Antidote to Anxiety (part 1)
Anxiety is a huge issue that plagues so many of us. Read through this blog and you’ll have an overarching view of how to think about anxiety. The follow-up second of this two-part series will give a few quick and easy suggestions to bring your anxiety down a couple of notches.
What is anxiety to begin with? Most of us regard anxiety as an emotion. What is more, most guys believe emotions are something to be managed, tamed, dealt with, or gotten over. Fellas, we gotta change how we view emotions. They are not something to be dealt with, and they most certainly are NOT just for gals. No, emotions are things we humans experience to help us through life. Emotions provide valuable data regarding our experience of the world around us. We need to learn to read our emotions in order to better understand how to do life.
Anxiety is tricky. At a mild level, anxiety increases your blood pressure and can keep you from falling asleep quickly. At a severe level, it can be intensely painful, profoundly scary, and keep you from sleeping at all. Anxiety impacts your mental state with racing thoughts, your physical state with tense muscle and shallow breathing, and your emotional state feeling on edge and panicky. So, how do we deal with this?
How to Deal with Anxiety
The number one suggestion I have for anxiety is to feel what you feel as often times anxiety is the result of suppressing emotions. I know what you’re going to say…I feel all kinds of intense anxiety; What do you mean I’m suppressing it?
It’s not the anxiety you’re suppressing, it’s what is under the anxiety. Is it fear? Grief? Powerlessness? Many times anxiety masks the true emotions that are begging to get out. And when we suppress those softer, more vulnerable emotions they then turn into anxiety.
So, feel what you feel. Three suggestions to help you get it off your chest:
Find a safe person to talk with, cry with, and/or vent to. Ask that person to tell you what you really need to hear. Do you need encouragement? Safe presence? A kick in the butt?
Journal about it. Spend a night over a beer, or at a coffee shop, and write out your emotions around what’s troubling you. (Note: writing longhand is more effective than typing as it slows you down.) When accessing emotions, we want to go slow. If our brain is moving fast, then we’re likely thinking through things, not feeling through them. Thinking through things will likely keep you spun up in that anxious state.
Connect with God. Pray and listen for a response. And might I add, unfilter your prayers.
You can get to the place where you can breathe again, where you can trust yourself again, and can settle into your body. If you’re looking to do the deep work to resolve the deep roots of your anxiety, would you consider coming and talking with me? We can go beyond coping mechanisms and toward healing.
