Anxiety means something different to each of us. Your interpretation of it depends on personal experience, and what labels you have given it. Your gender, culture and childhood events will also all influence what you think anxiety is.
But rather than thinking of anxiety on its own, it’s better to consider it as a collection of disconnected feelings that come and go – and which, for some of us, lead to feeling overwhelmed and paralysed as anxiety hijacks the body.
An example of the feelings that come and go are those days when you wake up depressed or feeling low and demotivated. Fortunately, these feelings often soon pass.
In contrast, the feelings of fear which are at the core of anxiety can be paralysing. You might have the overwhelming sense of something happening in your body that is out of your conscious control. Accompanying this might be a racing heart, a tightening in the chest and a struggle to take full breaths. Your body might feel tense and sweaty.
This state of anxiety can lead you to feeling disconnected from yourself – and can also escalate into a panic attack with all the above symptoms and more. In this state, your autonomic nervous system has been triggered and the ‘Fight or Flight’ response activated. Your body is simply sensing a realistic threat and is attempting to warn and protect you.
Stopping to address these feelings means making yourself vulnerable. And feeling vulnerable is not something that feels natural in a state of ‘Fight or Flight’.
It is useful to note, though, that being in the present can be an antidote to fear as you cannot be in the future and the present at the same time. Since anxiety is really a fear of the future, the work we’d do in therapy is all about pausing to examine your state of anxiety. This means moving into your vulnerability and looking at what’s causing your fear.
I realise it’s a difficult process, so therapy with me is done at a pace and depth that you are able to manage.
We might look at the things that frightened you as a child. Was it you feeling scared at the time or was it someone else expressing their fear? Sometimes, we take a fear from childhood with us into adulthood. It can even be a multigenerational fear that we have learnt from our parents because of something that happened in their past.
By taking time to sit with your fear – not controlling or supressing it – we can listen to everything about it. Perhaps the younger part of you that felt that fear for the very first time will need some empathy, reassurance and guidance.
By taking time to work into the fear that is making you anxious, we can slowly begin to understand it. And when you begin to understand, you can begin to change. As long as you are alive, you have the ability to change.
My approach to therapy is to help you to understand yourself mentally and physically. Then, working together, we can plot your pathway to a healthier, happier life.
The Mind & Body Guide.
Therapy for the whole of you.
