Accepting your Anxiety as Part of your Identity

Where is your Anxiety coming from?

Throughout my professional career, I have observed clients fighting to separate themselves from their anxiety. For some, feeling anxious is a prelude to something detrimental, thus they sit and wait on the gloom they have forecast. For others, that intense emotion is used to define their worth or competence comparatively. While others, living with a diagnosed anxiety disorder wake each day with the dread of the crippling symptoms emerging and in so doing actively search for them. The anxiety narratives shared by clients are all built on their faulty perceptions that ‘anxiety is an anomaly’, and the resounding question asked is "How do I get rid of my anxiety?" 

Accepting your Anxiety

Anxiety is an inevitable aspect of our human existence. Daily interactions hold a certain level of stress, and anxiety is the most normal reaction to stress. In fact, we could not survive without some level of anxiety. May and Yalom (2000) made a statement I have loved since discovering it. They stated that life cannot be lived, nor death be faced, without anxiety, and no truer words have ever been spoken. Thus, it should never be a therapeutic goal to completely rid ourselves of anxiety. As such in response to my clients’ question above, I often posed my own question “What is your anxiety telling you?”

What does your Anxiety Mean?

Feeling anxious can mean many things. It could be indicating a heightened foresight; it could be our motivation to do something different; or it may even demonstrate our awareness of the uncertainties of the future. In fact, for many of my clients that are embarking on change, anxiety means growth, and it demonstrates their courage. As such some anxiety is an integral part of our identity and we must strive to embrace it in our unique way. We must learn to sit in that room with our anxiety, in that uncomfortable space, and understand its evolving role in our lives. 

Triggers of Anxiety

Accepting your anxiety is not easy, but it is possible. Let us first examine the triggers for our anxiety. What are the people, places, things, and situations that heighten our arousal? Sometimes triggers are clear such as an upcoming exam or a health crisis, other times they are hidden behind the walls of trauma or more serious mental and behavioral health issues. Identifying and understanding your triggers is important to accepting your anxiety. It gives meaning to the fear and makes sense of your reality. Ask yourself – What mask is my Anxiety wearing now?

Your Unique Anxiety

It is also important to identify your unique anxiety symptoms, after all, it is part of your identity. I often hear clients say - I have anxiety, and when asked what that looks and feel like, they are stuck. Anxiety has over time become a catchphrase to describe unrelated experiences. Someone diagnosed with an anxiety disorder is going to experience anxiety in a more profound emotional and physiological manner than someone anxious on the anniversary of their loved one’s death. Ask yourself what are the feeders for my anxiety, could it be a loss? How do I feel? Where in my body do I feel it? This requires that we sit in an uncomfortable space and embrace what our anxiety is telling us. 

Become Aware of Self

Finally accepting your anxiety requires an awareness of self. Recognize where we are in our developmental track, and confront our realities regardless of how unsavory they may seem. When was the last time we sat with ourselves and examine our past, present, and future, and in so doing, willingly accept all facets of our lives? This very act is an anxiety-provoking one, but very necessary to become aware of how we have been shaped by our experiences. Self-awareness is a meditative journey, it is a courageous journey, and finally, it is a life-altering journey that enables growth. As you continue this journey embrace your anxiety as it emerges. 

Reference 

May, R. & Yalom, I. (2000). Existential psychotherapy. In R. J. Corsini & D. Wedding (Eds.), Current psychotherapies (6thed., pp. 273 – 3-2). Itasca, IL: F. E. Peacock.