Anxiety 101 from a Chicago Anxiety Therapist

Anxiety is a complicated human experience. It ranges from normal (like when a reasonable amount of anxiety can improve your performance on a test or in an athletic competition) to paralyzing (think Chidi from The Good Place who *spoiler alert* literally dies because he cannot make a decision). The experience of anxiety contains emotions such as fear, thoughts and worries about the future, and even physical sensations like a racing heart or sweating. Usually our emotions show up in order to try to help us, but how do I know if my anxiety is showing up in a way that is helping or hurting me? Let’s explore that idea together.

Why do I have to pay attention to my emotions at all?

A big thing we do in our culture is try to suppress our emotional experience unless it is anything less than 100% positive. Unfortunately, suppressing our emotions can lead to all kinds of negative and even dangerous outcomes, including serious physical health problems! Also, since most situations are not 100% positive, we can end up even suppressing our ability to feel positive emotions, since our emotional experiences are almost always mixed. Allowing ourselves to feel our emotions without judging them as good or bad is a huge step toward coping with our emotions effectively. Noticing “what am I feeling right now?” can be incredibly helpful, but it also takes a good deal of skill to be able to be in the present moment that way, to be able to identify emotions, and to be able to then know what to do with them. The good news is that therapy can help develop those skills and broaden your emotional vocabulary (most of us have nowhere near the emotional vocabulary we need in order to be able to express our experiences). The nonjudgmental relationship to your therapist can help model both the language you need and the perspective of neutral curiosity that is so helpful in this process.

But anxiety is miserable. How can I see it as anything but bad?

When it comes to anxiety specifically, those of us who struggle with it more may be hard pressed to identify any way it could be helpful to us. In fact, it can feel like a pretty miserable experience to be anxious. Sometimes it can even feel like physical pain! So how could this possibly be helpful outside of that test taking experience described above? I don’t want to minimize your pain, and a good therapist won’t either. However, part of the pain we feel comes from our judgment of our anxiety as bad. When I judge something as bad, I now not only have any and all emotions attached to the previous thought, but also my guilt, embarrassment, or shame. When I have an anxious thought and think that I “shouldn’t,” my instinct is to try and suppress it or avoid it. Suppressing emotions is like shaking up a bottle of soda – it builds the pressure inside, and when the lid finally comes off, it’s going to be a mess. Avoiding my emotions is like avoiding something moldy in the fridge – it may work for a little while, but that stuff is growing in the meantime.

So how can my anxiety be helpful?

So what if instead of avoiding or suppressing – both of which are going to make my anxiety worse over time – I can be curious about it? Maybe it is trying to signal to me that I care a lot about the situation, and is pointing me toward some of my deep values. Maybe it is trying to warn me of a potentially dangerous situation, and there is something I want to do now to try and help myself in the future. Maybe it is reminding me that bad things happen in life, and that ultimately we cannot prevent those things from happening (and trying to prevent them robs us of the joy in the good moments of life). Maybe it is simply a malfunctioning alarm and we can learn to recognize it as such by exploring it more fully.

Now this may not be something you can just wake up and do tomorrow, especially if you have an anxiety disorder. Regardless of where you are in your relationship with anxiety, though, therapy can help you shift your perspectives, get curious about your emotional experiences, and develop a new and different relationship with our internal worlds. Having a healthy relationship with ourselves sets the tone for us to be able to see our anxiety for what it is – a signal. 

How do I know if my anxiety is normal, or if I need help?

First of all, all of us need some help sometimes. There’s no shame in that! There are a lot of great, accessible options available to help with anxiety, from meditation apps to reducing caffeine intake to taking a regular yoga class and more. However, if you are experiencing anxiety more days than not and it is impacting your ability to do your work, to have fulfilling social relationships, rest and relax during your down time, or even creating health problems (like difficulties with sleep, grinding your teeth, or even more serious problems that your doctor may talk to you about), it might be good to bring a therapist into the mix. While we all have anxious thoughts, a therapist can help you change your relationship to your anxiety, and that can make all the difference.

If you are looking for a Chicago Anxiety Therapist, contact us here for a free 15-minute phone consultation. Our specialties include EMDR therapy, Anxiety Therapy, Cognitive Behavior therapy, Relational/Psychodynamic therapy, and self compassion and mindfulness specialist.