It’s time for you to start beginning to address your anxiety and take control back.
First, identify your worries, anxieties, and fears are and write them down on a piece of paper. We often don’t fully understand our fears and worries. They can drive our avoidance of activities that are positive for us. Don’t limit yourself. Write an exhaustive list of worries, anxieties and fears. This will help to untangle the jumbled mess in your brain that is anxiety. It also helps decrease your reactivity to the anxiety. Once you correctly identify your feelings, your reactivity to them will decrease.
Does this worry or fear protect me from danger?
Identify whether those anxieties are functional or dysfunctional in the list you have written. Functional anxieties are things like driving cautiously during a winter storm or walking with a friend to your car at night for safety. There are survival reasons you need these fears and worries. Dysfunctional anxiety can paralyze you. Dysfunctional anxiety prevents you from living a fulfilling life. For example, not speaking up in a relationship for your emotional wants and needs, overanalyzing a conversation, or not getting on the plane to see your best friend get married. It is important to make the distinction between functional and dysfunctional.
What do I truly need right now?
Ask yourself, “what do I truly need in this moment?” Anxiety will speak up in our minds and say, “avoid it, don’t speak up, don’t do it! What if…” Strap those anxious thoughts in the back seat and take control of the wheel of your life. Sometimes anxiety can be a way to alert us to rid our lives of toxic people. Sometimes it can awaken us to the excitement of life. Identify what healthy changes you can make in your life to decrease your stress and prioritize your self care.
You can cultivate insight into your intuition and values in many ways. Mindfulness meditation, exercise, and journaling are excellent ways to sift through the negative thoughts to reveal a more realistic, truthful, and helpful thoughts based in our needs and values.
Ready to kick anxiety in the butt? Schedule an appointment.
