UNDERSTANDING ANXIETY
Anxiety plays a part in the life of everyone and being anxious and having the capacity to talk about it, is what makes us human. But what is anxiety, as it feels different from other emotions such as anger or sadness? It is certainly not the same as fear, to which the immediate answer is very clear – either flight or fight. Nor is it just stress, which can be there in anxiety, but is more easily understood as an emotional expression of those times when you have too much to do. Step back from all the doing, and the stress will go.
But with anxiety you can’t just step away from it, and one way of understanding anxiety and what it is about, is to think of it in existential terms, such as being a call to action. If you have a job interview you will understandably feel anxious. Likewise, if you have something difficult you need to address, like talking to someone about the way they behave and which you know they will not like, and yet you feel you need to do, you will feel anxious. But if you do this and channel the anxiety, it will, so to speak, be taken up. But if you don't channel it, it won't just go away and then you will probably start doing things to lessen or get rid of the anxiety, like watching videos or simply procrastinating - in short something that dulls the mind and takes you away from what needs to be addressed.
The same applies when you think about your life and what troubles you and why you’re thinking of coming into counselling. There will probably be an anxious ambivalence about addressing the issues you are facing, and in that sense, anxiety is a call to action. Getting in touch with difficult feelings, figuring out what’s troubling you and the part it’s played in making you who you are, and taking steps to make changes in your life, is not easy. But that is an integral part of therapy, just as anxiety is an integral part of our lives.
To feel anxious is to be human. It is telling us something about ourselves, who we are and what we need to be addressing.
©2022 Kevin Rose
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