The Biggest Tip for Dealing with Anxiety and the Resulting Shame

as someone who had terrible anxiety when I was younger and to at times still experience anxiety I want to share what I think is one of the most important things about um coming to terms with anxiety and dealing with anxiety in life and it is the idea of acknowledging the anxiety it's about accepting it it's about realizing that it's something that we live with because it takes an awful lot of Shame out of dealing with anxiety living with anxiety my personal experiences I would because of anxiety and you know I can talk about deeper reasons why anxiety is there there's a lot of people pleasing involved with anxiety there's a lot of trying to prove oneself with anxiety things like this a lot of saying yes to things when we mean to say no we would prefer to say no but it's taking all these Life Strategies in order to deal with situations instead of just acknowledging that there is an underlying anxiety issue there right because without acknowledging that the anxiety there's a guilt spiral that comes with it there's a shame spiral so just acknowledging to ourselves okay anxiety is something I live with we can call it a disorder we can call it a whatever we like but just acknowledging that it's something that we live with is very helpful because the truth is if you have anxiety which I had and still have to a degree it's not a choice it's not a choice nobody wakes up thinking you know what I'm going to do I'm going to be really anxious today and it's going to be really helpful in my life instead we just start to acknowledge when it shows up that's just the anxiety that's what it is it's this thing that shows up in my life sometimes it really unfortunately moments we'll say right so but nobody chooses it you're not choosing the anxiety the other thing about it is it's very hard for other people to understand anxiety trying to explain to other people who don't have that degree of anxiety in their lives it's very difficult to convince them you know what it's like and why you feel the way you feel and really it's it's um you know it's a lot of the people pleasing stuff it's a lot of deeper psychological issues behind it that drive it which not aware of usually that's the problem but effectively it's just that the body doesn't feel safe that's what it feels like it feels like there's some sort of looming danger about to be be faced in life and the the nervous system just reacts to it as if it's a life and dead situation sometimes it can even have you know panic attacks over it but acknowledging that okay anxiety is there anxiety is something I'm living with allows us to be a lot more compassionate to ourselves okay instead of beating ourselves up for not being able to be this composed uh confident charismatic Great Communicator you know individual that we think we need to be at all times so that to me is one of the most important things with anxiety just acknowledging that it's there and it's something that you live with and to be with yourself at least more open about it and maybe with people who are close to you and that you trust who are you're intimate with you can let them know about it as well you don't necessarily have to tell everybody about the condition that you're living with but just letting some people know look this is anxiety it's not something I'm choosing it just comes into my life from time to time and finding ways to deal with it now I wrote a book on anxiety and um in the book I argue that the main underlying reason for it it is the people pleasing stuff those are the sub personalities that were in the leads of the anxiety but really it's um anxiety and low self-esteem are very very closely related so there's a questioning about one's worthiness right that's the starting position with before anxiety shows up anxiety comes in later as as a as a sense that the the not good enough me could potentially be exposed here or found wanting could could be made vulnerable to other people which is why we go to the people pleasing and they're not saying no um behaviors so it's like one way to and then you know when you have the anxiety experience and you act in ways that aren't ideal for you the shame spiral continues again you go back into there's something wrong with me and there's like a chicken and egg scenario with anxiety so again one of the best things you can do is say look it's not me I'm not choosing it this is just something that's happening but your response to episodes of anxiety can be very very important to not go into beating yourself up about it right no more than you would beat yourself up if you got a cold or something right I'm not saying anxiety is an illness or a disease but I'm saying it's not a choice nobody wakes up in the morning and says I can't wait to get into an anxious state today nobody chooses this it's very important that you allow yourself to acknowledge that for yourself I'm not choosing this who would choose that right now it's it's difficult to maybe understand the reasons because the reasons you underlying reasons for the anxiety are unconscious usually but that doesn't mean that we can't be compassionate and understanding to ourselves when we're living with it and forgiving of ourselves when we're dealing with anxiety so that's just the uh the main point I think is that about just acknowledging that you're allowed to have anxiety you're not choosing it it's just something that comes and goes in your life ultimately then what we can also start to do is start to look at some of the people pleasing some of the saying yes when you didn't really want to say yes the attempts we have due to low self-esteem to look good in the eyes of other people and sort of detaching from that need a little bit and questioning the underlying an um low self-esteem to begin with so you start saying Le yes less often right you start saying no when you mean no you start caring less about what other people think there's less to prove to other people and the anxiety tends to go away it tends to become much more manageable ultimately when the anxiety is really in its you know it's acute that deeper work isn't really that effective in in those moments I have found right so what we do when anxiety is very acute in our lives it's just I'm in the middle of an anxiety episode here or even a potential panic attack what we do then is we don't go into psychoanalysis we think we don't go into reflecting deeply on the motives or the the unconscious drivers behind it what we do with anxiety in the moment is we try to send ourselves safety signals safety signals anything we can do to make ourselves feel safe and that is quite often top down reminding ourselves consciously this is there's something going on there's a false signal going off here I'm actually safe because the nervous system has taken a lot of those psychological drivers and it has assumed that there's the same degree of danger than that than if there were there was like a saber two tiger chasing after us right so we we try to to consciously top down because anxiety is a bottom up thing you're not asking it it just shows up it's a top- down safety signal I'm actually okay and we we come into the room more we come into to the present moment more we start describing things in in our immediate surroundings more that's bringing us back into the present because anxiety is always in the future it's some perceived danger it's going to happen they're not going to like me I'm going to get fired all these different thoughts right I'm not going to have enough I won't be able to cope really it's I won't be able to cope or whatever is going to come causes anxiety so we send ourselves safety signals and you don't have to wait to have a panic attack or an acute episode of anxiety before you begin practicing that for yourself that's one of the the most important things I think we can do is get into the habit of sending safety signals to ourselves coming into the into reality into the present moment right now in our lives am I okay right now I'm just questioning that really questioning anything that's telling you you're not you're not okay right now where you are okay that's really really effective and it's as simple as that really now you can use EFT you can use tapping you can use breathing exercises they're all wonderful but ultimately it's all about sending a safety signal that the nervous system doesn't need to be on edge right now it can start to relax more so if you're interested in some of this the I talk about some of the ways to deal with anxiety in the moment but I also talk much more about the deeper reasons behind anxiety in my book and uh it's called understanding anxiety it's a free book it's on my website you can go and check it out and I've got great feedback on that book actually a lot of people said that after reading it they actually finally understood anxiety in a much de different way and that's actually one of the things I write in the very beginning of that book is that I want you to come away from reading this with a completely different understanding of what anxiety actually is and why it's there so if you want to check that out please do and um I'll leave it there for now but I hope that's useful and I will talk with you again soon take care bye-bye [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause]