I have helped so many people just like you manage and master their anxiety using tools & techniques that specifically helped me remove daily panic attacks from my life. You can access a FREE F*CK Anxiety guide I created at www.vikkilouise.com/guide, and access the F*CK Anxiety & Get Sh*t Done podcast (http://bit.ly/fckanxietypodcast)