Anxiety
A look at how anxiety shows up in the coaching space with my clients and how we have approached it in the hope that this might be of benefit to you too.
I know that many people are suffering with anxious thoughts and anxiety right now. It’s on the rise.
I see it a lot in my coaching practice and I want to explore it here. If you’re reading this, I guess you are interested and I hope you find it interesting.
What is it?
Anxiety means different things to different people. I hear the word used a lot and, if appropriate, I try to understand what it looks and feels like for that person. I don’t want to make assumptions based on my own interpretation.
As a general way to approach this subject, some characteristics of anxiety are:
it is often described as a feeling of fear, dread, concern, worry, doubt, nervousness and uneasiness
it can be mild or severe
it might cause you to sweat, feel restless and tense, and have a rapid heartbeat
it might cause your active, creative mind to imagine unending catastrophes
it might make you feel constantly overwhelmed - by the news, by your noisy neighbour, by the chaos at birthday parties, by your children shrieking
it might cause you to have migraines, allergies or insomnia
if you have PTSD, or cPTSD say from childhood trauma (like me), it might show up as grief, anger, depression or despair for what feels like no clear reason
it can be a totally normal reaction to stress. For example, you might feel anxious when faced with a difficult problem at work, before taking a test, or before making an important decision
it can turn into something quite debilitating
it shows up for everyone at some point in their life
If you experience anxiety, it may look and feel different to how I have described it above. It is still anxiety if that is how you experience it. There is no right or wrong way to describe and experience anxiety so don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.
Research by the Mental Health Foundation in the UK reveals anxiety is gripping the UK, as many people suffer in silence and struggle to cope.
60% of adults surveyed had experienced anxiety that interfered with their daily lives in the past two weeks.
30% of those adults said they weren’t coping well with their anxiety.
20% felt anxious most or all of the time.
Despite anxiety being so common, stigma and shame play a part in how people deal with anxiety, with almost half (45%) of UK adults with feelings of anxiety keeping it a secret. This suggests that, although there has been progress in discussing mental health more openly in recent years, significant numbers of people are still not comfortable talking about their own experiences.
I should imagine findings would be similar in many other parts of the world.
Why is it so prevalent?
The Coronavirus pandemic, the ever increasing cost of living and concerns about the global, international and domestic economies are enough on their own. Add to that the increasingly fast-paced lives we are encouraged to live, always been “on” and contactable 24/7, messages coming at us from all directions about what our lives “should” look and be like, and the picture of how and why anxiety is on the increase becomes clearer to see. And with many people not talking about how they’re feeling, its grip intensifies.
Prolonged feelings of anxiety can lead to mental ill-health, depression and suicide. It needs to be taken seriously.
If you are reading this and recognising yourself, you are not alone.
Before we move on, I just want to mention that I am a highly sensitive person (HSP) and my clients are usually HSPs. Anxiety is a particular challenge for people with finely tuned nervous systems, acute perception, complex thinking capacities, vivid imaginations, extra empathy, perfectionistic tendencies, or trauma in childhood. People who think and feel deeply about — or “overthink” — everything.
Part of the personality trait of high sensitivity is deep processing - so deep feeling and deep thinking, which can easily tip into over-thinking. It’s no surprise that many HSPs are familiar with anxiety.
You can read more about what it means to be an HSP HERE.
In the coaching session
I am thinking here of two clients in particular.
One, let’s call them Ashley (not their real name), came to work with me as they “wanted to stop being anxious”. After a couple of sessions, and talking through a number of things, I realised that they identified their whole self as being anxious. When we delved a little deeper, they realised that it wasn’t everything they felt anxious about, but it was about something in particular that made them feel that way. We tracked the feeling back to something that happened in their childhood.
Feelings of worry and uncertainty are perfectly normal and happen to us all. Ashley had had to deal with a particular situation when they were about 7 and the adults around them had labelled them anxious. From then on, they had identified as an anxious person and really thought they weren’t very capable. Helping Ashley to take a look at what had happened, opened up the opportunity for Ashley to develop a different, more empowered view of themselves and they began to see things very differently. They still had worries, like we all do, but they had tools to help them with those worries. Work like this takes time and Ashley is well on their way
Another client, I’ll call them Chris, wanted to do inner child work with me to heal their childhood wounds and reparent themselves. This is deep, emotional and powerful healing work. What I didn’t realise was that they felt anxious all the time. After just one session, Chris messaged me and said:
What I noticed right away after our session was this level of anxiety in my body, kind of an ever present buzzing and holding that disappeared! I have not been able to get relief from this as long as I can remember. This change has allowed me to get some deep, real sleep that I haven't had in many years. I am so grateful, thank you.
In that first session, I had helped Chris to connect with their inner child, to hear what their inner child needed to say and to understand how they had been feeling all these years. Just that act of connection and listening had helped the buzz of their anxiety go away. Not forever, but long enough to get a couple of night’s good sleep. The buzz returned but each time we have a session, and connect with their inner child and do more healing work, it goes away for longer. We are making real progress.
All shapes and sizes
There is no “one size fits all” way to look at anxiety. If you are experiencing it, it is a very personal experience based on your life experiences. For the purposes of this blog post, I’m going to use the word anxiety to mean the whole spectrum from mild to severe. Take from it what is useful and leave the rest.
It is unlikely that you were born with anxiety and if you did (like me) that is most likely because you picked up feelings from your mother in the womb. In case you didn’t believe that is a thing (like me), that is possible.
Any anxiety that you feel is likely to be as a result of your environment (home, community, wider society, global), the people around you and the experiences that you have, particularly, but not limited to, at an early age.
I don’t have a one-size fits all solution to anxiety. Sorry. It would be really useful if I did have one, wouldn’t it? To do the deep work I talk about above, we need support to get to the root of where it is coming from.
However, there are some tools I can tell you about that might help you relieve your anxiety in the moment. Let’s take a look.
Tools
Here are some things I’ve found really helpful myself, I know people who they have worked for or I have read about and they seem worth giving a go:
Learning to self-soothe - this means learning what we need and wish others would do for us and doing it for ourselves. Usually this is in the realm of comfort, calm and reassure. My favourite way to do this, usually when I can feel I I’m getting overwhelmed, is to put one hand on my heart, one hand on my belly, take 3 or 4 deep long breaths in and out through my nose whilst telling myself it’s okay. Using a meditation or breathing app can help. Journalling your thoughts and feelings can help bring them out of your body and onto the paper which helps unravel them and release their power.
Forgive yourself - self-forgiveness is so powerful. Listen to Episode 15 of my podcast, HSP Connection, for more on this. In essence, forgiving ourselves for the part we have played in a situation can really help us to stop re-feeling the hurt of that situation. Re-feeling hurt, going over and over conversations and situations is a classic overthinking move which in turn leads to anxiety.
Consider the “worst case” scenario - anxiety can leave us ruminating on thousands of “what ifs”. Can you work out the very worst case scenario and find a way to be comfortable with it? If you can then you can deal with any other scenario and that
Shake it out - or sing, dance, walk. Do something that you enjoy that changes your physical position and gets you in your body. Singing (and humming) also stimulates the vagus nerve which is instrumental in helping us move from a state of nervous system dysregulation (flight/fight/freeze) to regulation (rest and digest - or as I recently heard it described, safe and social). Changing your energy is key to changing your state. My go to is cold water swimming and the picture above is the marine lake I usually swim in.
Hug someone - a loved one, a pet, even a cuddy toy. Breathe and feel the connection deep in your body.
Humour - laughing at the situation you find yourself in, really laughing out loud, can help change your state. Screaming also works. Try it in your car if you don’t have a private space. Also, finding a comedy clip/sketch to watch that makes you laugh can be a really good go-to when you need a lift out of your current state.
Research - if you can work out your anxiety driver, for instance it might be a bid for perfection that leads to procrastination and then anxiety, do some research on the subject. Reading books or articles, or listening to audio books or podcasts, or attending workshops, will help you see it’s not just you and will give you ideas of how to help yourself.
Tune in to your body - I know that my anxiety rises when I’m tired and/or hungry. I rarely get lonely as I love my alone time, but I can get overstimulated which all HSPs have a tendency towards. Can you tune into when your body needs something and give it to yourself? You may well find that your anxiety decreases, it might even go away in that moment.
Collect evidence - write notes (or just a list) so you don’t forget moments where you have overcome your anxiety or not let it stand in your way. Build up a bank of evidence that you are not controlled by anxiety and with the right support in place (from yourself or others) you can overcome it. You can use these notes or list to remind you when you are in the grip of anxiety.
Support - you don’t have to do it alone. Getting support can really help you make sense of what is happening and get a new perspective.
We all experience anxiety at some time in our lives. You are not alone.
Try some of the tools above next time you feel it and make a note of what helps. Do some research, find some other things to try.
Remember, you are not your thoughts. You witness your thoughts so you are not them. With practice, you can learn to replace the thoughts of anxiety with thoughts of something you’d like more - empowerment, pride, joy, achievement, courage. You can do this.
Further information
You can hear the writer, Philippa, talk more about being an HSP on the HSP Connection Podcast which she co-hosts with Robbie Leigh. There is also an HSP Connection Community where we meet twice a month to embrace our superpower.
If you’d like to know more, or want to know how Philippa can support you, contact Philippa using the contact button at the top of the home page.
