Highly Sensitive People with Anxiety: What to Know and How to Cope

Highly Sensitive People with Anxiety: What to Know and How to Cope

by | May 22, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

If you’re a highly sensitive person, you know the struggle with anxiety is real. I hear countless stories from highly sensitive people with anxiety who feel overwhelmed. Everyday situations can cause us to feel distressed in a way our non-sensitive peers may not understand.

Being more attuned to your senses and surroundings, you’re likely triggered by some of the details that make up the fabric of our modern society. I’m going to talk about those details more, as well as ways to cope, in a moment. One of the coping suggestions I have may surprise you!

But first I’d like to note the relationship between high sensitivity and anxiety. I mean, let’s face it, as highly sensitive people, we want to understand how our minds work as much as we can.

While being highly sensitive can mean we’re more vulnerable to anxiety, I want to emphasize that not all highly sensitive people struggle with anxiety. Many highly sensitive people face little anxiety. Yet, there is an association between high sensitivity and anxiety worth noting.

Let’s define these terms before we go any further.

What is a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP)?

“High sensitivity”, also known as sensory-processing sensitivity (SPS), is a personality trait, not a disorder. It’s an indicator for how we experience and interface with the world. Highly sensitive people make up roughly 20 percent of the population and are often:

  • Easily affected by others’ moods; they tend to feel emotions of others
  • Overwhelmed by sensory stimuli such as lights, sound, smells, and some fabrics
  • Emotionally moved by news, film, music, or art
  • Criticized for thinking too much
  • Apt to process information more thoroughly
  • Frazzled when asked to multitask or do too many things at once
  • Deeply conscientious
  • Likely to have a rich inner life

What is anxiety?

Anxiety is the body’s natural response to stressful, dangerous, or unfamiliar situations. It’s the feeling of worry that’s accompanied by that sweaty, heart-racing, can’t catch your breath, dry-mouthed reaction that your body has in response to fear.

Anxiety is a normal, physical reaction to stress that triggers our brain’s fear center and sends hormones pumping through our body. We all experience anxiety from time to time. It only meets criteria for an anxiety disorder if it involves excessive fear or anxiety that interferes with daily life.

Highly Sensitive People and Anxiety – What’s the relationship?

Since highly sensitive people have a proclivity to feel deeply, it’s not surprising that we’re susceptible to anxiety. Highly sensitive people with anxiety are inclined to absorb emotional experiences of those around us as if they were our own.

And things like the news and social media can spin us into an emotional frenzy, especially if we’re left with feeling a load of pain coupled with immense helplessness.

A small study published by the scientific journal Brain and Behavior found that when compared with individuals with low sensitivity, HSPs tend to have more activation in brain areas with “mirror neurons”, the neural system responsible for empathy. While some empathy is good, too much empathy can negatively affect our physical and mental well-being potentially leading to feelings of anxiety.

Additionally, we live in a fast-paced world that hurries us through sardine-packed subways and slings quick-witted remarks around at business meetings. When we can’t keep up, we feel like frazzled outsiders.

As highly sensitive people with anxiety, we may receive heavy pressure from others to work rapidly to complete a project when maybe our minds need more time to process and organize.

Loud noises from motorcycles, the bouquet of pungent perfumes at a department store, and oppressive fluorescent lights of the common office wreak havoc on our nervous systems igniting the body’s fear response.

There’s neuroscience research that suggests that people with the SPS trait may genetically have an exaggerated startle response, which can make us more prone to anxiety.

But while highly sensitive people with anxiety may be more susceptible to anxiety, we can tap into the strength of our sensitivity with the right tools to get through challenging times.

How Highly Sensitive People with Anxiety Can Cope

1. Know your triggers. Highly sensitive people with anxiety have a great advantage in our ability to sense and notice. Identify the specifics things, people, and situations that negatively affect you. Write a list of your triggers.

2. Establish a plan for self-care to cope. Ensuring you get enough sleep, eat well, and exercise is vital for highly sensitive people to avoid depletion. But it also helps to review your list of triggers and develop a plan for how to cope ahead of time. For example, if I have a large social event coming up, I do my best to sandwich that event with ample downtime before and after to prepare and recharge.

3. Be active on social media. Does that sound like bad advice? Well, maybe. In general, it’s a good idea to limit time spent on social media. But research suggests that if you’re going to use it, it’s best to be active rather than passive. This means it helps to have a purpose when you engage in social media. Rather than mindlessly scrolling through your Facebook feed, share a thoughtful comment on a friend’s post or share a good news story that may uplift others. This helps us to feel more connected and purposeful.

4. Practice mindfulness. Highly sensitive people with anxiety who are naturally mindful may be able to manage anxiety better. This is where that double-edged sword comes into play. On the one hand, our heightened awareness can challenge us. But on the other, it can be a great tool for us to recognize when we’re carrying emotional baggage that isn’t ours or notice when we may be overthinking.

5. Take the middle path. Balance is important. Spending too much time in isolation may result in even greater overwhelm in stimulating situations than you would with a little exposure. But this doesn’t mean forcing yourself into chaotic environments. For example, you may dislike loud noise but enjoy live music and dancing. In this way, perhaps you take the time to be in a loud-ish place while enjoying your sensory experience.

6. Practice self-compassion. Practice patience and kindness with yourself. Remember that along with the challenges of being a highly sensitive person with anxiety, your sensitivity brings many gifts. Tune into the kind version of you by remembering the advice you’d offered a stressed friend.

What do you do to cope with anxiety as a highly sensitive person? What are your triggers? I’d love to hear from other highly sensitive people out there.

How to Manage Performance Anxiety as an HSP

How to Manage Performance Anxiety as an HSP

by | Mar 24, 2018 | Anxiety, Highly Sensitive Person

Do you struggle to manage performance anxiety as a highly sensitive person? Despite it being quite common to feel anxious about things like public speaking and musical performances, it still feels like a mystery to so many of us when it comes to how we manage performance anxiety effectively.

Highly sensitive people may be more susceptible to performance anxiety. Our very have very active minds, as well as our tendencies to self-criticize and experience sensory overwhelm can make performance anxiety worse. Let me illustrate with a story.

Recently, I had the privilege of presenting for the Quiet Collective Conference, an online conference specifically for introverted women building businesses to change the world.

What you don’t know is just how dreadful my process was leading up to that event in managing my performance anxiety.

The topic I presented was on building sensitive courage and overcoming anxiety as an introverted entrepreneur. When asked to present, I felt a little anxious, but thought, “This is my life. I can do this,” and agreed.

Here’s the thing. I don’t know if it’s my high sensitivity, introversion, or anxiety–perhaps a combination, but there are moments when I struggle to articulate myself despite being able to at other times. It can be really frustrating when my knowledge and experience doesn’t come out of my mouth the way I wish it would.

So much goes on in my mind. The depth of processing information that happens in my brain easily takes me off on a tangent. Well, this is exactly what happened the first time I tried to record the conference with the organizer, Casey.

A couple of slides in, I got flustered and froze, and I asked to stop.

I felt frazzled by the interface of my computer, the slides, and the camera. I hadn’t yet figured out how to manage my performance anxiety in this realm because the interface of online presentations was new to me. Despite my experience delivering eulogies, my grad school commencement speech, and teaching yoga, I couldn’t talk to a computer.

When I got offline that night, I cried. I felt like a failure and the self-criticism began to sneak into my psyche. At the same time, I knew I could get a handle on my thoughts and manage my performance anxiety.

Thankfully, the organizer offered me an opportunity to give it another go. The second time my presentation was a success. It wasn’t perfect, but I was able to roll with it and be myself.

I’d like to share with you how I managed my performance anxiety.

How to Manage Performance Anxiety as a Highly Sensitive Person

1) Reframe anxiety. Work with anxiety rather than against it. Anxiety doesn’t have to be all bad. By working with anxiety, we can start to see anxiety differently allowing it to exist while moving on with our lives. I wrote a blog about this that you may find helpful: “Feeling Anxious? How to Cognitively Reframe Anxiety”

2) Let go of perfection. Just before I redid my online presentation, my dad told me, “Even if things don’t go well, it’s not the end of the world.” We make mistakes and mess up, but life continues. And usually, the only one who really remembers is us.

3) Be yourself. You know what really helped me manage my performance anxiety? I gave myself permission to mess up and fumble with my words. So when it happened during my presentation, I was able to correct myself, make a joke, and continue.

4) Apply grounding skills. I used a grounding technique from a therapeutic technique called Brainspotting, specifically, the “Resource Model”. I explain how this technique works here: “A Mindfulness Exercise to Cope with Anxiety“. Any grounding techniques you find beneficial will do.

5) Change your self-talk. Remember you’ve got what it takes. My partner reminded me of this the evening when I had a meltdown. He asked me, “What would you say to me if I were in your shoes?” He used my own tools to support me. Be kind to yourself the way you would to a friend.

It’s funny, as I write this, I’m preparing for my upcoming retreats to Peru. I’m feeling a bit nervous wanting everything to go “right”. But then I remember that nothing ever goes exactly as planned. It’s all part of the adventure and what’s give our lives meaning…something so many of use sensitive people dig.

Do you struggle to manage performance anxiety as a highly sensitive person? If so, in what circumstances and how do you manage performance anxiety? Feel free to drop a comment below.

Mindful Camino Lesson #4: You must prepare for spontaneity

Mindful Camino Lesson #4: You must prepare for spontaneity

by | Sep 29, 2017 | Anxiety, Grief and Loss, Personal Growth, Self Care

“You must plan to be spontaneous.” – David Hockney

A couple years ago, I attended a workshop taught by James Boag, who teaches applied yoga philosophy. He mentioned the above quote and it’s been with me ever since. Yet, I began to understand it at a deeper level while walking on the Camino de Santiago.

I’ll explain what I learned on the Camino, but first, let’s take a look at preparation and spontaneity.

If you’re a planner, you might be drawn to having an element of control and certainty in your life. But you may also know the limitations of trying to prepare and account for every detail of a life trajectory, event, and so forth. Plans often go awry and require improvisation and adjustment.

If you’re a fly by the seat of your pants kind of person, you might avoid planning. You might take risks simply trusting that things will work out. After all, you want an opportunity to change your mind and join the adventure of life.

And then maybe you’re a bit of both like me. You see, I’m a planner. I like my life to be organized and I prefer to know what’s coming on my calendar. Anyone who has known me as a colleague or partner would attest to this. At the same time, spontaneity fills me with a sense of adventure and I like the freedom I feel when I’m spontaneous.

The thing is, I haven’t always integrated these two parts of me into the balance I think is necessary.

What I Learned About Spontaneity on the Camino de Santiago

Many people take a year to prepare to hike a journey like this. It requires some diligent planning with respect to logistics, packing lists…and physical preparedness.

I booked my ticket just two months before my departure. And while I spent some time on logistics and loads of time packing, I did not give adequate attention to my body.

My weekend hikes did little to prepare me since the Midwest is mostly flat. Yoga and occasional biking may have done something. But I failed to engage in regular weight-bearing exercises, as well as see a doctor before leaving (the knee issue was not new).

Instead, I remembered my 29-year old body hiking a five-day trek in Colombia with challenging inclines and long days. I remembered my 27-year old body hiking straight up volcanoes for hours in Guatemala. I conveniently avoided thinking about my 33-year old knee that cried out in pain two years ago while hiking through a canyon in Utah with a heavy pack. I really assumed that if I had some initial pain on the Camino, my body would adapt eventually. And I was wrong.

But here’s the thing. What I came out of that experience realizing was not just I need to prepare extensively just before a trek like that, but that I need to prepare all year round. That is, if I want to be spontaneous when I’m called to adventure, I have to already be prepared in my body. This means I start now–well, as soon as I get medical advice on my knee.

Thankfully, there’s a part of me that was very prepared during my Camino…

The Deeper Reason We Must Balance Spontaneity and Planning

It’s become increasingly apparent to me that the balance between preparation and spontaneity is vital to living a healthy, full life. And I’ll tell you why.

There’s the obvious reason that too much impulsivity can be destructive, like in the example of the Camino. And rigidity can be too. Trust me, if I were married to my plans going exactly as hoped for every retreat I lead, I’d be a mess.

But I do see preparation as something we must do physically, mentally, and emotionally every step of our lives so that when our plans for life go off course, we can adapt without overwhelm and debilitating anxiety.

I think back to the months leading up to my stepmom’s passing earlier this year. My dad would often talk about how he was preparing for an emotional marathon by way of his workouts and seeking support from loved ones. This was his way of planning to survive the loss.

I, too, have undertaken a lifetime of mental preparation for various challenges to come in my life.

My mental strength was not enough to get me through the Camino physically. It got me through the pain for a while all right, but it couldn’t overpower the cry from my body telling me to stop. In this sense, my mind was more than I could ever have asked for in helping me arrive at the decision to stop my Camino. Trust me, that was one of the largest challenges.

If I can recommend one piece of advice for preparing for spontaneity it is to take time for self-care. That is, take time to get to know yourself–your emotions, your mental tendencies, your body. And then take time to nourish each of those areas of your life.

Mindful Camino Lesson #3: Stop Hiding Your Scars

Mindful Camino Lesson #3: Stop Hiding Your Scars

by | Sep 28, 2017 | Anxiety, Personal Growth, Self Care, Trauma

Scars. We all have scars and we all hide them. Today I’ll share with you one of my biggest insecurities, as well as some steps to embrace your scars.

I confess that my insecurity is rather superficial. As deep as some of my thinking may be, at times I get down on myself in a petty way.

We have visible and invisible scars that leave imprints on our lives. Yet, scars tend to have one thing in common: shame. Shame comes when we lack acceptance of our imperfections. We often see ourselves as flawed and unworthy…of love, success, belonging, happiness, etc. We struggle to see ourselves as whole. You don’t have to look far to see how prevalent lack of self-worth is in our society.

The Scar That Makes Me Self-Conscious

I have my share of emotional scars. But it’s the physical scars that make me feel insecure. I’ve dealt with acne for a whopping 23 years of my life. Its severity has waned at times, but it has always been a part of my life.

I love being my most natural self. I feel best when I’m barefoot and braless. I have two gray hairs that I adore. Feeling free of societal concepts of beauty is what makes me feel alive and feminine. But then there’s my concealer…

My concealer has been my crutch for years to cover up pimples and scarring. I’ve tried multiple elimination diets, dermatologists, medications, and natural remedies, but little changed.

And when people ask you what’s wrong with your skin–you tend to want to hide it. So that’s what I did. I used to get anxious and sometimes angry when a boyfriend would watch me put on makeup. I wouldn’t crash at a friend’s if I didn’t have my beloved concealer to go to brunch the next day. I envied the “perfect skin” people I’d meet.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve had this idea in my head of people saying, “Melissa would be pretty…if just her skin…” Do we all have these inner imaginary voices?

Removing My Mask on the Camino de Santiago

I wore a little concealer on the first day of the Camino. But the next day, I awoke with a sense of simplicity, so my concealer stayed buried deep in my backpack.

I encountered many pilgrims that evening at the albergue. No one commented on my skin. They all asked about my knees.

A couple of days later, when I sent a bag of belongings away to lighten my load, my concealer and a couple of other small makeup items went with it. I didn’t even think twice. I was ready to spend the next 10 days unmasked.

And I did. I got used to not thinking about my skin other than to wash it and apply sunscreen. I got so used to not wearing makeup that when I actually arrived in a larger city and went out to a restaurant with my fellow pilgrims, I didn’t even think about my scars. And you know what?

I’m not saying I’ll never wear makeup again. But I developed a sense of freedom and self-love in my process of allowing myself to be vulnerable and embracing my skin as it is.

There is great strength and empowerment in allowing our scars to show, whether physical or emotional.

How to Embrace Your Scars

  1. Remember you’re not alone. Everyone has scars. If you’ve experienced past trauma, you’re not alone. If you have stretch marks, you’re not alone. If you’ve lost a breast, you’re not alone. When we realize this, we have an ability to choose to share our scars openly to encourage and support those around us.
  2. Give up perfection. We need to let the unattainable illusions of magazines and Instagram go. I am seeing a trend toward more people sharing photos of cellulite and talking about their depression openly on social media, and I think this is the path. If you want to be perfect, be the real and authentic you. That is perfection.
  3. Embrace your scars. So, in the case of a more profound scar like emotional abuse, that scar is part of your story, but it doesn’t define you. Rather, it’s an indicator of resilience and perhaps lessons learned. I look at my example of acne scarring and I believe it’s made me more compassionate toward others. I have a friend who has struggled with her self-image for years. Her insecurities are different than mine, but I realize we both have them and my scars help me to arrive at greater empathy.
  4. Let your scars shine. When we stop concealing our perceived flaws, we give them less power and stop living in fear. A sense of freedom and love is invited into our bodies and minds. Our scars then can become a tool for sharing our vulnerability, and that vulnerability just might mean the world to someone else.

What scars are you hiding? How are you giving them power?

Mindful Camino Lesson #2: Pain is a Teacher

Mindful Camino Lesson #2: Pain is a Teacher

by | Sep 27, 2017 | Anxiety, Grief and Loss, Highly Sensitive Person, Personal Growth, Self Care, Trauma, Travel

Today I’d like to share a few ways I see pain as one of my greatest teachers.

If you’re human, you’ve experienced pain… many kinds of pain. Loss of a loved one. A broken bone. A break-up. Discrimination. Chronic illness. Bullying. An absent parent.

Sensitive people can be particularly affected by pain. We’re more susceptible to stimulation, and we feel it on multiple levels.

That said, we also have a special skill in transforming pain into the fuel that makes our lives meaningful. I saw this within myself during my recent knee injury while hiking the Camino de Santiago. When pain struck, I used it to learn and make sense of my experience.

So what does pain teach us?

 

1. Pain teaches us resilience.

Sometimes it feels like it’s too much to bear. You may know that feeling intimately.

My knee pain was excruciating, but it paled in comparison to the sudden loss of my mother. Yet, the physical pain on my Camino reminded me of just how much we can endure, particularly if we have healthy coping skills at our disposal.

I met a German woman one day. In the few minutes we chatted, I learned she was carrying her husband’s ashes. He had hiked the Camino de Santiago annually since 2009 until his passing in 2016. This was powerful for me, as the thought of losing my partner is something that makes me anxious. Her sense of ease in carrying him with her made me realize just how strong we really are.

When we can sit with the challenges of our lives and incorporate it into our sense of strength and resilience, we become empowered beings that can handle almost anything.

2. Pain teaches us to listen.

It alerts us to a problem and urges us to listen.

It would have been wise to listen to my body sooner. But I was intent on finding a solution so I could keep walking. Meanwhile, I ignored the call from my body to take rest and made it worse.

Far too often we ignore the physical and emotional pain of our lives. We cope by working harder. We turn to alcohol and drugs as a temporary fix. We’re too good for our own good as we frantically help others while ignoring ourselves.

One of my yoga teachers, Morgan Lee, once said to listen to yellow lights to prevent injury. I’ll take this further and say that yellow lights come in many forms. Sometimes it’s a warning from your body. But maybe it’s a sign that you’re overloading your plate. Or maybe it’s a sign that it’s time to let go of that relationship that feels destructive or imbalanced.

3. Pain teaches us presence

On the Camino de Santiago, it’s very easy to get into “pilgrim mode” of walking quickly without taking time to talk to a local or notice the purple flower growing out of the ground. My injury forced me to pause and appreciate the beauty around me. And when I took the time to notice something other than myself, it helped me manage my pain.

Emotional pain is no different. When we power through or ignore it, we often miss an opportunity. If we allow ourselves to feel pain, then we can tap into a collective experience that all living beings share. When we are present with pain and notice how it shows up, we have an opportunity to reflect and transform it.

4. Pain teaches us gratitude

I caregive for a woman who had a stroke five years ago and spends her days sitting in a chair. She and her husband used to hike and travel all over the world. Now he goes alone.

While she has good days and bad days, she frequently talks about being thankful for her family and travel experiences. She’s thankful for the days when she’s not in as much pain. I thought of her a lot during my Camino.

I felt grateful for my ability to walk despite the pain. I felt grateful for the moment. I felt grateful for my breath, my eyes, and my ears. I felt grateful for the earth and trees, and all of the things that are more powerful than pain. I felt grateful for the small moments I photographed (see below).

Ultimately, that gratitude is what led me to stop my Camino. I thought of this woman and how her Camino shifted to an “inner camino” years ago.

That, my friends, is what the Camino de Santiago is all about for me. It was never about arriving, but about how we face ourselves and live as the highest expression of who we can be.

What have you learned from pain in your life? I’d love to hear from you if you feel inclined to share.

Feeling Anxious? How to Cognitively Reframe Anxiety

Feeling Anxious? How to Cognitively Reframe Anxiety

by | Sep 23, 2017 | Anxiety, Personal Growth

This post was republished with permission from www.tinybuddha.com. You can find the original post here: “3 Empowering Ways to Reframe Anxiety: Work With It, Not Against It”.

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life—and only then will I be free to become myself.” ~Martin Heidegger

If you are a lifelong anxiety warrior like me, you’ve been on a journey of ups and downs.

Anxiety fills our whole bodies. Tension. Heart pounding. Sometimes I feel like my heart must be visibly pulsating so much so that if there are others around, they can see it.

There are varying levels and types of anxiety, including clinical disorders. But the thing that we have in common is that at times we feel intense despair—like the world is caving in on us. We can feel literally stuck and life may even feel meaningless.

But what if anxiety isn’t always negative? What if we could begin to see it differently?

I’m going to share with you three archetypes that I use to cognitively reframe anxiety. Seeing anxiety in these ways has helped me feel more empowered in my journey.

First, I’d like to share a short story about my journey with anxiety.

I began to experience anxiety in early childhood. My parents divorced when I was three—about the same time I developed asthma.

The back and forth visits between my parents were hard on me. Just as I’d get comfortable in one place with one set of rules, it was time to change. I felt an internal struggle to be one Melissa in two different households.

I was sick a lot as a child and was routinely hospitalized each year for my asthma. I also pretended to be sick at times to stay home because the transition back to school felt so overwhelming. Missing school only created more anxiety as I tried to catch up.

To complicate matters, I grew up with a mom who could be very nurturing, but wildly unstable at times. Many of my fears and anxieties arose throughout my youth when my mom would spend months, sometimes years, in bed with some ambiguous illness no doctor could diagnose.

I believe the peacemaker and people pleasing roles I often served in my family played a part in developing my highly sensitive and empathetic nature.

Anxiety continued to visit me frequently throughout my youth and into adulthood as I contemplated my place in the world while healing past trauma.

When I was in graduate school, I talked to my therapist about medication. I was grieving the sudden death of my mom and was in constant struggle with anxiety. While there are cases that necessitate medication, I chose to explore other routes.

Today I still encounter feelings of self-doubt, abandonment, thoughts about death, my purpose, not fitting into the societal mold, and so forth. Some of these issues tie into what we might call existential anxiety, the anxiety that arises when we contemplate our life’s existence.

What has helped me to understand anxiety’s true nature is to work with anxiety rather than against it. By working with anxiety, we can start to see the light in anxiety rather than a dark monster. These are the archetypes I have assigned to anxiety to reflect that light.

Cognitive Reframing Approach #1: Anxiety as Motivator

A few years ago I attended a workshop in Mexico City on existential psychotherapy. One of the key concepts in existentialism is that anxiety is a core human experience that moves us toward growth and development. Because we know our time is limited and we all grapple with big, unanswerable questions, we feel anxiety about existence itself, and about making our lives matter. This anxiety calls us to be ourselves and live with purpose as we examine our lives.

Becoming a yoga instructor was one of the most terrifying times of my life. Despite years of public speaking and outreach as a social worker, finding my teaching voice was different. It was scary, as I doubted my capacity to bring a tradition I revered so much to others in a meaningful way.

Now when I face anxiety before teaching, I ask it to help me tap into the human anguish that my students face in other ways to best support them. It fuels my purpose of sharing my own vulnerability from the heart.

Some amount of anxiety is healthy and compels us to ask ourselves who we are, why we’re here, and where we’re going. Anxiety typically relates to these questions under the surface. The exception would be if we are talking about a specific fear, like spiders.

There is a difference between existential anxiety (which calls us to live with meaning) and pathological forms of anxiety (which deeply impair our ability to function). When anxiety becomes a problem, it becomes a disorder; yet, the treatment (cognitive behavioral therapy, talk therapy, etc.) is typically the same.

How does anxiety show up in your life as a motivator? Does it move you toward action?

Cognitive Reframing Approach #2: Anxiety as Teacher

When I encounter pain, particularly as it relates to anxiety, grief, and family conflict, I try to remember to ask myself, “What is there to learn here?” By asking this question, I take myself out of the role of victim and into the role of an empowered learner.

Because we see anxiety as a mental health problem, we forget that anxiety is not just living in the brain. It fills us with sensations and emotions in our bodies as our beliefs and old stories play out. Something is happening within us that is requesting our presence. Anxiety can help us to become more aware of what needs greater attention and love.

As an empath, I am prone to absorbing the emotions of others. There are moments when I experience anguish because of a painful time someone else is having. My body tightens up and feels suffocated when this happens.

When this occurs, I become more aware of what is happening and that I need to change something. It’s a cue to me that I need to do something with the suffering I’m feeling. It’s time to get on my yoga mat or go for a walk or maybe it’s a cue that I need to set boundaries in a relationship.

How does anxiety show up in your life as a teacher? What do you learn from anguish?

Cognitive Reframing Approach #3: Anxiety as Liberator

Wait, what? That was my reaction when I wrote the word. Allow me to explain.

As a society, we pathologize despair are taught anxiety is a sickness, which leads to us feeling bad about feeling bad. But since anxiety is a natural part of being human, it’s inevitable that it will surface. Even though I feel alone with anxiety sometimes, I try to remember I’m part of a collective experience of confusion, doubt, and suffering.

Sometimes anxiety arrives in my life and I’m able to take a moment to realize its origin. I notice that behind that anxiety is often very deep compassion, very deep fear, very deep desire to be a better person, and so forth. I then can see anxiety as a very deep capacity to experience the spectrum of human emotions and allow them to coexist.

Anxiety can either be avoided by living on the surface, as existential psychotherapist Emmy Van Deurzen puts it, or it can be deeply embraced as an inherent part of our being. If we choose to avoid it, it will smack us in the face later in life.

When we can start to observe anxiety in this way, we start to see it for what it is. We see that joy and anguish can exist together. We can lean into it discomfort rather than avoid. And through this process, we can begin to feel a sense of freedom.

What if anxiety is not something wrong with you but just part of the path?

The ideas I outlined might take a little time to resonate. I encourage you to sit with them and feel into each archetype before reaching any conclusion.

**I am not suggesting that reframing anxiety in this way can cure severe clinical disorders. My intention is to provide a thought-provoking piece to explore as a complement to any professional treatment you may receive now or in the future.