513: Resenting Anxiety
In this week’s podcast, we’re talking about how when we resent our anxiety we give it more power over us and what we can do to replace the resentment we feel with compassion.
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Points covered in this episode
When we resent our anxiety we give it more power over us.
Stressful resistance increases anxiety
More adrenaline means more stress and stirred up emotions
Resenting or hating anxiety steals the present moment
The present moment is the only place from which you can heal and make good choices
Anxiety is hard, it feels awful and frightening, but we can work with it and start finding ways to feel more calm.
Hating anxiety makes us feel depleted
It's exhausting fighting an invisible enemy all the time
Psychologist Carl Jung taught that “what you resist not only persists, but will grow in size.”
Resistance increases pain - the two arrows teaching: when we resent anxiety we are suffering over our suffering
Resenting or hating anxiety steals the present moment
The present moment is the only place from which you can heal and make good choices
Anxiety is hard, it feels awful and frightening, but we can work with it and start finding ways to feel more calm.
Don’t fan the flames!
Stress and anxiety are adrenalin fuelled states. If we try and fight them, we are provoking the release of more adrenalin and wasting our energy in the struggle.
The most effective way to deal with anxiety is to understand it. Listen, and find the message behind your anxiety and then make gentle adjustments.
We understand that anxiety is big and horrible and life ruining, and you just want it to stop. But getting angry, or frustrated is like pouring petrol on a fire.
Soft and steady is the way to go. Notice, learn, and make supportive changes.
And be sure to get support from someone who’s been there and can show you the way out.
“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Acceptance brings peace and space to make supportive choices
Acceptance and tolerance sound unreasonable at first, even unrealistic but they give us the chance to make peace with our challenges.
When we can learn to pause in that space between anxiety and our reaction to it, we can start asking what do I need?
Our stress reaction then softens into a response and this can be a turning point in changing our experience with anxiety.
When we turn to ourselves with compassion and accept that anxiety is uncomfortable but that we have a good degree of control over how we handle it.
If we resent, or hate anxiety, it grows.
If we respond with self-compassions and care, it shrinks.
Your commitment to practising self-help anxiety techniques will help you experience two important benefits:
the first is that you will experience anxiety less intensely, because you are actively working with calming your nervous system.
the second is that if anxiety starts to flare up you can deal with it quickly before it escalates init an attack, because you already know what to do.
No matter what you are facing you deserve to show yourself as much compassion and sweetness as possible. This coupled with the strategies we discussed today will help you feel more calm and relaxed.
To celebrate our 11th anniversary producing the anxiety slayer podcast, we are offering all of our courses in the Anxiety Slayer Academy for 1/2 price use the coupon code: halfpricesale through the month of October.