Anxiety Isn’t the Problem: It’s How We Relate to It

1. Introduction: Exploring Our Relationship to Anxiety

I struggled for a while, even after becoming a licensed therapist and after starting my own practice, to really understand what it meant to “heal” anxiety. Certainly we can’t expect to never feel anxious again, right? That just wouldn’t be realistic. We’re human and we’re bound to experience those anxious feelings at some point.

So what is healing if it’s not about getting rid of the anxiety?

Well, I like to say that it’s about changing your relationship to it. The healing isn’t about changing the anxiety itself, but about shifting the energy that exists between you and the anxiety. The “illness” isn’t in the anxiety itself, the “illness” is the unhealthy relational dynamic between your essence and a part of you that stepped into an anxious role (perhaps a very long time ago).

Unfortunately, so many of us (yup, I include myself in there because I’ve done it and still sometimes do) tend to shame, judge or attempt to suppress anxiety. And our efforts towards shaming, judging, or suppressing also aren’t bad! Let’s take a moment to get curious about where the shaming, judging and suppressing comes from; might there be a part of you that just wants you to be ok? A part of you that just wants to you to stop worrying? A part that just wants you to be happy already? Perhaps that’s where the shame, the judgment and the automatic avoidance, suppression, or dismissal of feelings comes from. Maybe it’s an automatic learned behavior because your inner child learned that your emotions, particularly your anxiety, should be judged, shamed, or suppressed.

2. The Protective Nature of These Reactions

I like inviting my clients to “open up some curiosity about…” because when we start to get curious about our feelings, our thoughts, and our patterns, we start to take control over our experiences in a new, more gentle, more inviting ways.

Most of the time, my clients begin to discover that the same patterns that are harming their mental health are the same patterns that are meant to be protective. And that’s how it works, isn’t it? That’s why we end up in therapy… because the same things that are meant to help me are the things that are starting to hurt me…

Now let’s consider, as someone that might judge, shame or try to suppress anxiety, how your attachment figures responded to your emotions. Attachment figures are other individuals (typically adults caring for you during childhood); dynamics between you and these individuals eventually become internalized… you essentially absorb some of how that attachment figure was towards you and then unconsciously re-enact those dynamic within your own inner world.

Now it doesn’t feel as surprising that you might judge, shame or suppress, does it? Trust me, I get it.

Many times, attachment figures are unfortunately abusive, re-enacting much of their own trauma and initiating more of it in you. Many times, attachment figures mean well, but because they’re uninformed, stressed, or maybe anxious themselves… they fuck up (and this can have long term effects).

3. Inviting Curiosity About Our Judgments

Take a moment to reflect on how you typically respond to anxiety. Might there be a part of you that’s stepped into an extreme role; a role that dismisses, that avoids, that dissociates, or maybe one that obsesses and tries to problem solve it, fix it, or intellectually manage.

The trick here is this; observe yourself non-judgmentally. Even if you’re observing the fact that you’re judgmental towards yourself- don’t judge that- just observe it. Pretend like you’re the one shining the flashlight onto an experience, rather than being the experience that has a light shone on it. Pretend like you’re watching the movie instead of acting in it.

And if we’re focusing on getting curious, let’s stay curious about each present moment. This means that as you notice anxious thoughts or feelings arise, you don’t stay fixated on any one thing for too long. You don’t try to problem solve so that the future feels more certain (we’re not focused on the future). You don’t try to review a situation in your mind (we’re not focused on the past, at all). And you’re not trying to “make sense” of anything intellectually- because in that case, you’re still activating the Default Mode Network of your brain (the section of your brain responsible for your ability to recall the past and project yourself into the future).

Instead, you’re focused on each quarter of a second as it arises and passes and you’re focused on opening up curiosity around how anxiety shows up in the body.

4. Shifting the Relationship: From Judgment to Compassion

Sounds easy enough, right? It’s not, and here’s why…

That judgmental, shaming part of you that wants you to suppress those emotions or “just get over it” is armored up and ready to fight. While you might want to non-judgmentally tap into your anxiety, move through it, breathe through it, and gracefully allow it to pass, your “just get over it” part might continually rear it’s head and POP back up, rushing you past your feelings, looping you back into your intellectual brain, and smothering the feelings before they can make their way up and out.

This is why it’s so important that we learn how to “disarm” our protective parts; in this case, our judgment, our shame, and our desire to suppress and “get over it.”

We have to be careful about how we interact with our protective parts because if they feel like you’re creating potential for more suffering, and they don’t think you can handle it, they’re going to back lash and start working double time.

Right now, your protective parts might not trust that you (your essence, your core, your self energy) has the ability to move through suffering with confidence and courage.

But what if they’re wrong?

A more important question though is… what do they need?

If we can discover how to start meeting the needs of our protective parts, we might be able to start disarming them, shifting them over to the side, making space for emotions like anxiety to surface with intention, and we might even discover precious beauty underneath the “hats” these protective parts of you learned to wear.

I know that my protective parts really appreciate acknowledgment and they really appreciate my gratitude.

5. Anxiety as a Signal of Deeper Wounding

Anxiety itself isn’t always a result of emotional wounding; the anxiety itself isn’t bad. Anxiety is normal. Your insecure relationship to your anxiety is the deeper sign of emotional wounding. And it’s the insecure relationship to anxiety that creates more anxiety, and eventually creates a chronic condition that negatively impacts the body, relationships, work life balance, and personal joy.

Healing anxiety is about shifting our relationship to it by becoming more curious about the parts of yourself. By exploring your protective parts, by learning skills to embody your emotions, by finding ways to creatively re-organize your inner world, you can heal anxiety.

6. Shifting from Intellectual Understanding to Somatic Awareness

Let me break down a little bit of the science behind why it’s so key that when we’re doing this work, we’re emphasizing body based awareness over intellectual understanding…

Here’s how anxiety happens: the amygdala (the survival brain’s alarm system) senses a “threat,” the amygdala signals the hypothalamus (the “messenger” of the survival brain) and the hypothalamus starts the process of hormone release into the body (gearing a person up for fight-flight-freeze), and then the hippocampus (the “bookkeeper”) stores memory about the incident- tagging your behavior as either helpful/safe or unhelpful/unsafe (this conditions you to unconsciously, automatically respond in a similar way when triggered in a similar way in the future).

This process is all unconscious, automatic and irrational; the survival brain quite literally doesn’t have the capacity for rationality (if it did, it might move too slow, and we might not survive in life threatening situations).

So if anxiety is already triggered in someone, this means that we’ve begun functioning from the survival brain. Even if you’re capable of accessing rational thought in the frontal cortex… when triggered, those rational thoughts aren’t able to effectively “land on” the survival brain. This is why you can think “rational” thoughts and still feel anxious.

Here’s what the survival brain does respond to; somatic awareness and mindfulness based practice.

7. Tips for “Opening Up Curiosity” Mindfully and Somatically

Some practical ways to start opening up curiosity mindfully and somatically involve the 1) metaphorical flashlight 2) thought labeling and detaching 3) somatic compassion.

1) Metaphorical flashlight- as mentioned before, be the holder of the flashlight, not the experience having light shone on it. Essentially, you make yourself the observer and you move that flashlight moment to moment, not allowing it to shine for too long on any one experience. Shine it on your thoughts, then shine it on your right foot, then shine it on your inhale, then shine it on the ground beneath your feet, etc.

2) Thought labeling and detaching- your mind might go into auto-pilot mental spiral or mental chater when you’re anxious. That’s ok, and it’s normal. Notice it and start to label, not just what your thoughts are saying, but what your thoughts are doing. Are your thoughts doubting, questioning, analyzing, creating, remembering, imagining, predicting, etc.?

3) Practice somatic compassion- instead of thinking compassionate thoughts, practice inviting compassion into the body. If you brought compassion into the fingers, what changes about how you experience your hands? If you brought compassion into your heart center or into your face, how does this change the way you experience these pars of the body.

8. Conclusion: Healing Through Curiosity and Compassion

I hope that at this point, you’ve got a strong idea of what it means to actually heal your anxiety. It’s not about changing the anxiety itself (while anxiety might change eventually, our goal is not to change or fix anxiety). The goal is rather to shift your relationship to anxiety and to re-organize the relational dynamics between your protective parts, your inner child, and your true essence (your self energy).

I invite you to start approaching your anxiety with more curiosity and compassion and to really practice being a mindful observer of your experience. You are capable of creating more somatic space for calm, confidence and ease- even in the presence of anxiety.

But it does take practice, it’s not always easy, and that’s ok.

I’m grateful your here <3

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