Facing our fears – Anxiety

May 28th

We all are challenged at times with the fear of something that we need or want to do and feel afraid. It might be disagreeing with someone or asking for something. It might be uncertainty about things will turn out. Often this latter fear is connected to “What if” thinking and the dread of it not going well – what we can call “catastrophic thinking” or a pessimistic outlook. Maybe we really struggle with this and have got used to assuming that it will probably not go well. This is not because we are wilfully opposed to being positive. It might be that we have had many difficult and negative experiences in life that have not provided us with enough evidence to believe that we can cope.

Anxiety – Anxiety has been found to be one of the most common causes of distress in people of all ages. Anxiety is a completely normal emotion, and it shows itself in many ways. Psychologists explain that extreme anxiety is maintained by a vicious circle of thoughts, behaviours and feelings. Anxiety is both cognitive, emotional and physical.

 Cognitive:

Learning how to worry ‘well’ is very helpful in our journey of learning how to overcome our anxiety to face and overcome our fears.  Sounds odd I know, but it is a skill that we can learn, which means we can become much better at dealing with a worry and letting it go, once we have done whatever action we can to mitigate possible negative outcomes, and now must sit tight, let it go and wait and see, being positive. Remember to think “Pot half full not pot half empty”! We can’t predict the future so we may as well choose a positive outcome as a negative, as we don’t actually know what will happen. However, having been proactive in increasing the likelihood of it turning out well, such as studying for an exam as best we can in the time we have had, we can tell ourselves we have done our best and it will probably turn out fine.  Learning strategies to distract from dwelling on worries have been found to be an effective way of helping us become less fearful of the worries, such as reminding ourselves that our worries are just thoughts not facts. Distraction also helps the worries to fade. Simple techniques to distract such as listening to a podcast, chatting to a friend, using an app to help us like ‘Clear Fear’ (Stem4) or any other activity that engages our brain helps us redirect our brain focus from the worry to another brain area. Did you know you can’t actually think of 2 things at the same time – surprising right!!! I didn’t until recently! So, if you can get in the habit of thinking of something else when you notice you are sitting there worrying, you are actually doing yourself a massive favour! Who knew!!!

Physical

Increasing our knowledge, through Psychoeducational Education, helps us alleviate and also manage our anxiety more effectively.  Anxiety is the body’s way of responding to being in danger. Adrenaline is rushed into our bloodstream to enable us to run away, freeze, or fight. This happens whether the danger is real, or whether we believe the danger is there when actually there is none. It is the body’s alarm and survival mechanism. Primitive man wouldn’t have survived for long without this life-saving response. It works so well, that it often kicks in when it’s not needed – when the danger is in our heads rather than happening now. We think we’re in danger, so that’s enough to trigger the system to go, go, go! When the brain perceives a threat, it releases adrenaline and as a result, we experience uncomfortable feelings because our body systems speed up, diverting blood towards the big muscles, preparing us to attack (anger) or escape (anxiety). Look online on the website” getselfhelp.co.uk” for some helpful visual explanations of this (Vivyan 2015)

Learning how to first notice when we become anxious and develop the ability to steady our breathing to a calm and regular heart rhythm is the first step. By focusing on deep, controlled breathing, you can help your body and mind return to a state of relaxation and reduce the intensity of anxiety symptoms. Paying attention to the tension in our body then, and purposefully relaxing it slowly, from toes to head, continues the calming processing, allows you to think more easily and rationally. “Smiling Mind” and other helpful apps can be used to practice this, through mindful techniques. Distracting yourself from returning to the thought that triggered you, reassuring yourself and thinking of something else, helps the calming process to complete and returns you to a more able state of readiness to face your fear, to think rationally.

Emotional

Anxiety can lead us to avoid situations that cause us to feel anxious, but this usually makes the problem worse over time, if the fears are unfounded. We initially feel relieved but become less able to develop confidence in our ability to cope, through lack of experience of discovering that with practice, the anxiety will reduce and eventually fade, as we face our fears and confront our worries.

Sometimes our anxiety is caused by being at the ‘mercy’ of someone else in a situation we have no control over, where perhaps our anxiety is caused by our fear of their behaviour towards us, or our fear of our reaction to them. We need to ‘worry well’, with a supportive other if possible, and figure out what we can do or say that may bring about a change, and what we need to let go. Then we are better prepared to face our fear. Furthermore, by reminding ourselves that their unkindness, unreasonableness, or whatever else it is that is upsetting us, is their responsibility and problem, not ours, helps us gain the higher ground and gives us confidence to be our best selves. Think of unpleasantness like a ‘hot potato’ being thrown at us, we can catch it and let it burn our hands and make us miserable or let fall in front of us and not allow it to affect the way we feel. It also helps to use “Let them” (Robbins 2024) thinking, remembering that no one ‘makes’ us feel bad, we do that to ourselves. Just as we have a right to allow ourselves to feel, think, and behave in ways that we need to, so do others. Whilst we might not like their attitude, or beliefs, or responses to us, they have a right to do as they choose also. This seems unfair I know. In an ideal world we would all treat each other nicely, but reality is different. We can’t necessarily change other people’s behaviour towards us, but we can always change our response.  Remember “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space lies our freedom and power to choose our response. In those choices lies our growth and our happiness.” (Covey 2004). The hope is that by increasing our confidence and thus our assertiveness, we can help others see more effectively how their behaviour affects us, and maybe change them, or at least not let it bother us any longer. As Gerhardt (2014) says “To feel freely and manage our feelings in response to others is the ideal state”.

Sometimes our anxiety stems from a fear of loss of love, or approval, of a significant other, if we disagree, or are criticised, or seen as ‘less than’. Gerhardt (2014) explains how this can be because of parenting that made love conditional upon approval. When children behave in ways that parents disapprove of, unfortunately some parents mistakenly believe the correct response is to withdraw love. Children should always be loved unconditionally but guided by showing them clearly that it is the behaviour that is disapproved of, not them. When the opposite has occurred, we can grow up fearing loss of love through our actions or our mistakes, setting up a fear of being our true selves, and an overemphasis on people pleasing, with the accompanying anxiety at disagreeing with others. This needs us to show ourselves self compassion. Showing self-compassion helps us feel less afraid of others’ opinions about us, and also less hard on ourselves if things do turn out badly. We are all trying out best in life and we all have bad days, lose our temper, and make mistakes. We need to and nurture that inner child within us all, to believe in our right to be loved eve when we have a different view at times , and the confidence to give voice to this and cope with the consequences. I think this quote fits well here which is “If we are not accountable to ourselves, we shall wander the world seeking someone to explain ourselves to, someone to absolve us and tell us we have done well.” (Nietzshe. Date unknown). Or in other words  – last quote I promise, “You can please some of the people some of the time, all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can never please all of the people all of the time” (Abraham Lincoln)

https://www.smilingmind.com.au/

Vivyan, C. “Anxiety” (2015) www.getselfhelp.co.uk/anxiety.htm accessed 12/04/25

“The Let Them Theory: A Life-Changing Tool That Millions of People Can’t Stop Talking about” 24 Dec. 2024 by Mel Robbins (Author)

Gerhardt, S. (2014). “Why love matters”. Routledge.

Covey, S. (2004) “7 Habits Of Highly Effective People” Simon & Schuster