Anxiety is Your Friend

Yes, it is, seriously. Very often, we’re feeling anxious, but that anxiety is displaced. It doesn’t come with the action we’re attaching to it, rather something from your past is triggering current anxiety. For instance:

You think you can’t sleep at night because you’re anxious about getting fired, a real threat to your well being. You’re not anxious about getting fired. You’re anxious about how angry your partner, who depends on at least part of your income, will be if you get fired and there have been several layoffs in your department already. What you would need to do is find the courage to talk to your partner about your fear and ask your partner to help you come up with a plan in case you get fired. Then you’re not alone and you have a plan. It wasn’t losing the job, although that wouldn’t be pleasant, the main anxiety was about angering or disappointing your partner.

I say anxiety is your friend because very often we feel anxious about things we need to take a look at and we’re not because whatever it is got buried in our subconscious mind because we couldn’t or didn’t want to deal with it. An instance of that would be feeling generally anxious, seemingly for no reason. If you allow your anxiety to talk to you, there might be something you need to do that you’ve been avoiding, such as telling your partner something you’re afraid to say to them and it happened a long time ago, or you’re working at a job you hate because it pays well and you think you should be grateful for having it, that sort of thing. There are all kinds of things we humans don’t want to think about. The problem is our emotions think it is a big deal and won’t give up until we face what we don’t want to face. Once it’s out in the open (with yourself at least), your anxiety will melt away once you’ve engaged a headhunter and maybe talked to someone about the problem.

Using described techniques for diffusing anxiety is very helpful. Making sure you’ve had a physical checkup within the past year or even sooner eliminates that your thyroid has decided to go up or down and not behave, or any other physical problem that can cause anxiety. Don’t see a therapist if you need to see your doctor. Or see your therapist and see a doctor.

And some anxiety is genetic or learned so early from primary caretakers that it might as well be genetic. If you have that kind of anxiety and not situational anxiety, it’s important to see your doctor or a psychiatrist for a medication evaluation because that kind of long term, chronic anxiety, does much better when it is treated both medically and psychologically.

Still, the techniques in the link below will help no matter what type of anxiety you suffer from, and just don’t know where to turn because you feel silly or stupid or weak or whatever else you want to call yourself rather than getting help. Please, get help.

The following link will take you to a helpful article: