Anxiety can be an overwhelming experience, trapping us in immobilizing feelings, thoughts and bodily reactions. The first step in dealing with anxiety is identifying it, and separating it from your sense of self.
Picture this: you’ve been working on a presentation for weeks, fine-tuning every detail till it feels just right. You know your material inside and out, and you're certain your presentation is really impressive but as the time for you to you take the podium draws near you feel a mounting sense of dread. Your palms start to sweat, doubts creep into your mind, your heart races, and your body begins to tremble. The opportunity to share your vision feels like it's slipping away, melting into a pool of overwhelming emotions and a body that doesn’t feel under your control!
The experience of feeling anxious is profoundly disabling and incapacitating. For those of us who struggle with feeling anxious, it disrupts, restricts, and sabotages our capacity to express who we are and impact the world.
The first step in managing your anxiety in the moment is to develop awareness around it. Note the language I am using: Anxiety is a separate entity, and it is helpful to recognize it as such. You are not anxiety, and labeling yourself as “just an anxious person” places you in a space of passivity and surrender. Recognizing that YOU are experiencing anxiety or feeling anxious allows you to start to manage it in a more empowered and constructive way. Once you have an awareness of anxiety as a separate “beast,” the next step in your day-to-day management is to start identifying what this beast looks like.
Anxiety is generated and maintained by the cyclical influence that anxious thoughts, feelings and behaviors have on one other. If left unchecked these interlinked anxious thoughts, feelings and behaviors feed into each other and fuel the experience of anxiety. By asking yourself the following questions you can start to get a handle on your anxiety: when do I experience anxiety, what do I feel, what do I think, how does my body react and how do I attempt to cope with feeling anxious?
It’s also really helpful to start rating your level of anxiety from 1 to 10 throughout the day or in different situations, with 10 being the highest level of anxiety. In other words, just start to notice and define the experience of feeling anxious. At this stage, you are not trying to change or control it. Acceptance is a crucial part of this awareness. You are not trying to change it or control it. In fact a really important part of this awareness is accepting it. By denying your anxiety, you start to feel anxious about feeling anxious which makes it even more overwhelming. Ideally, write down your observations, but even just noticing and defining the experience will help you gain control. Continue this process of self-monitoring as you begin to implement strategies to manage anxious feelings.
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