When anxiety says you can’t _____ (fill in the blank with whatever it is you think you can’t do), it’s frustrating, and it can be tempting to give up. Why bother trying to move forward when anxiety is screaming at you, attempting to convince you that you can’t do something? There are important reasons we should bother moving forward despite being anxious and believing we can’t do something: We are living our lives, we have goals, passions, and purpose, and anxiety is wrong (12 Lies Anxiety Tells You). You can respond to anxiety to take away its voice. You can respond when anxiety says you can't do something.
Anxiety Management – Anxiety Schmanxiety
If you live with anxiety, there’s a good chance that you’ve had conversations with your anxiety. “Conversation” might be too generous a term for the inner dialog that occurs with anxiety. A conversation with anxiety isn’t really a back-and-forth, rational exchange of ideas. Far from civil banter, anxiety’s talk is loud-mouthed, one-sided, boorish, and toxic. It is through this type of manipulative conversation that anxiety is able to maintain power over us. Let’s take a look at an example of a conversation with anxiety to objectively see one of its methods of manipulation.
Wanting to get rid of anxiety is perfectly reasonable and very normal, but focusing on yourself to do that may not have crossed your mind. When we think of getting rid of anxiety our focus is on that anxiety. It is anxiety that is receiving our attention; unfortunately, what we pay attention to sticks around. It can be empowering and uplifting to shift your attention away from anxiety and onto something much better: you. To get rid of anxiety, focus on yourself.
Anxiety has a way of ruining relationships, making us feel unlucky in love. As anyone who has ever had a relationship involving two people and an annoying third wheel—anxiety—knows, love can be hard to feel and enjoy when anxiety gets in the way. Take heart: there are things you can do to keep anxiety from ruining your relationship.
Most people are unlikely to create life-goals that accept anxiety because anxiety can be unbearable physically, mentally, and emotionally. Chances are, you’d prefer your life to be anxiety-free. Of course you would; that’s a very natural thing to want, especially if living with anxiety has you feeling overwhelmed, stressed and exhausted. Creating life goals is an important component to accepting anxiety, but living anxiety-free isn’t an effective part of life goals. It’s okay if your life goals accept anxiety. Here’s why.
Undoubtedly, social anxiety interferes with life and can ruin your fun (Social Anxiety: A Spectrum from Shy to Avoidant). Living with social anxiety means being on edge, unable to relax or let our guard down. Experiencing social anxiety means living in fear of doing something embarrassing or being judged as incompetent, inadequate, "less than." Social anxiety creates racing thoughts that are relentlessly self-critical. The anxiety, fear, and sheer exhaustion of all of this can make us shy away from people and social situations. In doing so, is social anxiety ruining your fun?
Our world, it seems, is becoming increasingly toxic; handling anxiety in this fearful, stressful environment can sometimes seem impossible. Negativity swirls around us like dead leaves tossed about in a gust of wind. (And it can feel like the wind picks up not just dead leaves but gravel, pelting us with the gravel; and it can feel like the wind is so violently strong that we can’t move.) It’s not uncommon right now to feel alone in that wind storm because everyone else is trapped in their own anxious storms (Despite Paralyzing Anxiety, There Are Ways To Move). Are humans still driven by kindness, or are they driven by hate toward those who disagree with them? It can be difficult to handle anxiety in a fearful, stressful, toxic world.
When you're caught in the roiling storm of anxiety, often the best way to calm that anxiety is to step back and observe. The fear, worry, and apprehension that are part of anxiety can become strong and debilitating when we're up close and personal with an anxiety-provoking situation. Why do we need to step back and observe when our anxiety is intense, and how do we do it?
Anxiety and panic are complex mental health conditions that have a tremendous impact on our lives (Anxiety and Panic Attack Articles). Like most big things, anxiety and panic have their ABCs, their fundamental concepts that explain the essence of what they are. When young children first learn to read and write, they break down the task into the basic components of what they are about to tackle; they learn their ABCs. This approach is great for dealing with anxiety and panic, too. Armed with the ABCs of anxiety and panic, we can use what we know to tackle the problem.
Deciding to seek help for anxiety so you can take back your life but then being unable to find help for anxiety is incredibly frustrating (Types of Mental Health Doctors and How to Find One). For a variety of reasons, such as insurance problems, lack of qualified mental health professionals in an area, difficulty getting or keeping appointments, and more, mental health help isn’t always readily available. While ideally everyone would be able to receive medical and therapeutic help for anxiety, doing so isn’t necessary to treat and manage anxiety. There are things you can do when you can’t find help for anxiety.