Are you struggling with anxiety?
Written by Laura Carr
Does anxiety plague your life?
· Do you ever feel paralyzed in life?
· Do you ever feel like you have to white-knuckle your way through things?
· Do you worry if you are doing it right? …whatever that means!
· Do you constantly hear a barrage of criticisms inside your own head?
· Do you wonder why you aren’t happy or think you should be happier?
· Do you live with a pervasive feeling of dissatisfaction?
· Do you lack self-confidence and question your capability?
· Do you worry about being discovered you are actually a fraud?
· Do you suffer from frequent headaches, stomach aches or other body aches and pains?
· Do you feel insecure or second guess your decisions?
· Do you go back and forth between feeling guilty and angry?
· Do you NOT participate in things because of anxiety?
· Does worry negatively impact your life?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are not alone…and here is the very good news…it is NOT you! It’s called ANXIETY! And anxiety is learned process, which means it can be unlearned!
Here is a familiar way clients talks about anxiety:
I’m successful in many ways, but anxiety and self-doubt plague me. I put on a good face. On the outside, most people would never imagine I struggle with doubt and insecurity, but on the inside my mind races. I feel tense and stressed and worried. I worry that one day it will all fall apart, I’ll feel lonely forever and I’ll never have the success I’m working so hard for. I think to myself, ‘you need to save more money, you should be more fit, kinder, more generous.’ It’s never ending. All the negative thinking, it is so loud that sometimes it can be difficult to focus on anything. I don’t know how NOT to worry. Deep down I wonder, ‘what is wrong with me?’”
“Why am I so anxious? Am I CRAZY?”
As adults, we are trained to be anxious and worried. Infants and very small children do not worry. It is a conditioned response. Worry and anxiety are NOT who we are. Worry gives us the illusion that we are doing something. Have you ever heard that quote, “Worry is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do, but gets you nowhere?” While initially we may feel better, that experience turns pretty quickly to feeling awful. It is exhausting!! You know…I’m preaching to the choir!
You are NOT alone. Did you know that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health issue in the United States? They affect over *40 million adults EVERY year (and we haven’t even added children into that statistic)! If you think of anxiety on a continuum with mildly nervous on one end and full blow panic on the other end, anxiety fits anywhere on that scale, from mild to severe!
Anxiety also takes many names…worried, nervous, insecure, concerned, distressed, on edge, uneasy, uncertain, self-doubting, apprehensive, jittery, afraid, panicked, fearful, etc.! I would go so far to say that everyone has experienced some form of anxiety. We all know that experience to some degree.
The good news is that you do not have to suffer with it. Anxiety is a choice! Wait! Let me finish! I know it doesn’t feel like a choice and it isn’t a conscious choice. It’s a habit. The very good news is that you can learn NOT to worry, not to fret, and not to be anxious! There are very simple, concrete steps to help you be be free from the prison of anxiety!
You are not the anxiety!
Since you are NOT your anxiety, you can learn to work with anxiety so that it does not torture you. I will teach you concrete steps to work with the anxiety. You see, what we are really made up of is energy, and that energy gets labeled based on the story that is running in our mind about that energy. I can help you break this process down so that it doesn’t feel overwhelming. You will learn how to separate out sensations, emotions and thoughts, instead of having them all jumbled together in a big ball of…anxiety!
In our sessions, we will look at what is driving the anxiety. As humans, we can never have a thought without an emotion or an emotion without a thought. These emotions and thoughts directly influence and/or create sensations in the body. Even if this is familiar to you, people often don’t know how NOT to engage the anxiety. There may be a recent or past trauma influencing you. We will gently explore what is running “underground” (also known as the unconscious) to make the unconscious, conscious. We bring the spirit of curiosity to this process and remove any shame and guilt. You are doing the best you can with what you know. Let’s increase your skill set by working together!
Behavior change is the last part of this process. You will start to notice how anxiety is happening in your day-to-day life, from a committed and compassionate stance, and you will begin to show up differently in your life as well. If it was just about knowledge, you would read a book on anxiety and boom, the anxiety would be gone. But, it is not simply about the information that is in your head. It is about learning how to show up to deal with the anxiety differently! And gaining freedom from the anxiety to choose what you want, not what fear tells you.
The one mandatory requirement is a willingness to change. You must be willing to do the work. Change will not happen on its own. Therapy is not magic. It works because people have hit a pain point in their lives, and they are ready to do the hard work to make major life changes occur. If anyone tells you this process is easy, run! I have been doing this work for over 20 years. You CAN have freedom from worry/ anxiety/self-doubt, and it will take commitment and work on your part. The process of living in freedom is actually quite simple, but it definitely is not easy. You are going up against years of habitual energy, possible trauma and ingrained belief systems that have maintained the anxiety! But, anything worth doing is usually hard (at first)! Here’s the bottom line, it is so worth it. You are so worth it!
In lovingkindness,
Laura Carr