Avoiding The Elephant In The Room

Anxiety can unfortunately manifest itself in many diverse ways. Sometimes we’re unable to tell if it’s our anxiety flaring or just an uncomfortable feeling that comes up during the day. When these certain triggers arise, it’s human nature to react immediately in a negative way. It’s a pain that you don’t want to deal experience, and now you have to deal with this in additional to your jam-packed day. I mean, we’re not going to respond in a happy way! That would just be unnatural. Wherever you feel that tightness or anxiousness specifically in your body, you’re going to become focused on that due to a distinct lack of usual comfortability.?

For some people, anxiety manifests as a lump in your throat, feelings of dizziness or light-headedness, hot flashes, chest tightness, etc. These feelings start to hold power over us, because we realized they are associated with bad thoughts, feelings, or situations. The more we get in the habit of linking negative thoughts to anxiety-related feelings, the digger we’re digging ourselves into that hole. You may be thinking, “of course I’m going to link bad thoughts to bad feelings”, but just hear me out. There is a key to defeating these negative thoughts and feelings, and ultimately a way to put them back at ease.?

This may seem extremely counter-intuitive, but I dare you to just sit with the uncomfortable physical feeling that you’re experiencing. With everything in you, attempt not to judge it, but rather just “be” with the feeling to experience the sensation that it is causing in your body and mind. Don’t immediately try to sprint away or hide behind every crevasse in your brain from it. This actually causes your body and brain to feel more anxious. While you’re trying to do the right thing by getting rid of the problem at hand, it’s actually counterproductive to your healing process. Think of something that you’re scared of in real day-to-day life. Maybe it’s spiders, clowns, the dark, tight spaces, etc. Whatever it is, our immediate response is to avoid it at all costs. If we stayed to just “be” with the thing that sets off our panic-meter, it’d be incredibly uncomfortable and fear inducing. We run away as fast as possible, because that feeling is not fun and doesn’t allow us to feel safe. When these feelings are happening in our own body though, it’s impossible to just run away.?

The most effective way to reduce levels of anxiety in our own brains is to expose ourselves to the thing that makes us uncomfortable. You’re thinking, “won’t that just make it even worse” and I definitely thought that at first, too. When we practice experiencing the feeling without judgement, it lowers down the big “red alert” flag that waves in the wind of our minds. This takes a lot of time, practice, and motivation. It’s not the easiest thing to do, but with the right exposure and reaction techniques, you’re going to trick your own mind. Surprise!