Anxiety: Embracing the enemy within
These days, anxiety seems to have a bad reputation. I am often inundated with clients wanting to rid themselves of their anxiety completely. I get it! It’s physically and psychologically uncomfortable, it can be pretty persistent, appear at unwanted times and places, sometimes it crops up when it doesn't seem to make logical sense to be there, and can impact and interfere with your day-to-day life. It's natural to want to get rid of it, to push it away and grapple with it. However, what I often remind my clients is that we have anxiety for a reason. It's there to tell us something, and it's a really important tool in our survival kit. It just sometimes gets activated too easily (like an oversensitive fire alarm), particularly in an era where our nervous systems are constantly overloaded. So, what if the goal isn’t to eliminate anxiety, but to understand it, make a bit of space for it, and embrace it?
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy
That's where Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) comes in. One of the key pillars of ACT is based on the premise of acceptance of your internal experiences. ACT recognises that controlling or avoiding your anxiety can backfire and the more you battle with it, the bigger the anxiety becomes. Instead, it encourages you to embrace the anxiety and live a life that is in line with the things that are important to you despite the discomfort.
Anxiety, then, isn't something we need to fix, fight or get rid of. Instead, it's about reminding yourself that anxiety is natural and normal. It's an evolutionary response that's developed to help us survive. At its core, anxiety is an internal alarm system that alerts you to threat, danger or concern. It’s your nervous system’s way of saying, “Something's up, pay attention!”
What does anxiety look like?
Anxiety can show up in lots of ways. You may experience racing thoughts, a tight chest, shortness of breath, rapid breathing, tense muscles, butterflies in your stomach, restlessness, or a sense of dread. These symptoms might feel like a problem, but, in fact, they're your body’s way of getting itself ready to protect you (to fight, run or freeze). Without anxiety and the associated physical responses, we'd struggle to keep ourselves safe.
Reframing your relationship with anxiety
So, with that in mind, I'd encourage you to start reconsidering the relationship you have with your anxiety. Rather than struggle with it, perhaps try and shift your perspective with these key steps:
Notice when you feel anxious without any judgment.
Name it when it happens: Say to yourself, "Ah, I've noticed my anxiety's showing up again."
Embrace the feeling. Don't struggle with it, don't resist it just let it in.
Reconnect to what matters to you. Consider how you can move forward and take actions that take you closer to what's important to you, despite knowing the anxiety's there
The main takeaway is that some level of anxiety is part of what makes us human. Each person's baseline of anxiety is different and will be dependent on their individual contexts. Some will be able to tolerate more anxiety than others, depending on that context, life experiences and levels of psychological resilience. However, if you stop fighting it all the time (which can be exhausting!) and start accepting that it's there to help, you can start to reclaim your power over it.
If anxiety has been getting in the way of the life you want to live, therapy can help. Together, we can consider what the anxiety might be trying to show you and how you build new and more compassionate responses —without needing the anxiety to disappear completely.