How to Work Through Anxiety

Anxiety comes from your thoughts. It's not a chemical imbalance, it's not something that you're stuck with, it's not something that you're born with, it's not something that is built into your genes. It's something that you can work yourself out of.

I know from personal experience that anxiety is something that never goes away but I have found that having a tool belt that we continue to fill, helps ease it. We can take these tools out and use them to help make our anxious moments become shorter and happen less often.

The most important thing is to gain awareness when you are feeling anxious.

The next thing is to take a pen and piece of paper and write things down to get the abstract thoughts out of your head and onto paper where they are less abstract and become more real. It is way more difficult to punch someone in the dark. Writing it down, switches on the light and makes it much easier because you are no longer swinging in the dark.

I find it helps to write down the following questions and then to answer them straight away.

What am I feeling anxious about?

By identifying the thing that you are feeling anxious about, you are turning on the lights. You can now see the person you are fighting, which makes the fight so much easier than swinging in the dark. Once we have identified the thing that is making us anxious, it is so much easier to work around it, you already start to feel relieved and a bit better.

What’s the worst thing that could happen?

A lot of times we make things way worse in our heads than they actually are. 99.9% of the time, it never gets as bad as our brain makes it out to be. Psychologists have found that 85% of what you worry about never even actually happens.?

What’s the best thing that could happen?

The brain left to its own devices will usually go to the negative. If we let it do that it will make us more anxious. You have to pull out the positive too. There is alway a polar opposite. You just have to dig a little deeper. By identifying the best thing and writing it down and seeing it, you realise it is not all bad.

What’s the next best step to make me feel better?

What is the action that you could take right now, in this moment, to ease the anxious feeling?

Maybe you need to put on some calming meditation music for 20 minutes or a guided gratitude meditation and do some deep breathing exercises to work through the anxiety and work it out of your body by changing your internal state that YOU are in charge of.

Maybe you decide that you need to have a conversation with the person who is causing your anxiety. A lot of times what people are worried about is what another person's reaction will be.

If you just have that conversation, a lot of times the reaction is nowhere near what you thought it was going to be.

Maybe your next action is to go for a run and move your body physically, to change your focus.

Maybe you just need to talk to a friend. You have identified the cause of your anxiety so maybe calling a friend and actually starting to work through it will make you feel better because you’ve identified who the culprit is.

SCENARIO

You wake up in the middle of night thinking about the party you are planning, your heart is beating way too fast and you are feeling so anxious.

What are you feeling anxious about?

Planning a party

There is so much to do

Aunt Susan is gonna be there! She sucks and always says the wrong thing and talks mad shit.

You realise you are not anxious about planning the party but actually because Aunt Susan will be there.

What is the worst thing that can happen?

She will get drunk, say the wrong things to me.

She will embarrass me.

She will ruin the evening.

What is the best thing that can happen?

She could be in a great mood.

She won’t get too drunk and say anything rude or negative to me.

She could be a lot of fun and make the evening a great one.

Now you have identified the worst that could happen and the best that could happen and realise that probably what will happen is something in between the two which is actually not that bad and something you can cope with.

What’s the next best step to make me feel better?

Call my aunt Susan in the morning.

Tell her I am excited to see her at the party.?

Tell her how l feel when she behaves that way.?

Set boundaries.

Put on some calming meditative music for the next 20 minutes and practice my breathing techniques so that I can go back to sleep.

By simply getting up and grabbing a pen and piece of paper, you are taking control. You are not just sitting or lying there letting anxiety take control.

When you start writing, the abstract becomes known and unmysterious. It is sitting in front of you, clear-cut and you are able to identify and work through what you need to.

When you have finished writing, you feel a huge sense of relief, can breathe easier, and realise you are no longer trying to punch someone in the dark. The lights are on!!

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