If you’ve ever experienced anxiety, you will know how it can literally take over every single one of your waking (and sleeping) thoughts.
Your thoughts churns round and round.
You might feel sick.
You might not be able to sleep.
You might feel on edge.
You might feel snappy and short tempered.
You might not be able focus.
All of you will experience anxiety in different ways.
Anxiety is a normal and understandable reaction for times of immense stress.
I reckon the vast majority of the population has had anxiety at times when there’s a big ‘thing’ (ill health, big life change, loss of job etc) going on in your life.
For some of you, anxiety won’t just appear when there is a reason to, but will be your go to default reaction on a day to day basis and has an impact on your life.
Anxiety can make you believe that if all these terrible things happen, you won’t be able to cope or manage.
For example, in lockdown, if anxiety is you go to default, you might have thought… I can’t cope if we go into lockdown, how will I manage at home with the kids and work, how will I manage homeschooling, how will I manage not seeing my family, I can’t cope not seeing my friends, how will the kids manage to getting to nursery, how will I cope if this goes on for the rest of the year etc.
This kind of internal chatter is typical of anxiety – this thought that you can’t cope/can’t manage/can’t support yourself/that it will be awful.
Many of you will relate to times this has happened in your life with other areas such as when you became a mum, work, health, friends, family, finances, environment and many more.
One of the approaches we’ve been using in my Finding Freedom programme is an ‘evidence based’ approach to increase the estimation of your ability to manage (anxiety encourages you to underestimate your ability to cope).
Using this approach, you can have a dialogue with the part of you that feels anxious. It reminds it of the evidence that you have coped, that you have managed difficult scenarios, that you are able and resilient, that this situation will pass like every single other situation you have been through and you’re still standing.
It’s such a powerful approach to working with anxiety.
If anxiety is something that you struggle with, and you’d like to understand, soothe and manage your anxious thoughts and feelings, then get in touch and I’ll send you details of the next intake for my Finding Freedom programme.
Much love, Tricia xxx
