412: Looking beyond the discomfort of anxiety

In this week’s episode, we’re talking about looking beyond the discomfort of anxiety and listening in to its message.

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Notes from this episode:

Due to our discomfort with anxiety, we usually try and push it away and distract ourselves. We don’t want to feel it and we don’t want to hear it. But anxiety is often a messenger and when we stop and listen, we can start taking steps in self-care that respond directly to our personal fears and begin to calm anxiety at its root.

There are two key ways our experience of anxiety improves when we hear it:

Firstly, it becomes less of a monster and more of an advisor, so we fear it less and have the opportunity to act on its message.

Secondly, We develop an awareness of our ongoing anxiety narrative. Our internal dialogue about anxiety can feed into it and make it worse.

When we resist anxiety and talk about hating it and wishing it would go away, understandable as those thoughts are, they are pouring petrol on the fire.

Listening in to our anxiety dialogue anxiety helps us focus on its message rather than our resistance and that changes our experience from victim to pilot. From there we can start making active choices in self-care and anxiety calming practices.

Anxiety is often a story - a future based fear story built around our “what if” thoughts.

How to question anxiety

When we hear our anxiety, we can take better care of ourselves.

• we develop better understanding
• and build self-compassion

Supportive for practising active self-care:

EFT Tapping (for honouring your feelings and working with the personal details of your anxiety)

Use essential oils (for calm and restoring trust)

use Bach Flower Remedies (for emotional support and calming anxiety)

Leaning in is expansive, aversion constricts us and drains our energy.