I’m so anxious and I don’t know why.
What do you think?
The bad news is that I unfortunately can’t wave my magic wand and make you less anxious.
The good news, though, is that you likely have the power to do something about this yourself.
Now I won’t pretend to be an anxiety researcher because I’m not. But I am quite experienced with feeling anxious. In fact, over the years, I have experienced more than my fair share of generalized anxiety. This shows up as fears, worries, generalized discomfort and overwhelming physical symptoms, including headaches, stomachaches, and nausea.
I was practically the textbook definition of anxiety, waking up anxious, going to be anxious and sprinkling a healthy dose of anxiety into the rest of each day.
But that has changed.
So, on that credential alone, I will offer this advice.
Living with integrity
So much of our discomfort comes back to living with integrity. Might anxiety be the same? I argue that it is. I know that, to most people, living with integrity means doing the right thing, making the tough choices, doing things even when you don’t want to, not telling lies, not showing up late, etc. But there’s more to it than that. Living with integrity also includes allowing your self, your being, your body, to feel what it feels.
I like to call this letting your insides match your outsides. Not pretending to be something you simply aren’t. This might mean not pretending to be attracted to men when you’re really attracted to women, and it also means not pretending to be happy when you are feeling sad.
Certainly sometimes it makes sense to temporarily pretend to be happy when you’re sad. After all, living as an adult in the world means not letting every little thing out at all times.
But generally speaking, don’t trap your emotions inside or try to reason your way out of them or reach for a drink to dull them. I’m suggesting that you feel the sadness, crying if you need to. Feel the anger, raging if you need to. Feel the fear. Feel whatever it is your body is feeling, even if you can’t name it. It turns out that labeling it isn’t important, feeling it is.
This is (importantly) a private experience, not that it can’t be shared with others. It can. But it needn’t be.
I’ve used several modalities of escapism through the years. One of my favorites has been that I’ve gravitated obsessively toward reading – not escapism fiction like some, but self-help books. Books that I thought would ease my discomfort, give me a solution to all of these pesky feelings. So afraid was I of the real feeling, of the raw emotion, that I would do anything to become somebody who didn’t feel anything anymore.
I also have been known to turn to alcohol, food, shopping, begging other people to ease the discomfort – pretty much the whole gamut of avoidance tactics.
Did they work? Not at all.
I don’t know if this is you, but if this even sounds familiar in the slightest, then pay attention. It turns out that as crazy as it seems, feeling the sadness (or other emotion) is actually the shortcut to feeling better.
You might be afraid that the sadness (or other emotion) will overtake you. It won’t. If you’ve been suppressing for many years, there might be quite a bit of emotion to feel – that’s ok. I guarantee you that it’s not endless. The only way to make it endless is to avoid it, to try not to experience it.
Don’t trap your emotions inside
Years ago, my then 5-year-old daughter fell off of her bike. She had a deep cut on her forehead and we took her to the emergency room where they perfunctorily cleaned the wound and then glued it shut. There, all fixed!
But the next day, her entire face started to swell and she began burning up with a fever. Her eyes swelled shut and her head was visibly swelling larger and larger by the minute, so we again rushed her to the emergency room, where they were baffled. What could be wrong? I even witnessed them doing an internet search for a solution. It was scary and she was hospitalized for three nights while they investigated what might be wrong.
In the end, they would discover that a strep bacteria had been left in the wound, and the skin glue was so effective that the bacteria had been unable to leave the body. The glue had prevented the body from doing what it did best – protect itself.
If you think about it, the human body is always looking to protect itself. It knows to throw up after having eaten something harmful. It’s smart enough to raise its’ own temperature in an attempt to make itself inhospitable for viruses or bacteria that shouldn’t be there. Swelling is its’ way of sending healing to the site of an injury. Mucus is our body’s attempt to trap germs and remove them from the body. All of these things are uncomfortable and we try to suppress them all. The list goes on. The body knows what to do.
But this time, with my daughter, the bacteria was trapped behind the glue, and so even though the body was trying to rid itself of the infection, it was unsuccessful. The infection started to spread.
In the end, the medical team realized they would have to reopen the original wound to allow the bacteria an exit. The only solution was to go back to square one and start over, letting nature do what it does best.
Anxiety can be seen as analogous to that high fever and generalized swelling. If we know that our bodies are always looking to protect us, then we need to recognize that our body’s emotions are no different. Trust that your body is working to heal you and let it do what it does best. Feel the feeling. Even when you have to go back to the original wound.
Having that infection wasn’t fun for my daughter, but letting nature run its course worked far better than gluing it shut and trying to pretend it wasn’t there. Suppression is about as effective as sticking your head in the sand to solve a problem. When you pull your head out, the problem is still there.
We had to give the bacteria in my daughter’s small body somewhere to go. And your emotions are no different. It might not be fun in the moment, but it will be worth it in the end.
Let’s look at a few examples that I hope will help to illustrate the difference.
Situation 1
Somebody says something mean to you (at work, at school, at home – this could happen anywhere). Let’s say that somebody says they don’t like your new haircut. And you immediately feel the sting. Ouch!
What you might be tempted to do
You push it aside, and start saying all of your aphorisms to yourself. Rise above it. I don’t care what others think. Don’t give away my power. I don’t care what they say. They’re ugly anyway.
Then when you go home, and tell your roommate, she says, “Oh, don’t listen to them – their hair is so ugly anyway.” Brush it off, you tell yourself. Even almost shaming yourself – don’t be such a baby. Why are you letting this bother you?
What I’m suggesting you do instead
When you get home and think back on the encounter (assuming that they actually said something overtly mean*), you feel sad. You take a few moments alone to feel the sadness, without shaming yourself, without telling yourself in any way that you shouldn’t feel sad. You don’t tell yourself how you *should* feel – you just simply allow yourself to experience the feeling.
Feeling the sadness means nothing about what you are going to do. Feeling the feeling is only a “you” thing. If you are able to feel it completely, you can then let it go. I am not suggesting that you go and tell this person off – that isn’t you feeling your feeling. I would also caution you that telling all or any of your friends about this might be an attempt to avoid the discomfort. How many times do we tell our friends a story, looking for them to jump to our side and validate us. We don’t need validation. Just feel what you feel. You don’t need permission to have a feeling.
Much of the time, telling others about a situation is an attempt to divert feeling an emotion. After all, if you tell your friends what happened, and they all start telling you what an asshole that person is, you aren’t feeling sad anymore, you are feeling angry or even righteous instead.
Resist the urge to do anything besides feel the feeling.
*It is an overwhelmingly human tendency to hear words that aren’t spoken, and read into intentions that don’t exist. So, first of all, make sure that you aren’t putting a filter or an overlay on a situation. If that person actually said, “You got a haircut!” And you assumed they didn’t like it because they didn’t say that they did, that is not at all the same thing as somebody saying, “I don’t like your new haircut.” Because if you’re feeling a feeling that is the result of a misinterpretation, I’m going to call foul on that. If that is your case, then go back to the concept of seeking clarity first.
Situation 2
You read a news story about something that really makes you feel sad.
What you might be tempted to do
You might be tempted to distract yourself by shutting off the news and running to the next activity. You might be tempted to pour yourself a drink. You might be tempted to “other” the people in the story so that you can feel better that this surely won’t happen to you. You vow to not read the news for a few days. You might wake up thinking about it overnight, but you distract yourself.
What I’m suggesting you do instead
Feel sad. Don’t distract yourself. Don’t pour yourself a drink. Just feel sad, even cry. There are sad things happening in the world. And yes, we must go on with our lives, but if you are feeling something, then feel it. It won’t last forever.
So you’re so anxious and you don’t know why.
Anxiety is likely a sign that you have been suppressing something else.
Try sitting quietly with yourself and letting yourself feel what you feel. Don’t try to label it. Trust your body to know what it needs to feel in order to move forward.
This is not a one time thing either. This is something that you can do every day.
Give it a shot. Feel that feeling.
