The Antidote to Anxiety is the Feeling of Safety
Dear Self,
Anxiety is a feeling of over activation in your nervous system, which is unnecessary for the current circumstance. (don’t confuse this with fear, which IS NECESSARY for the current situation)
You can experience anxiety in your mind, emotions, and body.
3 Types of Anxiety:
1. Mental Anxiety
Over-active, racing mind (the content doesn’t even matter, it’s just constant thoughts)
Replaying of events and conversations (what you said that you shouldn’t have said or what you wish you would have said, etc)
Constantly running through future scenarios
Feeling tired and wired
Too much mental anxiety leads to feeling dizzy, almost like becoming “top heavy” because of the amount of activity in your head. You can’t think harder to feel safe, because the feeling of safety exists in the body, not the mind.
When you need to make an important decision, you want information from your mind, heart, and body. If you only think about it, you get more and more confused. You have to take a break from your head sometimes.
2. Emotional Anxiety
Feeling unsafe
Feeling sensitive
Feeling emotionally shut down/numb
Easily triggered
Confused about how you feel
Emotional anxiety is the pattern of disconnecting from your feelings. Maybe you learned in childhood that feelings are not okay or that if you express them, you would be rejected/shamed/judged. Or perhaps other people around you had explosive feelings and that was terrifying, so you learned to not feel. But the way our nervous system maintains this pattern of not feeling is by having emotional anxiety. Our emotions have enormous wisdom. Continuing this pattern of disconnecting from emotions also means disconnecting from love, joy, and connection- everything that makes life meaningful.
3. Physical Anxiety
Racing heart, shallow breathing and tight muscles
Feeling “hangry” and irritable when you go too long without food
Unstable mood that is hard to balance with your usual tools
Feeling anxious, with no obvious explanation
With physical anxiety, it feels like your mood is not your own; there is a disconnect between your mind and your body. Blood sugar is so important when it comes to physical anxiety:
blood sugar directly impacts our stress hormones which drive anxiety
blood sugar directly impacts our overall mood
Eating consistently throughout the day provides stable energy and has a great impact on anxiety.
While you may experience all 3 types of anxiety, it is important to see what the driving force is (i.e. which type of anxiety is happening first).
Start there.
You can soothe your anxiety.
xoxo,
Self