SUPPORT FOR ANXIETY

Whether you’ve been struggling with mild or pervasive anxiety, you know it can plant some pretty harsh core beliefs about yourself over time. Anxiety and fear can diminish your sense of self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-trust. This produces secondary feelings of shame, guilt, and regret around your choices or inability to make decisions out of fear of x, y, and z. You may start to unintentionally shrink your life as you avoid situations that could possibly bring about more shame or pain, but this also puts a limit on joy and connection. Feeling disconnected from yourself and others, you sit trapped in your own negative thoughts. For many, anxiety feels like self-sabotage. When will I break free of this?

If you’ve felt plagued by chronic worry, overwhelm, dread or panic, know you can absolutely learn to live another way. It is never too late to rewire these rigid patterns and find ease!

QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF:

• Do you find yourself frequently ruminating about past regrets, feared future scenarios, and the never-ending “what ifs?”

• Do you feel a lost sense of purpose and confusion about what you should be doing in your life?

• Do you attempt to cope with uncertainty by overplanning and overpreparing, costing you growth, presence, and flexibility in your life?

• Do you experience decision fatigue or chronic indecisiveness, keeping you stuck from taking action on important goals?

• Are you struggling to assume a new role because of imposter syndrome? Are you often comparing yourself to others, left feeling inadequate?

• Is your anxiety interfering with your ability to form deep and lasting relationships?

• Can you notice a pattern of unhealthy perfectionism in yourself — overachieving or hiding behind achievement, and still feeling worthless and exhausted?

• Out of fear around change, do you catch yourself thinking, “I would rather stay stuck here in this familiar pain than face a whole new kind of pain?”

• Do you have a tendency towards people-pleasing to feel more confident, accepted, or a sense of purpose or achievement? Is this often accompanied by compulsive self-sacrificing that leaves little room for self-care?

• Do you have difficulty concentrating that gets in the way of productivity or simply being present in the moment?

• Are you exhausted from experiencing, avoiding, and/or hiding the various physiological symptoms of anxiety (e.g., racing heart, shallow breathing, muscle tension, brain fog, nausea, fatigue, impaired sleep, nightmares, stomach tightness, light-headedness, restlessness, sweating or hot flashes, feelings of constriction and irritability, etc.)?

• Are you curious about how your chronic and pervasive anxiety may be contributing to depression (or other possible comorbidities)?