by Jill Weber
Now do the exercise again. This time, don’t worry about writing straight and on the lines, or making sure your letters are clear. Just write while wearing the blindfold.
Can you feel the difference? Once you accept the blindfold, you’re liberated from the anxiety about it.
STRATEGY: CLARIFY YOUR VALUES
Values are the things in life we cherish most, the things that give our lives meaning. Common examples of core values include family, spirituality, health, and community. Living a life that matches your core values increases self-esteem, joy, and quality of life. The good news is, the strategies you’re learning here will help you channel your energy away from anxious patterns and toward the values that matter most to you, in spite of, or alongside, your anxiety symptoms.
A good way to get in touch with your values is to imagine yourself on your deathbed. This can be difficult, but imagining life ending can sometimes connect us with what we want most.
•What do you want others to know and remember about you, that you did or didn’t do, during your life?
•How do you want to impact the larger world?
•How do you want others you care about to experience you?
Consider writing down what you value in each area of your life as listed in the next section; remember, a value can be that you don’t value that particular area.
Relationships (romantic, friendship, family, parent, child):
Professional:
Education:
Religious/spiritual:
Community:
Hobbies/interests:
Psychological growth:
Physical health:
STRATEGY: COMMITTED ACTION
Identify what you can do now to start living the kind of life you truly desire. Any small step toward your values will improve your mood and anxiety. Get out your notebook and map out a plan to start taking committed action toward something you value. Here’s how:
1.Identify value:
Example: Psychological growth
2.Identify goal:
Example: Increase self-esteem
3.Identify step to take to reach goal:
Example short-term action: “Every day do one task that makes me feel competent—pay the bills, make a meal, exercise, volunteer, help a friend.”
Example long-term action: “Ask boss about what’s needed for a promotion,” or “Sign up for a class.”
4.Now take action!
Go Deeper
Your Best Life
The story you tell yourself about who you are and what you can and can’t do influences every aspect of your life. Although you may take your story as fact, it is not. The accumulation of negative experiences over time can give us a sense of ourselves that is entirely false. We are so accustomed to our story that we don’t challenge it or recognize the ways it blocks our growth. Your story can be changed.
•Rewrite your story so it can support who you truly want to be.
•In this process, consider which ideals/values you care about and want to cultivate.
•Write about what your best life would look like and also how you would feel on the inside if you were actually living this life.
•Write specific, doable, action items that will move you toward living this life starting now, today.
Do the Scary Thing
For many of us, it’s tempting to think the only way to emotional freedom is to eliminate our anxiety entirely. But as we’ve seen, total anxiety elimination is self-defeating because of anxiety’s many benefits and, of course, because it is an impossible task. Feeling anxious from time to time is something to accept, not struggle against.
Accepting you’re going to feel anxious at times—sometimes quite anxious—frees up psychic space that was occupied by willing anxiety away. This opening is a portal for achieving goals and living a meaningful life while anxiety is present.
In fact, when you make room for anxiety to be present without sounding the fire alarm, you’ll find there’s value in simply noticing where anxiety crops up. Frequently we become anxious about things because they matter to us. For example, when we worry about a social interaction it’s probably because we really value having a social life. If we tremble in the face of a job interview, it’s because professional achievement is important to us. We don’t usually get anxious about things that are irrelevant to our lives and values.
Instead of turning on yourself when anxiety rears its head, make room for it and for what it can teach you. Accept yourself, wholly and completely, the positive and the negative. Approach what you’re afraid of, because whatever is on the other side of that fear matters to you. And that’s important, because you matter.
Paradoxically, fully accepting anxiety relieves anxiety. To do this, however, you have to legitimately accept it as an inevitable part of your life. Accepting anxiety just so it will “go away” won’t work. Tell yourself (and mean it!), “My anxiety will forever come and go,” and “I can still be okay and live a valuable life with anxiety.”
Maybe you’ve experienced the freedom that comes with true acceptance in other parts of your life:
Just when you accepted you wouldn’t find love, you found it.
Just when you accepted your unsatisfactory job situation, it improved.
Just when you accepted a loss, something was gained.
Just when you accepted your flaws (or the flaws of someone else), they stopped upsetting you.
Just when you accepted your diagnosis, you became healthier in other ways.
Acceptance brings less obsessive focus and energy spent on whatever is troubling us. As we become less singularly focused, our lens expands to the larger picture. We have the space to strategize, take risks, and do more to improve our circumstance.
STRATEGY: IMAGINE A SCENARIO
Use this visualization exercise to get in touch with what you might gain if you push through your anxiety.
1.Bring something to mind that matters to you but that you’ve avoided or neglected because of anxiety and fear. Picture the details. Paint the scene in your mind’s eye.
2.Try to conjure what you would feel in your body if you approached what you are afraid of. Notice the physical cues. Can you feel your heart rate increase or your stomach sink? Remind yourself that you’re safe; you’re just pretending.
3.Imagine you follow through with whatever used to frighten you into inaction, and imagine how you would feel if you did that. What would you gain?
Anxiety Is Not the Boss of You
Ideally, when our anxiety response is triggered, we make a swift assessment of how dangerous the situation at hand really is. Then we’re able to either manage the situation appropriately (“Get out of the house, there’s a fire!”) or self-soothe (“You’re okay, take a deep breath.”), return to a calmer baseline, and move on. When we experience chronic anxiety, fight-or-flight is triggered so frequently that we are forever on guard for potential threats, and can never truly relax.
Anxiety can be like a tyrant that controls us to such an extent that our true nature fades into the background. Over time it gets harder and harder to recall who we are and what we want, separate from anxiety, or believe there is another way to live. Yet it’s possible to break free. You can go your own way, do your own thing; you can be the boss of the anxiety.
Take the example of Mateo, a high school football player I worked with in my psychotherapy practice. A gifted athlete, Mateo was nonetheless consumed by anxiety regarding his performance on the field. Over time this anxiety stopped him from going on the practice field at all, which only increased his anxiety and negative feelings about himself. Not practicing meant his skills weren’t improving. Mateo worried recruiters wouldn’t see what he could do and all would be lost.
I suggested to him, “You know you’re really anxious right now. Your anxiety is telling you to stay home and give up on your dream of getting a football scholarship. You believe you have to do what the anxiety tells you. But you don’t have to listen. You’r
e in charge, not the anxiety. You could go to practice while you feel anxious.”
At first, Mateo, like many of us, remained stuck on the idea that he can’t live with anxiety: “But I don’t want to feel anxious! I have to figure out the anxiety first.” Then he made the connection: “Well, I guess I’m going to feel anxious either way. I didn’t go to practice today and I feel even worse than yesterday, but at least if I go to practice I haven’t lost anything else.”
And that’s it. If you make your choices in spite of anxiety, you’re retaking control of yourself and your actions—you’re retaking control of your world. Now you are free. Free to strive to become a college football player, develop close friendships, fall in love, travel, be spontaneous, take the final tests to get the degree, take that medical test that could save your life, speak up in the meeting so your boss will give you that promotion, start a new business, plan a party.
Anxiety will not disappear, but it will no longer be your tyrannical boss—you, your true nature, will be the boss.
STRATEGY: WATCHING YOUR THOUGHTS
Use this mindfulness exercise to better connect with the part of you—the observer—that is separate from your anxious feelings and thoughts.
1.Sit quietly and comfortably. Become an observer of your thoughts and sensations. You’re not overwhelmed by your experience and you’re not pushing it away or judging it. Your experience just is what it is.
2.Notice that as each thought passes it is replaced by another . . . and another . . . and another. Similar to lying on your back watching clouds and labeling their varying shapes and nuances: “fuzzy cloud,” “smoke cloud,” “bird-shaped cloud.” Watch your thoughts as they come and go and label them: “worried thoughts,” “fear thoughts,” “planning thoughts,” “happy thoughts.”
3.Label your observations as they come up using the sentences below. These sentences are ways to separate your observing self from your emotions and thoughts:
•“I am aware I am having the thought that --------.”
Example: I am bad/weak/failure . . .
•“A feeling of -------- has come over me.”
Example: sadness/dread/hurt/sorrow/joy
•“I am experiencing the thought --------.”
•“I notice a narrative that tells me --------.”
•“I am noticing a sense of --------.”
•“I am noticing a body sensation of --------.”
STRATEGY: IN VIVO EXPOSURE
In vivo is just a fancy way of saying, “in real life,” and for our purposes, it means you need to experience the situations you’re avoiding. Anxiety has dictated a number of your choices and caused you to miss out. Calling up your fears in real time, by approaching what you usually avoid, will show you that you can work through your anxiety in the moment and get out on the other side. What’s on the other side? A life full of experiences you value. (When you try your first in vivo exposures, find a trusted friend to accompany you so you have support if you start to feel overwhelmed.)
Pick something that you’ve long avoided because of anxiety. This should be something that will be hard but that you can imagine pushing yourself to do. Examples might be calling a friend or relative, going somewhere, speaking up in a group, asking for something you need, telling someone something you’ve needed to say for a long time. Take doing the task slowly. Remember, the anxiety will be there as you push forth and that’s okay. Here’s how:
1.Take action: Do something you avoid and fear that blocks you from gaining something important to you.
2.Rein in fight-or-flight: Bring down physiological arousal by paying attention to your breathing. Make each exhalation longer than the one before.
3.Support yourself: Tell yourself, as you push forward toward your goal and feel that surge of anxiety, “I can and I will push through. I can and I will push through. I can and I will push through . . . ”
STRATEGY: HOW DID IT FEEL?
When we’re anxious, we don’t focus enough on the relief and even pleasure we experience when we push through the anxiety and get to the other side. Take a moment now to be aware of what good came from exposing yourself to the situation you have previously avoided so you will be sure to do it again.
•Do you feel any relief in your body?
•Do you feel any pleasure or pride in knowing you did the thing?
•Did anything good come from doing it?
•Can you imagine doing it again or something similar?
•Which makes you feel better about yourself, approaching your fears or avoiding/escaping them?
Giving Up the Struggle
It’s tempting to live life in a constant state of longing. We long to not experience upsetting or anxious feelings. We long to win. We long to be better. We long to be free of pain and full of pleasure. And we berate ourselves when we don’t achieve what we long for. This mind-set can make life an endless race to get something, and then something else, and then something else. Deep down we believe this struggle is one day going to lead to an end to all of our suffering, an end of wanting more, and an end to ever feeling bad.
This belief is a fantasy that encourages anxiety to flourish. Anxiety on some level is never going to end. Believing it can somehow be controlled or erased becomes a barrier that prevents people from improving the quality of their lives here and now.
Take, for example, planning a vacation. You can choose to approach the planning with anxiety, frustration, or aggravation. You might worry that you won’t be able to do what you want to do on the trip, that the flights will be horrendous, and that all the planning is taking away time from other things you should be doing. At times you may even tell yourself, “This trip isn’t worth all this planning, ugh, I give up!” By the time you take the trip you may be filled with such resentment or annoyance over the planning and packing that nothing about the trip will quite make you happy. You return home dissatisfied and unfulfilled. You vow to take another, better, more perfect trip in the future.
Alternatively, you can accept the planning process—even embrace it. You have to do it anyway, so you might as well enjoy it. You can conjure a feeling of excitement and imagine your future pleasure as you think through what you want to do. You can spend time looking at photos, reading articles, and creating an agenda. When you hit setbacks, you can be flexible and think of other ways to still get much of what you want out of the trip.
Dealing with anxiety is similar, in that there’s a choice: On the one hand, you can forfeit the present moment and succumb to anxiety, or even self-criticism for feeling anxiety. On the other hand, you can make room for a larger experience of yourself other than as just an anxious person. If you want the latter, when setbacks hit, adjust to the new wave like that agile surfer, or take a turn in a different direction. Do that and anxiety’s inevitable presence will not dominate and rob you of the enriching experiences you deserve.
Go Deeper
Exploring Your Struggle
Take some time to sit down and journal about what your struggle with anxiety is like for you. Here are a few prompts to focus your writing:
•Write about the ways you have attempted to fight anxiety. For example, trying to anticipate fear/self-doubt/worry; making choices in hopes they will keep anxiety at bay; spending time problem-solving about things that can’t be solved; trying to make certain the unavoidable uncertainties found in every life.
•Many people blame themselves. Consider the ways you may have been too hard on yourself—judgmental and self-critical—because you feel you “shouldn’t” be struggling with anxiety.
•Consider how many parts of days, weeks, and years have been consumed by anxiety. What would it be like to give up this struggle and accept anxiety? What would you do with the gift of that free mental space?
•As you write, see if you can connect with a feeling of compassion for yourself and for what you have endured in your struggle.
STRATEGY: INVITING DIFFICULT EMOTIONS
This strategy is
a way to practice giving up the fight against your emotions. Instead of struggling against them, you’re actually going to lean in to whatever emotions you might be experiencing—the pleasant and the unpleasant. Try to actually invite anxiety (and other unpleasant feelings) to come over you.
1.Sit comfortably in a quiet location. When anxiety appears, instead of fighting it (“This is wrong,” “Make it stop.”), let go of control and give up the struggle. Welcome anxiety in with open arms: “Yes, I see you, anxiety, and there’s space for you here with me.” Meet the surges of unease or worry with warm acceptance. You can accept your feelings even though they cause you discomfort.
2.You’re not attempting to change the feeling, push it away, or keep it present. You’re aware of whatever it is, as it is. You’re letting go of control in favor of awareness.
3.As you experience the anxiety, ask yourself, “What else may be here?” Explore for deeper emotions that may be hiding under your anxiety. Many anxious people have not grieved something from their past or fully acknowledged a hardship they suffered. For example, perhaps you’re anxious about your partner possibly leaving you. Dig deeper; what is this worry connected to from your past? When do you remember first feeling anxiety over someone leaving? Perhaps you trace this feeling to your parents’ divorce and your dad moving out. Now invite in that sadness or anger; see if you can notice where you feel it in your body. Stick with the feelings.
4.Work to uncover the root emotion to which each anxiety branch may be attached. Oftentimes, getting at the root, where the emotion first presented, can entirely relieve the anxious feelings. Tell the feelings they’re welcomed here with you. Validate them as real and worthy of your attention.
STRATEGY: TAKE YOUR ANXIETY ALONG FOR THE RIDE
If you’re like many anxious people, fear and apprehension stop you in your tracks. You feel as if you have to wait for anxiety to go away before you can get on with your life. It’s actually the opposite: for your anxiety to diminish, get on with your life!