Let's face it, a lot of the time we're not looking for the why. It doesn't matter if we are anxious about family life, a situation at work or what other people think of us, anxiety isn't fun. Like physical pain it's there to warn us something isn't right. If we were enjoying it, it wouldn't be doing its job but that doesn't encourage us to lean in and explore it. Instead a lot of us will find ourselves distracting from it with keeping busy, food, alcohol, exercise or whatever our strategy of choice is. What do we mean by anxiety exactly? Anxiety is a feeling of worry, nervousness or fear and it's worth mentioning that there is something to be said for feeling the fear and doing it anyway at times... When we push our personal boundaries it's bound to be uncomfortable and poke our insecurities. A little bit of meeting healthy nerves and still going for what we want is brilliant, but that's not really what I'm talking about here. I am talking about that feeling of worry that goes past the point of being productive. You'll know it if you've felt it. I am talking about an often ever-present and debilitating sense of unease, a conviction that something is wrong that can make your world a much smaller and scarier place to be. Anxiety is a normal part of life and we will all feel it to some degree. That said, there is a point at which it can become all-consuming and we can feel confused about where it comes from, overwhelmed when it's here and exhausted when it finally abates for a while. It can take the form of repetitive invasive thoughts or feelings of panic and often goes hand in hand with physical issues like sleeplessness and poor digestion. In short, it can take over. At least that is a pretty accurate description of my experience with anxiety. It gradually became so frequent that I just accepted that it was 'the way I was' and I brought the boundaries of my life inward in order to fit it. I felt uncomfortable in a LOT of situations and trying new things was often too overwhelming to even consider... so I didn't. I spent a long time trying to run away from it and I didn't really talk about my anxious feelings. Effectively I kept them in the dark - where fear and shame thrive. It was only years on that I realised that the answers often come when we stop running and turn around to meet our 'chaser'. We realise that what we have been frightened of is actually a part of us that doesn't feel safe. A part of us that, despite how malicious and overwhelming those anxious thoughts can feel at 2 o clock in the morning, is doing its best to warn us of a danger it really believes is there. When we have a better understanding we can begin to heal. Healing means that we can stop trying to manage our anxiety and start to truly move past it. What would the message be if we were prepared to listen? For me, leaning in to my anxiety felt unbearable. Experiencing strong & frequent anxiety usually means that we will either try to ignore it and barrel through it with brute force or avoid the situations we feel are making us anxious... but there are problems with both of these. Squashing it down Is ultimately not sustainable. You might be able to ignore that persistent tapping and do the thing anyway... but your body will still be in a state of threat waving the red flag at you. You also won't really be able to ignore it. You might turn the thoughts into white noise but unconsciously all that fear will be shaping your behaviour and emotions. This strategy can often end with a bang when we snap and those feelings we pressed down find their way out in an angry outburst. Avoiding ...never really ends. As we bring in the walls of our world until our anxious thoughts are soothed, they are never really satisfied and demand more and more of our experiences. Anxiety thinks it's a protector and it will often keep bringing you in and bringing you in until you find your world has become very small and 'safe'. This strategy might avoid overwhelm in the moment but it can really increase the amount of triggers as time goes by. There might not even be something that you can put your finger on... Sometimes we know it's something specific like public speaking, driving or social anxiety that starts the cycle again but more often than not, the reason for our anxiety is much more complicated. A great example of this is a phobia I had of the sea. I had it for as long as I could remember and I also had what I thought was an unrelated fear of driving. I had never had a specific traumatic incident with either, it was 'just one of those things.' Both of these fears started to dissipate as a completely unexpected side-effect while I was using EFT to work with another situation that I didn't realise had a similar thread ... A feeling of losing control. My anxiety was there as a stop sign to protect me against all of the things outside of my control and so to move me away from what didn't feel safe. Those two things, with all of their uncontrollable variables, fell into that wider category so my body and mind waved that red flag when they came up. But guess what? A lot of the best things in life come from stepping into situations where we are not in control. I was missing out. When I started to follow the threads back to where that fear came from I could let it go. Suddenly, life just didn't feel so risky anymore.
Our fears are complicated and often inherited or learned through a mix of experiences, observations and interpretations. Nine times out of ten it is so much more intricate and layered than one experience = a fear and like my phobia, a fear can show up in places we didn't expect and that we don't understand. We will probably never know what all those layers look like but the amazing thing is that we don't need to. So what do we do? For me it was about communicating with my whole body through EFT & EMDR. These modalities - and many more - connect with both the mind and the body to understand the emotions, beliefs and experiences that become stored to form the basis of our fears and resulting anxieties. I am a practitioner now because the speed at which my life changed when I finally found these therapies blew my mind. You might not know the reason for your anxiety but there will be a reason. When your mind feels like it's playing tricks on you or sending you round and round toxic thought-loops, it can feel like there's no way out. The truth is that we are only ever taught to consult the mind and it will do its job to the best of its ability and try to puzzle out an answer for us... the answer just might not be there. Our anxieties are directed on a deeper level by the body, the home of our threat response and red flags. Sometimes, anxiety is not understandable in an intellectual way and the answer is not in analysing and understanding, which can actually cause more problems as we try to justify or reason with our often irrational fears. Instead the answer is in feeling. I have spent years using somatic therapies to work through my anxious thoughts and feelings, my limitations, self-consciousness, low confidence and all the beliefs I never knew were behind them. My life is unrecognisable now from where I started and I'm not different or special in any way, bit by bit I have just learned how to stop running. Of course we are never finished with understanding ourselves and there are always more layers, but as I began to feel safer in myself the world felt much brighter, more welcoming and finally somewhere I belong. Change is always possible. However you choose to begin the conversation with yourself, it is important to start with kindness. The temptation is to move into frustration, self criticism and finding ourselves lacking when we feel limited by anxiety. Even if it doesn't feel true today, our bodies are always trying to serve us. If something isn't working the best thing we can do is partner with them to move towards what we want. If we keep running we might never know the reason and never soothe the fear. Maybe it's worth bringing your anxious thoughts and feelings into the light. What do they want you to be careful of? Whether it is EFT for you or something else, no one can teach you more about you than you. It's just about finding the right language. - I am an advanced EFT Practitioner supporting clients through 1:1 sessions to lean in to their anxiety and ultimately move through it towards peace, balance and freedom.
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AuthorI'm Jess, EFT Practitioner & mindfulness teacher, adoptive mum to two adorable little fireworks and a passionate advocate of the idea that change really is possible, no matter how far away it feels. Archives
December 2023
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