I’m not anxious… you’re anxious!

Normalizing Anxiety in a Not-So-Normal Time

Want to be let in on a little secret about counsellors? … We get anxious too. 

Many counsellors spend hours with clients educating them about anxiety, offering helpful coping mechanisms, and extending compassion when managing anxiety feels entirely overwhelming. Anxiety is something we’ve studied and conceptualized, but I guarantee you it’s also something most of us have experienced. 

This global pandemic we’ve been living through for the past 2+ months has been a personal rude awakening. I have been not-so-subtly reminded that I do not do well with uncertainty. In fact, the lack of certainty I’ve experienced lately has contributed to experiences that are typically uncommon for me: waking up at 4am with “urgent” thoughts swirling in my mind, a seemingly uncalled-for heaviness in my chest, and at times believing the worst-case scenario is bound to unfold… despite all the “logical” evidence that would insist otherwise… Any of that sound familiar?

I’d like to take a moment to share some important points about anxiety and then offer some tips on how you might try managing anxiety on your own. Whether you’ve been blind-sided by anxiety as a result of our world’s recent circumstances, or you’ve been living with anxiety for a while now, you are not alone in the struggle to show up to your life in the ways you want to.

Remember when I said anxiety is something most counsellors have experienced?

Well that’s because anxiety and fear are common human emotions.

They are your body’s natural alarm system, telling you there is some kind of danger present. Your heart races, your shoulders tense up, your hands begin to sweat… all of the physical sensations associated with anxiety are your body’s way of preparing to fight, take flight, or freeze. You don’t even have to think about it: if you perceive a threat, this fight, flight, freeze response is activated, whether you want it to be or not. We humans have the unique ability to anticipate or trouble-shoot the future… For example, if you’re about to go on a first date, or you know you need to have a difficult conversation with someone, you’re likely to think about how those experiences might turn out. If you can imagine them going poorly, this will likely produce anxiety, even though a negative outcome hasn’t actually happened – you only imagined that it would. So, your body’s natural alarm system can be activated even if a real threat is not actually present. 

Typically, when we fear a negative outcome, we engage in some kind of avoidance behaviour. In fact, avoidance is almost always a response to anxiety.

You’re afraid the date will be uncomfortable, or the hard conversation will end badly, so you don’t go, or you refrain from saying how you’re really feeling. These decisions may interfere with your ability to build a meaningful life for yourself. Anxiety takes you out of the present moment and leaves you constantly worrying about what could happen. It can be important to override your anxiety and fear at times. Even when your body is telling you to avoid, avoid, avoid… sometimes the best thing for us is the thing we least want to do. Probably not what you want to hear when you’re actually feeling anxious… But consider if there are times in the past when you’ve pushed through the anxiety and done the thing you feared. What was the outcome? How did you manage? Sometimes overriding anxiety means moving toward something that is meaningful and aligns with your goals. The more we practice safely moving through our anxiety, the more we begin to build self-trust that there is something worthwhile waiting on the other side of our fear. (I am not however suggesting that we need to put ourselves in situations where real fear is present, especially if there is a risk to our physical or mental well-being. This is something that should be considered and discussed with a counsellor, if appropriate.) 

The next time you experience anxiety, take a moment to pause and ask yourself some of these questions:

·      Is my anxiety stemming from a real or imagined threat?

·      What might my anxiety be telling me about what matters to me?

·      What is the worst-case outcome & what is the most-likely outcome?

·      Am I attempting to interpret this situation without all the evidence?

·      Will this matter a year from now? Five years from now?

Mindfulness and deep breathing can also be effective strategies in the moment when you feel anxiety taking control of your body. Google “progressive muscle relaxation” or “diaphragmatic breathing” or try out a guided meditation using your breath to bring awareness to your body, and to the present moment.

And of course, if you already meet with a counsellor, this is something to explore further with them. If you’re considering counselling because anxiety has been unmanageable for a while now, know that the counselling relationship is meant to be a safe and supportive place to discuss your anxiety, and to identify ways to cope so that you can more fully participate in your life.

If you’d like to start exploring ways to manage your anxiety or make sense of it, feel free to contact me or any of our other counsellors at Vitality Collective by emailing info@vitalitycollective.ca.

Whitney Regan is a Registered Clinical Counsellor who sees counselling as an opportunity to help you process your experiences, find meaning and purpose in life and take responsibility for the ways you can move forward. She believes that her role as a counsellor is to help you gain direction in your life in order to navigate the unexpected difficulties that come your way. Learn more about her here.