Anxiety can be gripping, debilitating experience. It can be triggered by internal body sensations, external events or anticipation of a situation going off track. Those who suffer from anxiety sometimes feel worried throughout the day. The fear can be experienced as deep background noise or a straight out panic attack. Panic attack symptoms are breathing rapidly and intensely, sweating, heart racing, feeling dizzy or tingling in hands.
There are different schools of thought about what causes anxiety. One is that worrying is passed down through genetics. Another is that anxiety is environmental; that we learn to be fearful because our parents were often afraid. The third cause of anxiety is having one or more traumatic episodes. Trauma can include: death of a loved one, being a victim of abuse or neglect as a child or adult, loss of a job, loss of a relationship and other stressful situations.
Living in America today is one of those stressful situations. These days making enough money to pay rent or a mortgage is a struggle for many of us. Poor folks are denied opportunity to become successful. The middle class is disappearing and those who have the luxury of having financial riches are constantly worried about losing their wealth.
It is not uncommon to become so worn down by anxiety that the hopelessness of depression takes over your emotional world. As you sink into this lonely, desperate place; you feel hopeless and sometimes wonder if your life is worth living. The cycle of overwhelming anxiety propelling to the exhausted state of depression is soul crushing.
How do we stand up to the interference from anxiety?
1. Try to always be self-aware. When you notice the anxiety feeling in your body-remember to breathe and breathe deeply several times until you sense the anxious feeling is decreasing.
2. Whenever you notice that you are being highly self-critical/beating yourself up, stop immediately. Beating yourself up will not lead you to understanding anxiety. It also suggests that someone was emotionally and/or physically abusive to you. These are issues surrounding child abuse that create anxiety.
3. Don’t try to figure out what is causing the anxiety while experiencing deep worry. It is not possible to figure out anything while you are in this state. While in this troubled state, we believe we are working on resolving our anxiety while we are desperately trying to make sense of it. However, we are not really working on it, we are immersed in fearful thoughts which we can’t make sense of.
4. Instead of trying to figure it out, go for a nature walk, read something that will distract you from anxiety, call a friend, exercise or go to a movie. It is ok to distract yourself in these moments. This is not a case of avoidance.
5. Once you are in a calm state, attempt to understand what made you anxious earlier.
6. Ask yourself if there was anything that triggered your anxiety attack. Did the event bring up a traumatic event from your childhood? Did time pressure make you anxious? Did someone say something to you that caused you to feel humiliated or shamed?
7. Learn about How to Heal your Internal Family https://www.boblivingstone.com/1409-2/
8. Consider individual or group therapy to understand and work through your anxiety.
Click here for information about Redemption of the Shattered: A Teenager’s Healing Journey through Sandtray Therapy.
If you would like to obtain more information about Sandtray Therapy, please email me at bobsandtraytherapy@gmail.com Thanks!