Anxious about being Anxious

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

Perhaps you've heard others do this to themselves. They make a casual mistake like dropping change at the checkout and say to themselves "stupid stupid stupid." Then, perhaps predictably in their fluster, they forget their receipt and go on to various other minor mishaps as they chastise themselves or place blame over piddly issues. 

These insults do nothing to prevent one from dropping change, just as calling something stupid does nothing to make it smarter. Dropping change, in fact, has little to do with someone's intelligence. Dropping change is merely a common side-effect of not paying attention. They are flustered, but it's not even about dropping change. It's about... everything else, it's about running late, having a bad day, or not feeling well. Perhaps they are hungry, angry, lonely, or tired. Or maybe, it's about not feeling good enough. Perhaps they feel inadequate in some way, or have basic needs that haven't been met. Perhaps they didn't feel safe, loved, or appreciated enough as a child. 

That's the real tricky part, stopping and finding out what's really going on when you find yourself irrationally upset or angry over spilt milk. Imagine if instead, they dropped the change, thought nothing out of the ordinary of it, simply picked it up and it didn’t register as a reason to be bothered. 

Steps to Break the Cycle

1. Know you can. Positive change is possible.

2. Pay Attention. Where are you now, and where is your mind going?

3. Stay Present. Be in the moment. Experience right now.

4. Find and Replace. Find you negative belief and change it. Reframe this belief into something positive.

Listen to Self-Talk

How are you speaking to yourself? Is it how you would talk to a good friend? Often times our worst critic is our inner critic. Even more, we are often unaware of the background noise constantly milling around in the back of our minds. When you stop and listen, you have the power to address and change the noise into helping affirmations.

Challenge Habits and Habitual Thoughts

We create narratives about ourselves. Then, we fall into the trap of believing our stories. Our stories appear more true than reality; they're what we fall back on. Instead of being in the present moment where typically not so much is actually happening, we tend to run through scripts in our heads.

Repetition Repetition Repetition

When it’s challenging to find relief and a state of calm in a worried mindset, there’s a lot we can do to calm the anxiety cycle. It's important that what we are saying to ourselves over and over is helpful and builds us up to feel and be better. Hurling insults at yourself is not productive and doesn't encourage happiness, growth, or self-worth. 

Placebo and Nocebo Effect

Often various medical treatments for anxiety work on the “placebo effect,” which is not to say they are ineffective. Oh contraire, if a person recovers; the treatment reached its intended effect. The thoughts “I will get relief,” “I will feel better,” and “This is helping” calm your mind and body and allow these things to be true. Believing something works can massively affect outcomes. 

On the other hand, negative beliefs we hold have the power to make us feel worse or perpetuate a problem, cue in the “nocebo effect.” For example, people often say “I’m a terrible cook, so I just eat take-out,” when they aren’t necessarily bad cooks. Often times it’s people who’ve never even tried cooking because the thought that they are bad at it is intimidating. To challenge this they could take a cooking class or try a simple recipe and say “I’m learning to be a great cook.” That will reinforce culinary success and allow for the possibility of greatness.

We have a strange way of making our story true. This can be great in the sense that say you make art and want to be a great artist, you can tell yourself "I am a talented artist." It may sound silly, but it's very encouraging. It reinforces practicing, working on art, connecting, and sharing your art.

Build Your Strength 

Say all of these mantras out-loud:

I can do this. 

I am enough, and I will always be enough. 

I am supported and loved, and I love myself deeply. 

I am at ease with the world.

 If you find any of them difficult to say or hard to believe, focus on that mantra. Let it become natural and easy. If you feel anxious or notice you are using negative self-talk, remember to focus on your mantra.

When you find yourself anticipating the next possible moment of anxiety, remember the above recipe for changing your thoughts.  Remember to H.A.L.T.! (Ask yourself if you are hungry, angry, lonely or tired?) and apply the steps!

How Fear Manifests

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

What if I told you it’s not your fault? That time you froze up instead of doing something, anything, was an automatic biological response outside of your conscious control?

It’s time to forgive yourself for unfavorable, fear based reactions, and move forward.

Guilt and shame are not serving you. Replace them and take control of your fears.

When we come from a place of compassion for ourselves and those around us, we are our best selves. Cutting ourselves down for our past traps us. To move forward we must forgive ourselves, and work to a better future.

How we react to negative people or situations usually comes about in a few different ways. When we face danger or perceived danger we respond with:

Fight- attack the conflict head on

Flight- run away, escape the situation

Freeze- shut down, pretend or believe this isn’t happening

Fight, flight or freeze turn out to be more complicated than previously thought, for humans anyway. 

In many ways this o’possum self defense methods allow us to excel and form stronger bonds and collaborate with new stimuli in our environment that could be perceived as a threat. However, freezing like fainting or passing out is not always safe or ideal. When exposed to trauma this is often the case. People’s body automatically freeze without making a conscious decision, thinking, or having a proper chat with your brain and body to double check that it’s a proper good idea.

Adverts and politicians use this method to scare people into buying into their products because they can’t afford not to!!! Fear overrides our nervous system, which encourages us to make rash actions rather than intelligent choices. Think about it. If someone is screaming or using fear-based arguments, do you think they really have your best interests at heart? Calm discussions may not be as overwhelmingly exciting as an infomercial, but they tend to present more sound, clear information.

Understanding more of the physiology of these responses will help us to calm our reactions as we’ll explain below.

Take the example of the freeze response. Our vagus nerve is a dual feedback loop.  The most major of the cranial nerves, the vagus nerve goes from the back of the brain down into all our major organs including the heart and stomach. This means that the brain is talking to our organs and our organs are talking back to the brain. Emergencies are felt by the heart and the stomach, for example, and then a signal is sent to the brain resulting in a freeze response.  

Rather than running or fighting constantly, ‘toning’ the vagus nerve via a breathing technique allows us to slow down and use diplomacy and conflict resolution. (Vagus Toning Technique:  Inhale for 4 counts and exhale for 6 counts...and repeat as much as you want.)

When we get scared, we breathe quickly, our senses heighten so the barely audible sound of a creaky floor can put us on edge. Pain intensifies and our hearing becomes sharp as a defense mechanism to escape predators, which is advantageous for survival in life-threatening situations. Sometimes our body gets mixed messages and overreacts when we aren’t in a dangerous situation, which causes problems and unnecessary oversensitivity to pain. Thankfully, we can practice breathing methods and calm our mind, body, and nervous system.

Let’s forgive ourselves for being duped by these tactics. Scare tactics are tried and true ways to get people off guard, making them susceptible to anything. Though it may make one feel daft to be bamboozled by such cons, it’s merely human nature. Once you understand why scare tactics are effective at achieving fear based reactions, you can learn to stay in control.

Turn Fear into Forgiveness. Forgiveness allows us to learn from our mistakes, or in some cases to forgive ourselves for situations outside of our control. We can accept and love ourselves, and move forward with a greater knowledge of why our mind and body react erratically under pressure. Focus on solving the problem by calming your nervous system through breathing and identifying patterns that cause this fear response. 

If you notice people around you are tearing people down rather than building them up, it’s time to do some soul searching and set clear boundaries to create a better environment for yourself.

Hacks for rewiring your brain:

Breathing

Meditation

Yoga

Breathe when you get angry or upset to calm your mind and body and to make better rational decisions.

Build Your Strength 

Practice the Vagus Toning Technique. Do this 10 times each day. You can do it when you wake up, make breakfast, get into a car, before bed. The key is to find a cue to prompt you to practice, which could be grabbing your keys to leave the house!

Make Friends with Anxiety

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

This is a sort of ‘tongue in cheek’ article on anxiety in all of its shapes and sizes.  I hope you enjoy this review of the subject. So let's get to know anxiety. Let’s have a cup of tea with it and ask it a few questions.

Anxiety Profile

Pros: Outstanding in small doses, protective in immediate threatening situations, a procrastinator's best friend

Biggest Flaw: Destructive/damaging in long-term relationships, worry wort, tries really hard to be helpful and keep everyone safe but mostly just nags

Hobbies include: Hyperventilating, overthinking, pacing, insomnia, getting things done, and freaking out

Anxiety is brilliant at overreacting and misinterpreting situations. Most people's parents teach them not to trust the world. They move around with a distrust of the world and all of the things and people in it because they fear something hurting their baby and their duty is to protect. They are guarded because something might happen, not because something will happen or is even necessarily probable. It's true that there are endless possibilities. What we overlook is the question of whether or not this fear is actually helping us. If the answer is no, move on and focus on something you can do right now. If you feel helpless, that's okay too; sometimes all we can do is keep breathing.

Society has evolved faster than the human brain. Relative to the previous 200,000 years of human history we have had a dramatic environmental change in the past 500 years. We live in systems that value delayed returns over immediate returns. Previously the system was very direct and immediate: I am hungry, I forage or hunt food. 

I Feel:

Worry (anticipating fear)

I see a badger and worry the badger will eat me. I will quickly get away from the badger and avoid it’s territory.

Anxiety (anticipating an event and attempting to prevent it from causing me discomfort)

I feel the cold of winter approaching and anticipate that there will be less crops, forage, or badgers to eat. I will move to where it is warmer and follow the game and vegetation.

Stress (uncomfortable body sensation)

I feel hungry, stressed, and irritated. I will forage and maybe eat a badger. 

Anxiety is great for short-term problem solving. Procrastinators know this and rely on the ‘rush’ that comes from it to get things done. Break down your long-term problems into short term action items.

In the circus industry there is a rule: Hesitation is Death. Any small worry or distraction misses the beat of the moment, and you fall. You fall not because you didn't spend enough time diligently worrying, but because you thought you might fall. You fall because you weren't there. You fall because you fell into your head and ran around in circles. The best way to prevent danger is through action, not thought. Check the rigging, practice, and focus.

Anxiety creates loops. Loops are tangled delusional realities. Remember thought loops are just that. They are not real nor productive. Anxiety loops do not predict the future or protect you from it. If you feel anxious, do something that you can do right now. If you are anxious that your grandmother is coming over, and boy is the apartment a mess; do the dishes. Thinking about it isn’t doing anything about it, so don’t bother tormenting yourself.

HALT! : Are you hungry, angry, lonely, or tired?

Ask yourself how you are feeling at this moment and tackle the problem at hand. If the problem is in anticipation of something in the future; that isn’t currently affecting you, create an action plan. If you feel anxious, but don’t know what to do for it now, make physical or mental lists of things to help you relax or build strength.

When you feel anxious and experience looping thoughts ask yourself: Does worrying keep me safe? Probably not. Can you drop it? Do you want to let it go? Do you want to hold onto something that is not bringing you the results or serving your best interests? What do you get from holding on to anxiety? When you're ready: breathe in, breathe out, let it go. Do not try to hold on if it is destroying you. You're better than that, and you deserve better.

What it boils down to is that anxiety and fear are about self-preservation. It is an illusion that anxiety and fear will protect you in the future.

The problem isn't anxiety; we're using anxiety wrong. Anxiety is only useful to protect you in the present moment - in the reality of the present situation. If you feel parched or are dehydrated, anxiety can motivate you to drink water, but it won't lead you to the well. It will lead you in circles of self-doubt wondering if there is or isn't a well. And what if there's something wrong with the well? What should I say if I run into Nigel on the way to the well? STOP. Drink a glass of water. Do not use anxiety as a roadmap; use it to get something done right now.

Anxiety parades as a future defense, but the truth is it doesn't know how or what the future holds. Anxiety can be a good motivation tool short-term, but anxiety is a terrible long-term lover.

Build Your Strength 

Create a list of action items you can do if you feel anxious. It may look like this:

Journal by writing about what and how you are feeling. 

Observe what is happening right now. Write it down and look to identify patterns.

Meditate by breathing in deep and slowly, releasing all the air, then doing it again.

Read a chapter of a book that interests you. Get lost in it.

Exercise in any way that feels good to you. Do a silly dance!

3 Fears Expats Can Relate To

by Kayleigh Roberts and Christine Harris

When you decide to up and leave everything behind — all that you have ever known — it can be pretty scary. Your diet, daily habits, workplace, and friends change all at once. It feels as if it is just you against the world. Even the most banal day-to-day experiences become more convoluted than they were back home. Sometimes, it’s so nerve-wracking to do something as simple as grocery shopping because we let our fears get the best of us. Here are three common fears expats share and how to cope with them as you begin your new life abroad.

Answering the phone.

While telephone use has gone down significantly, you will still receive the occasional phone call or might have to make a phone call to set up an appointment. This can terrify many expats that have not yet mastered the language of the country that they are living in at the moment. What if they ask you a question you do not understand and you are unable to answer? Mortifying, right? 

Dealing with insurance and other financial related issues.

Many expats find it difficult to adapt to a new bureaucratic style at first. There are many hoops to jump through, many documents to establish and go through, and many people to talk to in person and over the phone. It was nerve wracking back home and it is nerve-wracking in your new country.. It’s stressful not to know whether you are doing everything legally or not, after all, even a small misunderstanding could lead to big legal trouble. Many expats tend to fear being deported or getting in trouble, especially if there is the added obstacle of a language barrier.

What other people think.

Being judged for being an expat is still something that happens. Those that are native from their country might make fun of your accent, have a stereotype made up in their mind about your origins or a completely fabricated idea about what you represent to them. All of this can lead to a fear of integrating fully or making friends with the locals. 

Fear explained.

What if I told you that the time that you froze up instead of doing something, anything, was an automatic biological response outside of your conscious control? What if I told you it’s not your fault? 

Understanding more of the physiology of these responses will help us to calm our reactions as we’ll explain below:

People’s bodies automatically freeze without making a conscious decision, thinking, or having a proper chat with your brain and body to double-check that it’s a proper good idea. Fear overrides our nervous system, which encourages us to make rash actions rather than intelligent choices.

When we get scared, we breathe quickly, our senses heightened so the barely audible sound of a creaky floor can put us on edge. Pain becomes more intense and our hearing becomes sharp as a defense mechanism to escape predators, which is advantageous for survival in life-threatening situations. Sometimes our body gets mixed messages and overreacts when we aren’t in a dangerous situation, which causes problems and unnecessary oversensitivity to pain. Thankfully, we can practice breathing methods and calm our mind, body, and nervous system.

It’s time to forgive yourself for unfavorable, fear-based reactions, and move forward. Guilt and shame are not serving you. Replace them. Take control of your fears. Fight, flight or freeze reactions turn out to be more complicated than previously thought, for humans anyway. 

Turn Fear into Forgiveness.

Forgiveness allows us to learn from our mistakes, or in some cases, to forgive ourselves for situations outside of our control. We can accept and love ourselves and move forward with a greater knowledge of why our mind and body react erratically under pressure. Focus on solving the problem by calming your nervous system through breathing and identifying patterns that cause this fear response.

Breathe when you get angry or upset to calm your mind and body and to make better rational decisions. 

Finding it difficult to cope alone?

You don’t have to fight fear on your own, if it becomes unmanageable for you. It’s better to seek help sooner than later. Counselling can help ease the transition to your new life. Through counselling, coaching, and therapy, it is possible to circumvent or soften obstacles that prevent you from living your life to the fullest. I want to help you succeed and learn how to manage your day-to-day fears revolving in your life.