Having anxiety can feel like a curse, can’t it? Especially when it feels like everyone else around you is out having a good time, and you’re at home, hiding under your duvet. In this weeks blog post I want to explore whether there can be a plus side to having anxiety, and if there is, how you can benefit from it.
Anxiety sucks – you make the best plans ever, and then anxiety steps in and stops you. Some days, you feel like you have anxiety under control the next day it clearly has control of YOU.
But does anxiety always have to be a bad thing? I mean, some anxiety is NORMAL. We need some level of anxiety and fear to stop us from doing something crazy. What if we could take our anxiety and turn it into something powerful?
Here’s how you can do that.
Shine a spotlight on your anxiety.
The first thing that I recommend is that you stop seeing your anxiety as something to be ashamed of. Shine a spot light on your anxiety, drag it kicking and screaming out of that shame filled cupboard, and be bold about it. You have anxiety! So what? So do most of us! Quit playing the victim and take an active stance and make a choice to flip the tables on your anxiety. This puts you in a position of power and means that you have chose to reframe how you see things.
Reframe how you see your anxiety – anxiety is your biggest ally
Okay so now you want to reframe how you see your anxiety. Rather than. it being the enemy, see it as your biggest ally. This means, that you acknowledge that anxiety is simply trying to serve you. Anxiety is a feeling that you experience, that happens as a response to your subconscious mind jumping in to protect you. Nooo, don’t go to that party, remember the time when you were 12 and….
Your subconscious mind knows all of those times where life hurt you, and it simply wants to keep you safe and protect you. SO – reframe how you now see your anxiety. When you begin to feel it, say oh hello its’ you …. my old friend anxiety. Then have a little chat with your anxiety and ask it how it is trying to protect you.
Take rapid action on your anxiety and use it as a power to propel you
Okay so once you have identified the presence of anxiety, it’s time to ask your anxiety how and why it is trying to protect you. Write down the things that come up for you – and then choose to tackle the things that you see as obstacles, or that you fear and figure out how to counteract them. Often, we fear anxiety itself, we worry about anxiety happening in a social situation, or in public for example. And that creates another layer of anxiety! So, having thought things through before hand, and coming up with an action plan, means that we take away the power from the anxiety. When your mind say yes but this may happen, you choose to look anxiety in the eye and say ‘and… so what?’.
What’s the worst that can happen? You choose to turn around and go home again, YOU have all of the tools necessary to work out what is creating YOUR anxiety, and find the strength and resilience to fight that.
Have a notepad that you carry around with you and next time that you are out and are taken over by anxiety, write down the feelings that come up for you, and the thing that you fear, and then make a rapid plan of action of what you could do if that thing happened to you. Notice how this instantly calms you, you are forewarned and forearmed – there is nothing now that can stop you!
I hope that this blog post inspires you, and don’t forget you can start a bigger journey to overcoming your anxiety with the ANXIETY BREAKTHROUGH KIT that you can find here. Add TAKE50 at the checkout and get 50% off your order! There has never been a better time to deal with your anxiety.
Christopher Paul Jones
Harley Street.
