Anxiety Archives - Page 2 of 2

Did you ever see in yourself, or another, a fear of power? Power has such negative connotations: anger, rage, aggression, controlling, authoritarian. Yet when we are genuinely powerful we are confident, both in our abilities and in our interpersonal relationships; we feel in control of the world around us, our lives and we are more in control of our emotional state. We have high levels of self esteem, we can be spontaneous, we are assertive: we are resilient.

Our fear of our own power stops us from owning our power. When we own our power we are more able to own our vulnerability. We can drop the mask and be fully ourselves. We can both give and receive, we can please ourselves instead of just pleasing others all the time. When we own our power we have healthy boundaries: we can say ‘no!’ so that others cannot transgress our boundaries and bully, abuse or manipulate us.

High self esteem, healthy boundaries, a strong sense of self are dependent on our relationship with anger. Anger is another word that often comes with negative associations. We think of anger as bad: as aggression, violence, explosive rage. We may have picked up messages about anger from seeing too much – violence or aggression or fighting (lack of protection) – or from parents who did not approve of anger, whether that be the child’s (lack of support or acceptance) or their own (we don’t do anger in our family). Whatever the reason, we learn to be ashamed or fearful of our own anger, or believe ‘I just don’t do anger’. Yet anger is a healthy emotion. Healthy anger defends self against threat, physical or metaphorical; it enables the child to set healthy boundaries of self and another. Anger is key in helping us to become an individual, autonomous self; differentiated from the ‘other’.

So our fear of our power is related to our fear of our anger. As Ms Williamson says, it is a fear of limits. Not a fear that we are inadequate, perhaps more a fear that we are limitless. Perhaps we were too ‘limited’ in childhood, there was too much control or restraint, too many rules or expectations. Perhaps we didn’t have enough limits, perhaps our boundaries were too loose and we ‘got away with murder’. The tiny container of the child, needs the larger container of the adult to teach him or her limits. Imagine a 2 year old (the terrible two’s) having a raging temper tantrum, and a mother who is ‘powerful’ enough to hold the child in her embrace or gaze, to be with him in his anger, until he calms down. This ‘good enough’ mother in that moment, is teaching the child many important things: that anger is ok, it can be contained, it is not limitless; that he is ok, his anger can be allowed, he can express himself; she is teaching him to own his power. Just one example.

Our lack of power, our low self esteem stems from not having our basic needs met as children. Whether physical or symbolic, our basic needs are for nurture, support, protection, place, and limits. There are many examples, for many of us, where parents didn’t adequately provide for these needs. There’s no such thing as an ideal parent, it’s simply not achievable. It’s never about blame, parents do the best they can. Human development is unique in that we spend at least 20 per cent of our childhood dependent on others to meet our basic needs (versus around 1-3 per cent in the animal kingdom). It’s our responsibility, as adults, to change that, to take control. By becoming aware of our lack of resilience, of where we aren’t yet owning our power, we can begin to understand what we need to do to heal and become more fully ourself.

For anyone in Stafford or surrounding area who needs to learn to relax and calm their anxiety, hypnotherapy can be a good way to start. Anxiety can have many origins. Often we think it is genetic but that is often far from the case. There is what can seem a surprising link between anxiety and anger. If you think about it, we are often afraid of anger – ours and others – so keeping it down, under control can cause anxiety.

But also, if our anger (or any of our emotions for that matter) has not been embraced by others, and I am talking those important others in our earliest years (our parents or caretakers), anxiety can be a response. When I say ’embraced’ I mean two things mainly. That we are lovingly, physically held and embraced, for example a child having a temper tantrum. And that we are embraced in a more symbolic way, through accepting kind words. In this way, our powerful (negative) emotions are contained (or limited, to give it its psychological term), we learn that they can be contained, and not overwhelm us and we learn that all of us is acceptable. Thus we learn to accept ourselves, and trust all the responses that come from our depths.

If we don’t have this, we grow up with a need to repress or control parts of our self that we fear may not be ‘controllable’. Whilst I am not going into the detail of this important concept in this piece, I think that when I say it is important that we learn to love and accept ourselves – truly, madly deeply – most people will understand this on some level. By doing this work on ourselves, we can live with more freedom, spontaneity, creativity and energy.

This self hypnosis practice – based on the concept of learning to really love yourself – can be a good start: listen to the Loving Yourself practice here.

Have you ever realised what a crazy monkey your brain is? Have you ever been still enough to realise what tricks it gets up to and what considerable energy it uses? Constantly commenting on this or that.

Putting interpretations on things, making judgements – good or bad, right or wrong, like or dislike, nice or nasty. This constant need to comment, to judge is the default operation of our minds. It gives us a way to make sense of the world, gives us an illusion of control.

However, when the mind has become still; when its fluctuations and disturbances have ceased and the waves of activity have become still like a windless still sea, its natural tendency is to observe. To remain a dispassionate observer – and to develop what Buddhists call ‘witness consciousness. This is a mind that, when something happens externally that might provoke a reaction of extreme pleasure or displeasure in someone else, says “We’ll wait and see”. It is a state of mind that is simply not interested in deciding ‘this or that’ but is content to ‘be’. Far from being a way to disconnect from the world, or dissociate ourselves from feelings; it is a way of living deeper, more embodied with our whole self and with far more energy and health. There is a lovely zen story to illustrate this state of mind.

There once was an old farmer, who lived in a remote region of the mainland, where the terrain is rough and the villagers manage to eek out a meagre existence only through hard work and the grace of God. One day someone left the gate open on the farmer’s pasture, and his only horse ran away. Now this was a very grave situation, indeed, as in these parts it is said that one horse is worth ten sons or the earnings of a lifetime. The villagers, hearing of this great loss, came to console the farmer. With pity in their eyes of those who are glad it did not happen to them, the villagers shook their heads and moaned in unison that the running off of a horse is a terrible thing. The farmer, who was very wise, accepted their consolations, and shaking his head, muttered calmly, “We’ll just wait and see.”

Within a week the horse had returned, bringing with it three wild ponies of such magnificence only heard of in the ancient fables. The villagers all came to witness and marvel at these wondrous creatures, and some brought gifts in the hope of incurring favour as now the farmer was a very rich man. With envy in their eyes, the villagers applauded the farmer for his good fortune. But the farmer appeared unmoved, and showing neither pride nor excitement, accepted their blessings, stating calmly, “We’ll just wait and see.”

Three days later, after the villagers had gone home, the farmer’s only son was out breaking in the new ponies. But their magnificence was matched by an unexpected strength, and the second pony threw and trampled the farmer’s son, leaving him near dead with two broken legs. There were tears in the old peasant’s eyes as he carried his child off the field. The son survived the critical period, and his bones were set, but as the villagers gathered to hear the news and lend support, the doctor could not pronounce if the son would ever walk again. With eyes like smug rodents whose faith in themselves is confirmed when ill fortune attends to a lucky man, the villagers shook their heads, lamenting what a tragedy had occurred for the farmer, who now had a cripple for a son. The old farmer thanked them for their concern and condolences, calmly saying, “We’ll just wait and see.”

The farmer’s son did begin to recuperate, but it took a long time. The farmer was now poorer than ever, as he had no son to accompany him in the fields, and no one wanted to buy the ponies because they were afraid. Yet, by the help of occasional gifts and his own labour, he managed to gather just enough to feed his family, always giving the best of whatever he had to his son to encourage his recuperation. During this time the other villager’s flourished as much as poor villagers can, and as those who are better off are wont to do, they were generous with their sympathy for the farmer for having a crippled child.

For no reason that had anything to do with the village, the king from his palace far off in the capital city declared war on a neighbouring country. That was how it came to be that in the spring, just as the old farmer’s son was taking his first steps, the government officials appeared with orders to conscript all the able-bodied young men into the army. The only son in the entire village who was not drafted was the old farmer’s.

“How lucky you are, old man! We are sending our children, our very seed off to war, probably to die,” one or another of the villagers yelled out as they bade farewell to their departing sons. Full of tears, their eyes showed no particular emotion toward the farmer, so overcome were they with their own grief.

The farmer watched the leave-taking, and his heart went out to the villagers as he was a kind and compassionate man. So, he answered softly, “We’ll just wait and see.”

One of the main ways in which we can start to regain some order and peace over the crazy monkey of the mind is through meditation. However even simple sitting is hard for many beginners as the mind is so busy. So a thought record diary can be a real help to at least make you aware of what the mind is up to.

This simple daily chart will allow you to monitor and track your ‘ticker-tape’ thoughts and is the first step in regaining control of the mind (the final aim being that you can ‘let go’ and let the ’embodied mind’ just ‘be’ – but there is some work to be done before that can happen. It’s a lovely process though!

Click here to sign up to my next Personal Development workshop on Sunday 12 November.

So What Lies Beneath Panic Disorder/Attacks?

Rather than a ‘mental disorder’ this is a disorder of our system. A fault in the operating system, like a virus on the hard drive. It is a product of living in a chronic emergency mode of attention: the sympathetic nervous system is in permanent overdrive. Like a car that has the accelerator stuck to the floor. Sometimes this chronic engagement in the ‘fear, flight or fight’ mode is the ‘system’s’ way of keeping fearful or high-intensity memories and feelings at bay. And often the cause of panic attacks is routed in a highly stressful or traumatic event.

When the accelerator is stuck to the floor like this, we live in a state of chronic narrow focused attention. Our brain is in overdrive, with high intensity thoughts that are one tracked, tunnel vision thinking, focused on the fear. Our body is flooded with the stress hormones of cortisol, noradrenaline etc which shut down non-essential blood supply, such as that to higher regions of the brain. So we are actually less able to think ‘big picture’ and therefore less able to problem solve and put things in perspective. And this narrow focus keeps us in the high state of anxiety; we literally can’t see the wood for the trees.

“Anxiety is the state of twentieth-century man.” ~ Norman Mailer

If this is true, perhaps panic disorder is its 21st century progeny? Panic attacks are horrible: they come on suddenly, for no apparent cause, characterised by a severe fear that can peak within 10 mins. This is accompanied by symptoms such as excessive sweating, nausea, disturbing thoughts about harming oneself or others, fear of loss of control or that you are becoming insane.

For me, the Edvard Munch painting ‘The Scream’ – pictured right – epitomises this condition, which both men and women suffer and which can have a negative effect on a person’s life. Many sufferers struggle with this condition for many years, and can give up hope of ever getting better or refuse to believe their condition is treatable. In many ways this is understandable, when this disorder has you in its grip, it is a very scary place to be.

Nevertheless, this is the most treatable mental disorder. And treatment is very effective. When I am working with my clients, regardless of what condition they have, I tell them ‘it won’t last’. Of course, I know they will get better, but often people experience rapid changes in a session or two, and can get very ‘attached’ to this change. And of course, such change indicates that ‘the system’ is learning. Whilst changes do happen quickly, it is important that people know that the system has a mind of its own that needs time and practice to make lasting change. Otherwise, they will too easily become disheartened.

Treatment

But the nervous system is very malleable and these chronic symptoms can be reversed. In order to release the long-held anxiety we need to educate our system into moving into a softer, more ‘open focused’ way of being. This involves sedating the sympathetic nervous system and tonifying the parasympathetic nervous system.

Embodied Living works initially on the somatic mind, using practices such as:

yin yoga and yoga therapy – calming, nurturing and supportive practices
breath work – re-educating the breathing system
self-hypnosis and deep relaxation techniques
mindfulness-based practices such as Open Focus and antar mouna – to help us shift our style of attention
biofeedback – using heart rate variability and brain wave monitoring to coach the system into coherence

Once our body-mind and physiology have normalised, and the system is more in balance, we can then work on the cognitive mind. By working with NLP and cognitive behaviour techniques we can learn to change our thinking. And psychotherapy can also help us to understand the emotional causes of anxiety.

Do you realised how anxiety is linked to breathing and how by changing your breathing you can help your anxiety. Recently I have been working a lot with clients who have a high degree of anxiety. Their symptoms range from panic, over worrying, phobias, chest pains, blurred vision, impaired ability to think clearly, headaches, inability to focus, loss of memory, muscle pain, dizziness and sleep problems.

The funny thing is that these symptoms are also the result of hyperventilation (over breathing) and other breathing disorders. When we hyperventilate, we are breathing mainly through the chest.

Test yourself:

sit in a comfortable position on the chair or on the floor
place your right hand on the centre of your chest, the heart area, in between the nipples
place your left hand on your belly, just below your navel
begin to breathe in your own way, your normal breath

Do you feel the movement more beneath your left or right hand? If the right hand is moving more you are chest breathing.

Chest breathing results in a shallow breath. As the breath is shallow too much carbon dioxide is exhaled and body becomes more alkaline, this (alkylosis) triggers the neuro-hormonal, physiological responase which increases breathing rate and also the anxiety itself.

An initial activating event (a conflict with your boss, perhaps) may have caused the breathing response (and the initial anxiety) but the breathing then propagates the anxiety. Thus we have entered a vicious circle of anxiety.

How we breathe, and how we feel are intimately connected in a two-way loop. Which means that we can change the way we feel by changing our breathing. This will help anxiety.

However, before I move on to that it is also important to know that chest breathing can cause tension and pain because it uses the wrong muscles, such as the sternocleidomastoid and upper trapezius in the neck, pectoralis and latisimus dorsi in the trunk. These muscles soon get tired and weak, because they are not designed for primary breathing, and this can lead to aches and pains in the neck, shoulders and upper back.

The diaphragm is the main breathing muscle and produces 80% of the inhalation. The diaphragm is attached to the ribcage and the lumbar spine. When we breathe using the diaphragm, the belly moves; it moves out on the inhale and releases back as we breathe out.

Diaphragmatic breathing has many benefits over chest breathing to help anxiety:

it massages the internal organs and reduces the symptoms of IBS and other digestive problems (common with anxiety)
it activates the vagus nerve and stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and reduces the release of the stress hormone cortisol, so that we feel less anxious and more relaxed
as the diaphragm is connected to the heart, it acts as a second heart and means that less stress is put on the heart when we use the proper breathing muscle to breathe

“Attitude is very consequential stuff. It determines everything one does, from falling in love to voting for one candidate rather than another” ~ Anthony Grayling, philosopher

Many of us realise how important attitude is in determining our success and happiness in life. We may also realise that, with the wrong attitude, we can spend a lot of energy worrying. But when we say ‘he or she has a great attitude’, what do we mean?

What is our evidence of this ‘attitude’? Attitude comprises three components (or the TEA model of existence):

thoughts (T) – what we think or believe about things
emotions (E) – the feelings or emotions we experience (most often in our body)
actions (A) – our behaviour and how we act

Thoughts, emotions and behaviour do influence each other in an interchangeable, mutually dependable relationship: if I am nervous and anxious about an exam tomorrow, and stay up all night worrying about it, this is unlikely to change my view that ‘I always do crap at exams’.

However, it is Thoughts which are the master regulator of this interdependent system. When it comes to attitude the emphasis is on thinking as thinking powerfully influences how we feel and behave.

And what we think and how we think can be changed; we can learn new strategies to literally ‘change our minds’ and stop worrying!

I had an interesting coaching session on this the other day that reminded me of the relationship between thoughts, emotions and behaviour and how, sometimes, people can find it almost impossible to separate them out. It is only when you can see them as separate components within a system that you can start to take control of them to work to your advantage.

My coachee had a particular issue with clients who were disatisfied and called her to make last minute changes to deadlines or tasks. She told me it made her worry and feel anxious and agitated. In this particular context, like any situation of ‘adversity’, it is the meaning that put on the event that is the route cause of any problem!

We ‘stalked’ the issue (the negative feeling) and got her to connect to that and fully realise what that meant in her body (tight stomach, raised temperature, busy head). And then we worked on what she wanted instead (to feel calm, relaxed).

Then we went through the TEA model, looking at the adverse event (phone call from a disatisifed client) and the thoughts and beliefs, and emotions she experienced. It took a couple of attempts to successfully separate the thoughts from the feelings; but when we did it was a real ‘ah ah’ moment for her. It was like she had been blinded by being so associated into the emotional experience that she could see the real culprits: her thoughts!

Then we worked on the thoughts. What would be alternative ways to think about that? What would so-and-so think in this situation? etc. She needed a lot of help with this: not surprising, when someone is learning something about their map of the world that they didn’t know existed!

Then, I got her to read these alternative thought streams out and ‘voila’. She told me ‘now all I feel is calm and relaxed, but with a sense of challenge’, ‘I can rise to this’. And we had it!