If I had dollar jar for every time a client expressed that they just want to get rid of their anxiety, I would likely be set for a nice steak dinner at the Keg. If I had a dollar jar for every time I tried to will my own anxiety away, I would absolutely be able to take a round trip to Paris, hotel included. And to be fair, anxiety can be really challenging. It does not feel great. I have had young clients illustrate this on a body outline in incredibly creative ways: butterflies flitting around the stomach, a boa constrictor wrapping around the lungs, an elephant sitting on the chest. I will always remember the moment a client sculpted an anxious face out of clay and then tried to push against it to show her intense dislike. We realized that the harder she pushed it, the more the clay expanded and the bigger the face became. This certainly illustrates my own experience. Trying to push anxiety away with sheer will power almost never works; ironically, it can make it even bigger in the end.
What is your relationship with anxiety? Personally, I spent many years treating it as an arch enemy, either to be ignored at all costs, or to be conquered by force. My perspective has slowly changed over time, and although I could not honestly call it a friend, I have come to consider it as a helpful messenger. All emotions, including difficult ones like anxiety, carry wisdom and can give deep insight if we learn to take the time to really attend to them. In my experience, anxiety commonly acts as a courier for several key messages, and asking the right questions can help decode them:
1) Is there a genuine threat or cause for concern? Is there something in my power to do or change in this moment?
The way anxiety impacts the body can actually be incredibly helpful and even life-saving. If I am driving through a blizzard with my two young girls in their car seats, my elevated heart rate and increased adrenaline influence me to slow down, keep a safe distance, and constantly keep my eyes on the road. As a student, if I had a major assignment worth 40% of my grade due the next day, my anxiety might be a healthy indicator that I need to spend the evening on school rather than watching Friends re-runs.
2) Am I trying to control something that is uncontrollable?
Very often, when I have explored the first question and still experience persisting anxiety and spiralling thoughts, at the root I am trying desperately to control something that is not in my control. This could take many forms: the weight of people’s opinions, the decisions of others, the future of my kids. One of the most universal human struggles is the contradiction of carrying things as beautiful and fragile as one’s children into a world that can feel harsh and wildly unpredictable. This is the point of surrender, or “letting it go.” I could easily spend another whole blog entry on this point, but for me it is best summarized in Philippians 4:6:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.”
This might look like many tearful prayers with open hands, giving back to God all the things that were never mine to hold on to.
3) Have I pushed myself past my human limits?
The human body is just incredible in it’s ability to stretch, adapt, and heal. For many centuries, mothers have found ways to function and care for young children on a few meagre hours of sleep and refugees have found ways to keep their joy and stamina under the most difficult physical conditions. However, at the end of the day every one of us is only human, and our bodies all reach a point where they say “nope, no further.” High anxiety and panic attacks can actually be our body’s way of saying “I desperately need rest.” Our society is not set up to foster or re-enforce regular rest, so this can really require intentionality.
4) How much time am I spending in the virtual world as compared to the real world?
I wouldn’t even have considered this question several years ago. When I was ten years old, I lived with my family on a kind of hobby farm. We had an archaic computer with dialup that weighed about forty pounds. I shared this computer with my parents and five siblings at the time. Considering that the dialup could take at least two minutes to connect and tied up the landline, at best I would get five minutes a day to check my hotmail and MSN account, and if I was lucky I would get to play a game of snakes and apples. My interactions and friendships were thus all built around real life interactions, over thousands of times playing board games, biking, and accessorizing dolls. If I messed up in some way by saying the wrong thing, having a terrible hair day, or forgetting a birthday, I might feel a little distressed but I had a deep confidence that our friendship could handle it, that we could figure it out and move on. In other words, my real-life relationships had a fairly high tolerance for error.
It is still sometimes hard for me to imagine a world where a ten-year-old now can build most of her interactions and relationships online. Social media is a place where making connections with others can feel easy and accessible. However, if this girl has a bad hair day, she might face bullying and mockery. If she says the wrong thing, she might be cancelled and automatically lose connections she considered friendships. In other words, the virtual world has a low tolerance for error. The smallest mistake can have big consequences. I imagine that if I had faced this amount of constant risk and uncertainty at age ten, I would have felt significant anxiety. It is not my goal to criticize the use of all social media, but rather to invite some reflection on the ways it could be impacting anxiety.
I would like to end with a little analogy that often connects well with young clients. Imagine a six year old boy who feels intense anxiety before going to school every morning. He struggles to eat his breakfast and more often than not has a meltdown on the way to the bus. We make a plan together, not to leave his anxiety in the house or squish it into oblivion, but rather to pack it into a side compartment of his blue backpack. This way he begins to consider that anxiety is just one compartment, not the whole bag. He might also slowly begin to believe that he can take it along with him and still be ok. After time, he might even be able to state with a confident smile: “I’m going to pack my anxiety in my little blue backpack and take it along to school with me today.”