I am reading "Atlas of the Heart" by Brené Brown.
She writes
"Our anxiety often leads to one of two coping mechanisms: worry or avoidance. Unfortunately, neither of these two coping strategies is very effective.
Worry and anxiety go together, but worry is not an emotion; it's the thinking part of anxiety. Worry is described as a chain of negative thoughts about bad things that might happen in the future.
What really got me about the worry research is that those of us with the tendency to worry believe it is helpful for coping (it is not), believe it is uncontrollable (which means we don't try to stop worrying), and try to suppress worry thoughts (which actually strengthens and reinforces worry). I'm not suggesting that we worry about worry, but it is helpful to recognize that worrying is not a helpful coping mechanism, that we absolutely can learn how to control it, rather than suppressing worry, we need to dig into and address the emotion driving the thinking.
Avoidance, the second copings strategy for anxiety, is not showing up and often spending a lot of energy zigzagging around and away from that thing that already feels like it's consuming us. And avoidance isn't benign. It can hurt us, hurt other people and lead to increased and mounting anxiety. In her book The Dance of Fear, Dr. Harriet Lerner writes, "It is not fear that stops you from doing the brave and true thing in your daily life. Rather, the problem is avoidance. You want to feel comfortable, so you avoid doing or saying the thing that will evoke fear and other difficult emotions. Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but will never make you less afraid."
Okay, here is what I didn't know - yet knew - worry and avoidance are not effective. I didn't know that worry was the thinking part of anxiety. But it makes total sense. Our minds go on a wild negative journey and keep us from feeling our emotions. I didn't know that either. I was kept from my own emotions by worry.
And we use avoidance - in order to stay comfortable. I so get this. This avoidance kept me from living my life as me. From feeling my emotions, from really being in my body.
I think, I thought anxiety was nervousness or unsureness - but instead it is the mechanism used to keep us from facing our truths.
And this - "Avoidance will make you feel less vulnerable in the short run, but will never make you less afraid." How counterintuitive is this - we supposedly avoid to feel less afraid - yet it doesn't work.
I do know for certain my whole state of being was drastically altered when I began walking forward into very tough and scary truths and faced my life, my family head on. It was like blowing through all the worry gates and anxiety barriers.
What I didn't know at the time was that I was walking towards feeling less afraid.
Brené goes on.
"The entire premise of this book is that language has the power to define our experiences, and there's no better example of this than anxiety and excitement.
Anxiety and excitement feel the same, but how we interpret and label them and determine how we experience them.
Even though excitement is described as an energized state of enthusiasm leading up to or during an enjoyable activity, it doesn't always feel great. We can get the same "coming out of our skin" feeling that we experience when we're feeling anxious. Similar sensations are labeled "anxiety" when we perceive them negatively and "excitement" when we perceive them positively. One important strategy when we're in these feelings is total a deep breath and try to determine whether we're feeling anxiety or excitement. Researchers found that labeling the emotion as excitement seems to hinge on interpreting the bodily sensations as positive. The labels are important because they help us know what to do next."
I do recall hearing this before that anxiety and excitement feel the same.
We do have to beware how we label what we are feeling.
And for those of us coming from traumatic backgrounds, especially careful.
Often our paths into new experiences feel like anxiety - but what if instead we are excited to be learning and growing. Feeling of excitement often leads us into cool experiences. Feelings of anxiety not so much.
I also believe, that if we have had tough conversations and faced difficult truths in our worlds, we can better discern what is anxiety and what is excitement. For the only way anxiety needs to be in our worlds is because we have places and topics and discussions we don't want to face.
Once you faced your life with brutal honesty, there is really no need for anxiety; for anxiety is there to only keep you comfortable.
But it is a false sense of comfort. For there is a truth, or difficult conversation, or knowing, that lies right behind it.
You are using anxiety to not face a truth.
And there is a real reason in your world to be in fear.
Something, someone isn't who you believe them to be.
This was true for me.
My whole world was upside down and backwards and I was living with anxiety to keep it all at bay.
Once I faced it all - the anxiety left me.
For it was only there to keep me comfortable in a very uncomfortable world.
