Anxiety: Is it making your life small?

It feels appropriate now to revisit a talk I did about five years ago on managing anxiety and doing things that scare you as a path to evolution and growth. Much has changed in our world since then, but the content feels relevant still. For those of you who are familiar with Astrology, Mercury is currently stationed retrograde in the sky, giving the energy of January a continued wintery feeling of pause, slow down, and relative quiet that moves along with the season we are in…one of contraction, of going within. It’s a great time in general, to slow down, review things, and sometimes revisit the past..so to go “retro” with this blog post, edited a bit, feels in alignment with the current energetic weather.

I’d like to give you a few tips on managing anxiety, from a behavioral perspective. There is a lot of content out there on anxiety and understanding the different parts of the nervous system, and anxiety as a trauma response…this is not that post. It is worthy content that I talk about all the time with clients and read about myself, but today we’ll be talking about a few practical ways to take action.

This is about what YOU can do with anxiety in a practical way when it comes up in daily life. Whether you have occasional bouts of worry, or really struggle with an anxiety disorder (of which there are a few different kinds), there is something here for everyone.

To start, let me tell you a story.

Some years ago I was working with a client who was experiencing a high level of anxiety doing some everyday things that many of us do without thought or any discomfort. Tasks like leaving her house, going to the mailbox, and grocery shopping were things that she struggled to complete regularly. The operative word being “struggle.” What I found inspiring about her is that she did them anyway, even though they brought her nervous system into a very high state of arousal (think shallow breathing, sweating, and elevated heart rate to name a few of her symptoms). Anxiety lives in two places- in the body and in the mind. She had lots of physical symptoms, and lots of thoughts about those symptoms. However, she was moving forward, little by little, doing the things that scared her… not staying inside her house when she needed to go out and completing tasks that helped her function in life…get food to eat, get fresh air, and retrieve her mail.

Anxiety can, if allowed, make your life small. If you allow it to ‘drive the bus’, it will keep your bus parked in your driveway. It will tell you to go back in the house, hang the keys on the hook by the door, and stay there. That, to me, is the really scary thing about anxiety. The things it will keep you from doing, from trying, the relationships you might miss out on, the job, the fun…all because anxiety was out front, in charge.

I encourage you to identify one thing that you regularly avoid doing, or worry a lot about (or have avoided in the past) that you think makes your life smaller, rather than expands it. Perhaps something you just want to do or need to do, but anxiety has been a barrier. Maybe that is getting on an airplane to see a friend or relative, or to take a vacation…maybe it’s grocery shopping at peak hours when it’s crowded in the store…maybe it’s applying for a job that you’ve wanted that pays more...asking someone you’ve wanted to out on a date…applying to college…taking that three point shot in a basketball game…or shooting the ball at all. Then, ask yourself the question “what could be possible if I did?” And, “what’s the cost if I don’t?” Likely, these two questions have the same answer.

Who do you want telling the story of that plane ride, or grocery store trip, or three point shot….anxiety? Or the part of you who may be incredibly uncomfortable doing one of these things, but who trusts they have the tools to manage it nonetheless, and can function at a higher level and maybe…enjoy their life a bit more? What would it be like to discover a strength you didn’t know was there, waiting to be accessed?

With children, it can be helpful to completely externalize worry and anxiety. As a parent or caregiver, if you have or work with a child who has lots of worries or struggles with anxiety, give it a name (could be a person’s name, an animal, etc.). Separate the worry from the child. Make it an entity that they can talk back to, visualize, have a conversation with. This helps get away from thought forms and talk that goes like this- “I am anxious. I’m too worried to do this. I can’t do this. I SUCK.” We want to be able to talk back to anxiety, and speak about it as if it is separate from the child. “Anxiety is visiting right now. Anxiety showed up there, huh?…etc.”

My work as a therapist involves helping people expand their lives if their lives are becoming small or have become contracted due to anxiety, one step at a time. I provide guidance and a safe container within which to develop tools, and to begin to acknowledge the part of you who already has a voice in this matter, who knows how to cope with anxiety. If you want help understanding and unpacking anxiety for you, and developing tools to make it less impactful in your life, let me know. If you know someone who could benefit from these tips, please share this post with them.

Be well!