Finding Calm in the Storm: Techniques to Self-Regulate Anxious Mood

By Christine Harris

Life today moves fast, demanding more and more from us. It's no wonder anxiety has become a common struggle, with over 40 million American adults battling anxiety disorders. However, even non-clinical anxiety that builds throughout stressful days can accumulate and feel overwhelming.

When you notice anxious feelings arising, there are effective ways to self-soothe instead of being swept away in the currents. Techniques from psychotherapy approaches like Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy, Autogenic Relaxation Training, and Dialectical Behavior Therapy can help you get grounded and shift out of anxiety. With practice, you can learn to relax amidst anxious moments.

Tune Into Your Body

Focusing Oriented Psychotherapy teaches that tuning into subtle body sensations can help calm rising anxiety. When you feel anxious, take deep breaths and scan your body without judging it. Notice any tension or unease. Pay special attention to your stomach area, chest, shoulders and face, common places tension lodges. As you breathe and focus non-judgmentally on sensations, they may shift or release. This returns your nervous system to homeostasis. 

Imagine a Healing Safe Place

Imagery techniques from Autogenic Relaxation Training also release anxiety. If you feel rising panic, anxiety or muscle tension, imagine lying in a calm, quiet, safe place. Envision somewhere you feel peaceful: a beach, meadow, or even your own bed. Feel the supportive surface enveloping your body. Notice any tension melting away. Allow your senses to be immersed in this safe place - the sounds, smells, temperature. Let this vivid scene bathe your nerves in restful sensations.

Practicing Autogenic Relaxation audio recording once or twice a day for three weeks will train your autonomic nervous system to go into a relaxed state within 30 seconds when you use the technique!  Listen to the recording here.  It’s less than 13 minutes long! 

Observe Thoughts Without Judgment

Dialectical Behavior Therapy highlights how judgmental thinking worsens anxiety. Catch yourself assessing a situation negatively, and anxiety can heighten. Instead, neutralize anxious thoughts through nonjudgmental observation. Notice thoughts arising without labeling them good or bad. Imagine thoughts drifting past like clouds. This separates you from them rather than fueling them. Say “I notice myself having the thought that I am in danger. This is just a thought rather than a fact.” This self-talk through observation defuses anxiety.

Over time, regularly using such techniques rewires your nervous system to have a greater sense of control over anxiety. You realize you can self-soothe and shift your state using your own skills. You don’t have to be swept away in fight-or-flight reactivity. There are always tools available to cultivate your inner calm.

Build Your Strength

- Establish routines: Structure helps manage worry and uncertainty. Follow daily routines for meals, sleep, work and exercise. 

- Limit stimulant intake: Caffeine and excessive digital input heighten nerves.

- Use relaxation skills daily: Don’t just use them when anxious. Do deep breathing, stretch, meditate daily to stay grounded.

- Connect with others: Isolation worsens anxiety. Bond with supportive people through shared activities.

- Identify triggers: Notice situations that commonly spark your anxiety so you can better prepare. 

- Keep perspective: When anxieties arise, ask yourself, “What is the likelihood this worry will actually happen? What’s the worst case scenario and could I cope with that?” This squashes irrational fears.

You have more power than you think over anxiety. By regularly using techniques that work with your nervous system, body and thought patterns, you build self-regulating skills to rely on when you need soothing. You don’t have to allow anxiety to overwhelm you. Think of it as an invitation to care for yourself. Let it remind you to tap into your inner calm every day.

Assisted by Claude.AI

The Expectations Trap

by Kaylei Roberts and Christine Harris

Edited by Lacey Lindsey 

“You can plan a pretty picnic, but you can’t predict the weather.”

— Outcast

Expectations are what we think should happen and they can get us into some serious trouble. Expectations are rarely the reality. Fantasies of a “perfect” world that is controlled by what you perceive as fair and ideal will predictably leave us drained and dissatisfied.

Nothing should happen. The real world is more complicated than our preconceived notions. Everyone is faced with challenges and injustices and while we cannot control what happens, we can change how we react to them. We can grow and learn better ways to cope and make beneficial changes in our life.

Wanting is a form of waiting for nothing to happen 

Wanting will not give us what we want. Why cling to the misery of expectations? What is keeping you from letting go of expectations that realistically will only deplete your energy? Because we think we need x, y, and z, we may believe that they must materialize for us. That isn’t the case. Needing something does not make it happen. Wanting something does not  bring it closer to happening. Some things are outside of your control. Accept that you do not need to control situations or other people. Your job is to deal with the situation at hand and decide better ways to interact, engage, accept, or move on from situations and people.

Perspective changes everything

It is not helpful to:

• Pretend things are not happening. 

• Beat yourself up or tear yourself down for feeling the way you feel.

• Push through and overextend yourself.

• Wallow in self-pity or self-hatred.

Instead, you can: 

• Accept the current situation. This is what is happening. 

• Ask yourself - What can I do from here? Can I call and let people know I am unable to attend? Can I do anything beneficial on my end from here?

• Be grateful for what you have. Stop focusing on what you want and take advantage of all that you have. There are many things to appreciate in your life, no matter how small. 

• Cry and allow yourself to be in the moment with how you are feeling without judgement. 

• Have empathy, understanding, and compassion for yourself.

Reframing your expectations for yourself

We all want to be the most fabulous, infallible, ideal versions of ourselves. When we see ourselves as we’d like to be, we fail to accept ourselves for who we are in the current moment. It’s important to be considerate and compassionate towards yourself. Feelings of guilt, shame, embarrassment, disappointment, and anger arise when we don’t meet the expectations and ideals for ourselves. If we love and accept ourselves as we are now, for all of our flaws, and with all of the baggage, we can heal. We can grow. We can let go of the fear, denial, and self-hate that holds us back from our goals.

The world is more enjoyable when we accept ourselves and others for who they are as unique, complex, and chaotic networks. When we accept things as they are, we have more power to work with ourselves and make the world more fantastic.

Reframing your expectations for others 

The same can be said for relationships, friendships, marriages, and our expectations for ourselves. Because we think we need x, y, and z, we may believe that they must materialise for us. That isn’t the case. Needing something does not make it happen. Wanting something does not  bring it closer to happening. 

Expectations can change all of our interactions. When we assume that people will drive politely, predictably, and follow the rules of the road, we ensure disappointment. Expecting everyone to be a good driver increases the chances for road rage and traffic incidents. It’s better to accept drivers as they are, and modify how we drive around the conditions of the road. Yes, it may seem grand if people did what we think they are supposed to do, but that is not human nature. We need to drop expectations and realize expectations conflict with reality. Honking and screaming at other drivers will not change their behaviour. Road rage will not help us arrive at our destination sooner or make us feel better.

Value others’ rights to make decisions

It can be very hard when people continually make decisions you do not agree with, especially when they prove to be destructive. It’s important to realise that you are only responsible for your own actions. What other people do is up to them. You get to choose how and if you want to continue to interact with them, and to what extent. Accepting them for who they are and respecting their choices, even if you don’t agree with their choices is vital to maintaining healthy relationships.

Setting Boundaries

When we voice our actual expectations upfront, we can avoid creating ongoing distrust and conflict in the future. When we see our expectations are not being met or are unreasonable, we can adjust our expectations to something more realistic or drop them altogether. 

When everyone is honest and upfront with their expectations we have the opportunity to say no to what we do not consent to or negotiate feasible alternatives. However, it is unreasonable to expect everyone will be honest and upfront with their expectations. Most people aren’t aware of their own expectations or what is expected of them. We can adjust expectations based on what happens and modify our behaviour.

“Expectations were like fine pottery. The harder you held them, the more likely they were to crack.”

— Brandon Sanderson

Build Your Strength 

See if you can identify places in your life where you are let down because you assume something will happen. Does holding on to that belief help you? How do you think things would be if you let go of that belief?

Make a To-Do list:
Ask yourself:

Is it realistic?
Is it possible to accomplish all of these things in one day?
Is it compassionate?
Does it give you space to rest and take care of yourself?

It’s important to show up for yourself, check in with yourself, and set reasonable goals. You can adjust your daily To-Do list by removing items that are purely idealistic or excessive. If a To-Do list isn’t do-able in a day it can create disappointment and detract from your ability to focus on what you can accomplish. A way to practice self compassion is to remember that you are only human with limitations on your time and energy. Adding enjoyable self-care exercises and time for breaks provides balance and compassion. 

Reject Perfection

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

Imagine attending a party where everything is perfect. The entire house is spotless. Decorations adorn the walls. Everything matches the theme from the decor to the fancy dress down to the napkins. 

To prepare for the party the host sends out very specific instructions on what to wear, to add to the ambiance of the event. The host considers asking for help putting everything together, yet decides to do everything themselves. They think delegating tasks may run the risk of something not being just so, and that just would not do. Besides, they want very specific foods prepared in very specific ways. The host considers telling everyone what, how, when, and where to do everything, but thinks better of it. They refuse to leave anything to chance, and reason that it’s easier to do everything themselves than to fix mistakes in the event that something is not good enough.

The host really outdid themselves, and you can tell. They look completely exhausted. You’d say disheveled, except nothing is out of order per se. It is as if every hair had been glued in place.

Everything about the party is perfect, everything except one detail: it is not fun. It is a disaster. The host focuses on doing everything by themselves, and trying to make sure everyone else stays happy. The forced happiness leaves all the guests cringing in discomfort. 

It’s as if no matter how controlled and perfect everything is, it’s never good enough to the host. The host appears terribly upset that guests do not appear appreciative enough of all their hard work to make them happy.

The pressure to excel, to succeed, and in turn to be accepted feeds on anxiety. With anxiety about an inherently unpredictable future comes misguided perfectionistic behaviours focused on feeling in control. These behaviours can take many forms: obsessions, compulsions, or habits. Rather than providing long-term relief, these behaviours play into a damaging cycle of fear, procrastination, and self-sabotage. Maladaptive control tactics ironically end up controlling us rather than freeing us. Seeking help is a vital step to recovery for anyone experiencing eating disorders, self-harm, or dangerous behaviours; therapy provides tools to regain a healthy control over your life. Anxiety, fear, control, and perfection are all connected. 

Take a long exhale. Let it go. Let go of any fears that are holding you back in life. Let go of self-doubt that prevents you from starting a project. Let go and push aside any fears of not being or doing enough; you are already enough. Let go of the fear of things not working out; in order to make anything happen, we must attempt it.

Notice that issues surrounding control and perfection are centered around extreme, false beliefs: “If everything is perfect, then I can relax;” “If I look a certain way, then I will be happy.” “If I do this, then I will feel loved and accepted.” In reality, nothing could be further from the truth. This type of “all or nothing” thinking is a trap. We don’t need to wait for the planets to align before allowing ourselves to relax; we need to relax regardless. Everything is available to us to enjoy in the present moment, but we need to stop and appreciate what we do have right now. We instead need to practice gratitude, in order to enjoy our improvement process.

Be gentle with yourself. Practice is the best way to improve on any skill. Practice involves doing, not procrastinating or obsessing over every step of the process being perfect. The best way to learn is through mistakes. Perhaps the best practice to accompany any goal is the practice of self-love.
Embrace mistakes. There is a difference between putting stones in your path vs using them as stepping stones to get across. We can choose to look at past mistakes as a wall and trap ourselves within that boundary. Or we can be realistic, and build off of what we learned. Use your mistakes. What did you learn from this experience? How do you want to move forward? What techniques do you need to develop, in order to get the outcome that you want?  Change. Optimise. Do things differently. Trial and error is not a death sentence, it’s a learning experience.

Shift your focus from the negatives to the positives. Setting aside expectations opens up space to enjoy what’s going on around us. If you find yourself obsessing over something that you don’t like, take a step back and note 5 things that you do like. There is no need to focus on the negatives. If you don’t like how you look, make a point of looking in the mirror and finding 5 things you do like about yourself. 

Letting Go of Uncomfortable Feelings

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

“One of the hardest lessons in life is letting go. Whether it’s guilt, anger, love, loss or betrayal. Change is never easy. We fight to hold on and we fight to let go.”

— Mareez Reyes

It’s easy to stew in uncomfortable feelings and allow emotions to overtake us. Letting go of strong emotions and moving them into positive actions gives us strength to make positive changes in areas that upset us. Strong emotions have power to motivate change.

You’re in a rush because you really want to pick up a surprise for your friend before catching the bus to meet them. You feel great about yourself as you daydream about surprising your friend while catching your breath in line with the perfect gift, when out of nowhere, someone cuts you in the queue. They have loads of items while in the express checkout and are acting the epitome of rude. You are fuming. You clench your jaw and your fists. Every item they ring up and every word they utter sends you further into rage as you force yourself to retain composure. Finally, you check out your single item and move as quickly as you possibly can to catch the bus, which you do not.

Now you’re stuck waiting for the next bus, all because that muppet cut the queue. Your excitement to see your friend evaporates; for now, all your attention is dedicated to mulling over a few choice words you feel you should have said to the queue cutter. Rest assured these critiques are all deserved for making you late and upsetting everyone else’s plans. You were having such a lovely morning, and now everything merely adds to your frustrations. 

All you want is for people to have common courtesy, to mind the queue, to not cut everyone else off in queue with countless items, yet this savage did just that. The nerve of some people is all you can think about in an endless loop of aggravation. You can keep feeling like this all day; you just might. Something about reeling in their countless flaws seems just and deserved. They violated the honor code, the queue code, and common decency. They significantly violated your space and threw off all of your plans for the day. You have a right to be angry, but how is that going to help you when you get to your friend’s party? How can you not be furious? After all, you think you should be upset at the way you were treated.The choice is completely yours. You can stay mad, and carry this cloud into the party; alternatively, you can look at the situation, look at yourself, and examine other options. Being angry is not helping your current situation, after all, you can no longer take it out on the queue cutter who kicked off this whole mess. Pretending everything is honky dory will not do. Let’s face it, to get out of this mood you need to face what’s bothering you.

Identify Your Feelings. What are you feeling? Does it have a name?

Quantify the Feeling. On a scale of 1-10, where would you rate this feeling? Where would you like this feeling to be? What would be a more manageable level?

Locate Where You Feel these Feelings in Your Body. Stress, anger, and tense emotions are held in our body. Some people hold stress in their shoulders and back. Once aware that they raise and tense their shoulders, they can then let go and learn to lower their shoulders away from their ears. Then relax and unclench their jaw. Practicing Autogenic Relaxation Training, Meditation, Yoga, Self Massage, light exercise, stretching, or other body awareness practices will help you fine tune your ability to locate tension throughout your body. You can also become more aware by simply paying attention to yourself and focusing on your body and how different parts move and feel. Where do you feel pain, fear, anger, or resentment? Can you feel it in your face? Untense your face and body. Open and relax your hands. Breathe deep and lower your shoulders away from your ears again.

Identify the Cause of This Feeling. What is wrong? Perhaps you are upset at a person, a situation, or even yourself. Put into words what is going on that led you to feel this way. “I feel frustrated at the muppet who cut in the queue.”

Own Your Feelings. Take full responsibility for how you feel. This doesn’t mean making apologies for other people, taking blame for the situation, or others’ actions. You are only responsible for your own emotions, words, and actions. Give yourself space to feel your emotions. Hold your feelings in a place of respect regardless of if they are positive or negative emotions.

Accept Your Feelings. You feel how you feel. Even though it may not be the feeling you want to be experiencing, honour the reality of how you feel right now. This may sound like: “I feel angry, but I love myself deeply.”

Move Negative Feelings into Positive Actions. What can you do to change this situation or similar situations in the future? You can’t control other people or the situation. You can change the way you prepare, interact, and influence others. You can speak out and change the course of events by speaking up for yourself or advocating for others. Strong emotions like anger exist to scare off threats or jump us into action inorder to protect ourselves.

Be Assertive. Sometimes we feel guilty for not speaking out about injustices until after the situation has passed; luckily we can learn healthy, assertive communication so people are aware of our boundaries. There are various actions we can take to become more assertive and maintain healthy boundaries. 

Ask Yourself What You Are Meant to Learn. Every situation will teach us about ourselves and the world around us. Learning to identify how we feel in the moment is crucial to avoid being overwhelmed by our emotions. As we practice awareness of our emotions, we will be more able to assess the situation and find helpful ways to react.

Let Go. When you are ready, give yourself permission to let go of uncomfortable feelings. “I feel very angry right now, but it is not currently helping me. I no longer need to carry the weight of this feeling so I give myself permission to release my anger.”

Build Your Strength Take a few deep breaths and a moment to thank and honor yourself for your courage to address your feelings. It’s difficult work to step out of your comfort zone, to address uncomfortable feelings, to own your feelings, and use them to take positive action. Love, accept, and honour yourself for taking the responsibility to work with your challenging feelings.

Developing Self Love

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

Moving to a new country can shake up your perception of yourself. It can be difficult to fit in with a new workplace, new friends, and a new culture. It can be even more difficult to remember that there are more important things, like your mental wellbeing. This weekend, let’s try something different by developing your own definition of self-love.

When we don’t have a strong and resilient love for ourselves, we tend to block our intuition-  aka our gut feelings. It then becomes easier to focus on pleasing other people and staying in the often experienced place of living out our lives to meet the expectations of others. This is your life, not your family’s, not mine, not the life of a co-worker, boss, or the person next door to you… you get the picture.

We often think that we’re doing our own thing and living out our own truth and hopefully, that’s what’s happening. But, we also oftentimes find ourselves inhibited from living or even finding that truth because we are so anxious from the demands of our busy lives. Self love frequently takes a backseat to work and schedules.  And what might be happening is that we’re actually attempting to quiet the voices in our head that insist that such and such get done by a certain time, and so on. This applies to how we work out and how often, eat, how we socialize or not. You name it… living without a slow, genuine love for ourselves leaves us ripe for the pickings! Ripe for lowered immune systems, a short temper, low moods – all sorts of vulnerabilities.

Imagine a well loved child. These sentient beings know the feeling of being cared for; being held and touched and nurtured. They know that there is consistent care being offered to them. They feel secure and have the inner strength to experiment and try new things. Taking a risk is easier because they know they have a loving foundation to fall back on, and, because they have built in confidence off of that nurturance. The same principle applies to adults.

Here are some of my thoughts around strengthening and practicing self-love and what it looks like:

The research, and perhaps even your own experience, will tell you that having or gaining love of yourself is not something that happens overnight. The potential for practicing self-love happens all day long and into the night! There are loads of opportunities as we are served small, medium and large size challenges every day… and of course, the design of having challenges constantly is there to help us learn life lessons (and more about my genuine and authentic self), and to help us become stronger and healthier in the Resilience Department of Ourselves. The other important piece on the topic of the opportunities to practice self-love is the ‘R’ word… i.e. taking responsibility for myself. Being able to detach from the current drama or challenge and continuing to walk forward in spite of the reality that might not be what we desire at all.

Finally, self-love is all about upskilling, learning the trade secrets of this thing called ‘living your life’. When you encounter a problem that you have decided is worthy of a solution,  learn how to solve the problem or issue. Note to self: Pick your battles. Not all battles need to be taken on. Monitor your energy. You know how to reach out as is evidenced by being a counselling client. You know how to research and hopefully, know what resources are solid, well-founded and grounded in real research (as in the double-blind, random trial kind of research aka bona fide!)

Self-love is about realizing that here on 3rd dimensional Planet Earth, not everyone will or needs to like you or even part of you. That’s simply a fact of life. If someone doesn’t like you, that’s on them, not you. However, what you choose to do with that information is an opportunity to practice self-love. You know who you are, and you practice realizing the positive aspects of yourself everyday. Remind yourself of 5 cherished and lovable things about you, and that are worth giving back to yourself. And do it! Treat yourself as you do your neighbor - with consideration, love and acceptance.

Through practicing self love you allow yourself to feel emotions as they come, but, more importantly  allow them to pass without judgement. Feelings last for seconds of time usually. All feelings generally break into the following: joy, fear, anger, sadness, love, pain and shame. So, practicing self-love is taking responsibility for feeling the feelings; having an awareness of thoughts; and taking positive action for yourself in that situation, whatever it is.

And, it might be that being quiet for 10 minutes is the self-love act that is needed. Or, it might be that sitting in nature, or exercising for 10 minutes is your way of practicing self-love. Or it might be that exploring the world around you helps you to feel grounded and more confident as an expat in a new country. What way will you practice self-love over the weekend? May it be a practice that you share with yourself alone! If you’re an expat, you may need to devote time to self care more than the average person. Moving to a new place takes courage and self discipline. Pat yourself on the back. You're one step closer.