Understanding Your Anxiety—A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Calm, Advocating For Yourself, and Cultivating Inner Resilience

Do you ever feel stuck in anxious thoughts?

Are you longing for more moments of calm throughout your day?

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Every single one of us has a relationship with anxiety. The goal isn't to eradicate anxiety; it’s to work with anxiety to create more peace and balance in our lives. In this episode, I guide you through a clear, step-by-step understanding of your relationship with anxiety. Whether you’re navigating your own anxious moments or supporting loved ones, you'll learn how to identify root causes and key insights needed to find calm and clarity.

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Here’s what we’ll cover:

* How to understand your unique experience with anxiety

* Key root causes of anxiety, including genetics, personality, and environment

* The impact of High Sensitivity (HSP) and neurodivergence on anxiety

* 3 practical techniques to calm anxiety and cultivate strong internal leadership

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Resources:

• Episode 71: All About Therapy—Do I Need a Therapist, How Do I Find One, and What Type of Therapy Works Best?
• Episode 54: Can I Pray My Anxiety Away? A Surprising Approach to the Anxiety Pandemic & How to Walk Yourself & Your Kids Through It with Curtis Chang
• Episode 109: Healing Burdens From the Past—How to Overcome Childhood Wounds and Heal Your Younger Self with Tammy Sollenberger
• Episode 97: I Shouldn't Feel This Anxious—Insights on Trauma & Healing with Monique Koven
• Episode 49: Personality, the Big Five Traits, and Why Are We So Obsessed With Personality Types?
• I Shouldn’t Feel This Way by Dr. Alison Cook
• ‍2 Corinthians 10:5
• ‍Psalm 46:10
• ‍1 Peter 5:7

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Music by Andy Luiten/Sound editing by Kelly Kramarik

© 2024 Alison Cook. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Please do not copy or share the contents of this webpage without permission from the author. While Dr. Cook is a counselor, the content of this podcast and any of the products provided by Dr. Cook are not specific counseling advice nor are they a substitute for individual counseling. The content and products provided on this podcast are for informational purposes only.‍

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Transcript:

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Hey everyone, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Best of You Podcast. I'm so thrilled to be here with you to dive into this healing work we do together every single week. I like to think of this work as soul mending. I see us as soul menders.

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What I mean by that is I see us as people who are rooting ourselves primarily in this work of healing our hearts, our minds, our souls, our nervous systems, and I'm using this word healing as it relates to the Greek word sozo that's used in the Bible. It’s a word that is often translated as salvation–working out your salvation with fear and trembling, but can also be translated as healing. 

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We're here to work out our healing. We want to be people who are healing and we want to be people who are bringing more healing into our families, into our neighborhoods, into our country and into this entire world that God has created. I've never believed more deeply in this work of sozo, this work of healing, more than at this present moment.

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I believe that this work of healing every part of who we are in partnership with God's spirit is the work. It's the most important work that every single one of us is called to do, not only to transform our own inner lives, but also to bring healing to this world.

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This is the work that Jesus calls us to embrace as we follow him, this work of deeper healing, so that we can bring more healing to everyone around us. Truly, every single one of us who is trying to follow Jesus is called in our own way to this work of becoming healers. And we start this work of healing with the parts of our own selves first. 

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Toward that end, today, I want to dive into this topic of anxiety. It's a really timely topic. It's a really relevant topic, whether you are dealing with anxiety yourself, whether you're parenting kids who are feeling anxious, or whether your spouse or friends or loved ones are feeling anxious.

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Most of us in this day and age are well acquainted with that feeling of anxiety, that inner tension of tightness in our bodies. We can't calm ourselves down. We can't find that clear, calm space inside. Maybe your thoughts are racing or convoluted or maybe they're even keeping you awake at night. 

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Maybe you sense that constant sort of nagging worry, tugging at the corners of your mind. And you're finding that sense of calm, that sense of clarity, a little bit harder to access in your life. There's so many different ways that anxiety shows up. Today, I want to give you a little bit of insight into how I approach anxiety. 

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As someone who has sat with so many people over time, where I begin to try to understand that anxious part of them and the different root causes for it, I can share some thoughts on what's going to work best to help restore that reservoir of peace, of calm, of clarity inside of us that we know is the place from which we actually bring more of God's goodness, more of God's healing, more of God's beauty into this world around us.

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Today we're going to look at how anxiety shows up differently, the gifts that it brings us, as well as the burdens. We're going to explore the roots of anxiety, which are often misunderstood and often mismanaged, and we're also going to explore some really practical steps you can take both from the field of psychology and from our spiritual resources, the resources that we have in Christ, to help us heal and lead these anxious parts of us wisely, 

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Remember, these anxious parts that we all have are not bad. They're parts of us that need our attention and our compassion, especially when they start to operate in overdrive.

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Before we get started, a couple of more resources for you from prior episodes. If you're listening and you think, man, I could really use a therapist to help me through this, Episode 71 is called All About Therapy, and I cover in that episode: how do you know if you need a therapist, how do you find a therapist and what type of therapy might work best for your needs. 

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It's super practical. So you can check out that episode. I also had a fascinating conversation with Curtis Chang all about anxiety. It's Episode 54 called, can I pray my anxiety away? And then lastly, in Episode 109, I had a conversation with IFS therapist, Tammy Sollenberger, and we talked all about the new Inside Out 2 movie where anxiety is the central character. There's a lot to learn from that movie and we dive into it in that episode. It's a great resource for you.

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So what is anxiety? Well, in its simplest terms, anxiety is a natural reaction to stress. Sometimes we need our anxiety. When those parts of us that carry anxiety are in balance within our soul, feeling anxious can be constructive. It's part of how God designed us to protect us from danger. 

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So for example, feeling anxious before a job interview or a big deadline can give you energy to focus. It can help you stay alert. That kind of anxiety is actually constructive and it can help you prepare and respond to normal stressors in life.

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Another example: you might feel anxious when you're with someone who's actually unsafe. Maybe they say something cruel or they use a toxic strategy to try to guilt trip you or manipulate you or diminish you, and a part of you starts to feel anxious. You feel uncomfortable. Maybe that fight, flight, flight response kicks in and you want to get away from them or you actually want to fight back and defend yourself. 

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In this case, anxiety is functioning as it should. It's cuing you to danger in front of you that actually needs your attention. Another example where anxiety can be constructive is before or during a major life change or event. You might feel anxious about a move or about getting married or about having a child or about parenting a child or about starting a new job.

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It's normal to feel anxious when there are stressors around you. Again, we don't want to eradicate anxiety altogether. We also don't want that anxiety to become extreme. We don't want to let it take us over. Anxiety is a cue, not to go into overdrive, but instead to downshift a little bit so that you can pay closer attention to what your body, what your heart, what your soul needs from you to get through a stressful time.

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A healthy amount of anxiety can kick in to help us focus, to help us pay attention, to remind us that we need to slow things down and proceed with caution, to be careful, to take good care of ourselves because something hard is happening that's going to require more from us. Maybe we need to take a few other things off our plate, or it might be a cue that something is actually dangerous or unsafe, and we need to figure out how to extract ourselves from that situation or that relationship.

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It might be a cue that we need more support from people who love us and will walk with us through a challenging season. Sometimes anxiety is a cue that you've overextended your capacity, that maybe your own sensitivities or your own limitations or simply your own tank of fuel is running on empty.

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You've exceeded your God given capacity. And in this case, anxiety provides a cue that it's time to step back, to downshift, to reduce some of those external pressures as best you can. 

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So most importantly, when you think about anxiety, what I want you to understand is that number one, we all have a relationship with anxiety. Every single one of us has anxious parts of us at its best. Anxiety is trying to help. It's a cue to pay attention. When you name anxiety for what it is, you can get some healthy distance from it, and then you can lead your anxiety instead of letting anxiety take you over.

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You can learn to let anxiety work for your good instead of against you. But here's the thing: the process of learning to establish that healthy relationship with those parts of you that get anxious takes some time. And when anxiety goes unchecked inside your system, it gets extreme. You start to see the world through the lens of that anxiety.

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Here are some ways that shows up. Number one, you might start to feel tense and agitated and restless in your body all the time. Anxiety often manifests physically. You might notice yourself ruminating. You can't control your anxious thoughts. You might not be able to sleep well. 

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You might not be able to enjoy other people or social contexts because you notice a hyper vigilance. Maybe you're always on guard with other people. You're always seeing the danger all around you, even when it's actually safer than those anxious parts of you feel.

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Sometimes we get stuck in that nervous system fight-flight state, where it's really hard to access that feeling of calm during your day. It's usually not the entire day, but you have those moments where you feel calm, where you feel clear, where you have perspective, where you can release the tension in your body, where you can make good decisions, where you feel connected to other people.

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When anxiety takes over, it robs you of that feeling of calm clarity inside, more days than not. You're in that anxious state where you cannot tap into that calm or that clarity, even when you do those things where typically you can find that spaciousness inside.

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When it's in its proper balance, you might notice anxious feelings, anxious thoughts, but you're able to find your way back to that calm, clear place inside. But when those anxious parts of us take over and they get extreme, and they're starting to take the steering wheel. We can start to feel overwhelmed and even paralyzed. It can be really hard to get through your day when that anxiety runs big in your life.

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No matter what you're experiencing when it comes to anxiety right now, whether it's fairly small in your life and you've got it in a good place, or whether you're someone who's really in anxiety's grip, I want you to hear me say, anxiety is one part of who you are. It is not all of who you are, no matter how much it feels like it is. 

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It's not inherent to your being. And you can find ways to get a healthy distance from anxiety so that your calm, clear, grounded, wise self can start to lead. In order to establish that healthier, relationship with anxiety. We've got to get to the root. We've got to get to the root of the different types of anxiety that you might be experiencing

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Anxiety can stem from a variety of sources. When you don't pinpoint the underlying cause of it, the healing treatment for that anxiety might actually miss the mark. This happens all the time. I want to explore several common roots of anxiety. Each one has its own unique needs when it comes to softening that anxious part of you.

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Number one, trauma-related anxiety. For some people, anxiety is rooted in past trauma. In these cases, anxiety acts as a survival response. It's activated by triggers from outside of you that remind you of past experiences. And a great example of this was a story shared by my guest Monique Koven back in Episode 97. 

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She told her story of experiencing intense anxiety and fight or flight response in her kitchen that was actually rooted in her childhood trauma. And what happened for Monique is when she went to seek help for that anxiety, the treatment that she got didn't help.

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They didn't recognize that this response was rooted in trauma, in her childhood wounds. The treatment they gave her actually exacerbated her anxiety. If that's been your experience, go back and listen to Episode 97. It's super helpful to see how sometimes what people tell us we should do for our anxiety is not in fact helpful.

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I really want you to understand this throughout this episode–you are your best expert about your own anxiety. Take in information from other people and from other experts, but really notice, is this working for me or is this not?

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Because if it's not, I'll give it a little time, but this may not be the best way for me to work through my anxiety. Listen to your own system and notice what works, what doesn't work. Anxiety will show you–if the anxiety goes up, notice that. If the anxiety goes down, notice that.

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I talk about a season in my life in my thirties where I struggled with a lot of anxiety. It was rooted situationally, and it definitely met the criteria for an anxiety disorder. I could not get it under control by myself. And I did use medication to intervene during that season for about six months, but I also tried a number of other interventions that friends and therapists and other people tried to offer me.

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I'll tell you what, that was a crucible of learning about my own relationship to anxiety because some of the things that were offered to me made that anxiety worse. Very quickly, I would turn away from that approach. Other things really helped my anxiety and I started to move toward those. 

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Through that experience with anxiety, as painful as it was, I learned what works for me and what doesn't. And I have taken that information and incorporated it into my self-understanding to this day, so that when I notice my anxiety move from small to medium, I far more quickly know what it is exactly that I need to keep that anxiety from becoming big. 

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You want to become an expert and a student of your own anxiety so that you begin to understand what works for you and what doesn't. If you're seeking therapy for anxiety and you suspect that it's rooted in trauma from your past, you will want to look for trauma-informed therapeutic approaches.

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Some of the best are EMDR or IFS or somatic approaches. These are approaches that understand the complex nature of anxiety and how it shows up in different people. When you identify and understand that trauma might be at the root of your anxiety, it allows for a more compassionate and holistic approach to healing that focuses on restoring that sense of internalized safety so that you begin to experience what a calm nervous system feels like.

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Number two, anxiety is sometimes rooted in a biological predisposition. Some people are biologically predisposed to experience higher levels of anxiety. It doesn't mean you'll struggle with anxiety your whole life. It means you might struggle with it more than someone else.

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This kind of sensitivity often shows up early in life. Maybe you have a child where you notice they're very easily startled or highly responsive to environmental changes. And this can happen when there is trauma or when there isn't trauma. There's this inherent responsiveness to the environment.

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A key concept here that you may have heard is the highly sensitive person. Sometimes it's shortened to HSP. This is a term for individuals who have a heightened sensory processing sensitivity. An HSP, which I am one, tends to be more attuned to subtle changes in their surroundings. They tend to pick up on other's emotions more readily. They tend to feel overwhelmed by busy or chaotic environments.

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A school day can be harder for a highly sensitive child. A work day can be harder for a highly sensitive person. I notice when I go into parties, I pick up on so much data. Even though I'm not an introvert, I still can leave feeling very exhausted and overwhelmed because I'm processing so much sensory data.

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This sensitivity is a gift in many ways. I wouldn't trade it for the world, but it can also make you more prone to anxiety in response to everyday stressors. So it's incredibly invaluable information to understand about yourself. If it's true, this is how I am. There's no shame in that. But when I know how I am, I can adjust my lifestyle. I can adjust my patterns. I can adjust my capacity accordingly.

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Another example of what they think to be biological predispositions are found in personality traits. We talked about these back in Episode 49, the big five personality traits that have been researched significantly that tend to be inherent. Those who score high in the trait of neuroticism, which is a trait associated with emotional sensitivity, emotional complexity and worry, these folks are going to be more likely to experience anxiety. 

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Again, there's a gift in that. There's a soft underbelly to being a more sensitive, finely tuned person. Introversion is another personality trait that can be linked to heightened social and situational anxiety. 

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Now, it doesn't mean this is true for every introvert, but it does mean that introverted individuals might feel more anxious in social settings or in high stimulation environments where they may experience sensory overload or feel drained more quickly.

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So again, we're trying to get at the root here. If you're someone who notices, man, I feel really anxious in social settings. Do I have trauma in my history? Well, maybe it's possible, but maybe not. Maybe you fall in this category of someone who's an HSP or somebody who's high on one of these personality traits, 

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That's actually been part of your wiring since you were very young. And to name that without shame helps you accept that about yourself, honor the gift in that, and take the steps that you need to pay attention to so that you don't overload your capacity.

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For people with a biological predisposition to anxiety, whether it's due to high sensitivity, personality traits, or a general heightened response to stimuli, managing anxiety often involves lifestyle adjustments.

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You might need to be more careful about your commitments. You might practice stress reduction activities like mindfulness and prayer. You might rely on medication from time to time, because you have to be in an overstimulating environment for a period of time. By acknowledging the reality of your God given design, you are empowered to take steps to support as much as possible that calm place inside.

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Sometimes anxiety arises as a secondary symptom of another medical or psychological condition. In psychology, we call these co-occurring conditions or rule out conditions, where anxiety is there, but it's actually not the primary issue. There's something else going on. And this is so important if you're a clinician listening.

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It is so important to get to the root of what's actually causing the anxiety. And if you're not a clinician listening, this is something to talk about with a therapist, with a doctor, with your friends. What's really at the root of this anxiety? Is it trauma? Is it some sort of predisposition? Is it situational or is there something else going on here?

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And some examples of that are this whole category of neurodivergence diagnoses. So for example, autism spectrum disorder. Many people on the autism spectrum experience anxiety often due to their sensory sensitivities, and their challenges with social interactions. We're going to have an episode on that, coming up next week, that I cannot wait for you to hear.

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It's so important if there is anxiety to look under the engine and see what else might be going on there. Another one is ADHD. There's often heightened anxiety with ADHD where there's a challenge of managing focus and managing impulsivity. There are incredible organizational demands that are on our kids and on us, and there can be anxiety because of something happening in the brain that doesn't let me do those things very easily. 

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There are also other sensory processing disorders that can lead to anxiety. So again, that's what we mean by these co-occurring conditions, where you want to be sure what's really at the root of the anxiety. It's not always trauma. It's not always thought patterns that are out of whack. It's not always a predisposition. Sometimes there's something else going on that really needs to be understood.

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Lastly, many of us deal with situation-specific anxiety. Maybe anxiety has not been a constant presence in your life, but it emerges in response to a specific situation or stressor. And that was my case. When I went through that bout of anxiety, it lasted a good year and it was very debilitating. It was very real, but it was also very situational. 

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I learned a lot through that, that I can now apply, and I haven't had symptoms that extreme since then. Situation specific anxiety often appears in specific contexts, whether it's things like public speaking or performance, or it's significant life events, whether good or bad. Sometimes moving can kick up a lot of anxiety. 

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Sometimes getting married can kick it up. Having children can kick it up. Sometimes really hard things kick it up. Going through a divorce, going through a relationship betrayal. These are situations that understandably will kick up anxiety. And sometimes that anxiety response exceeds your ability to cope with it. 

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In these cases, you may want to consider increasing your support. You might consider medication, you might consider developing better self-care practices to help support you through this challenging season.

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That's a very broad overview of some of the roots of anxiety so that if you experience anxiety, you can begin to wonder, what's going on here? I wonder what this is about. And as you begin to get curious about your anxiety, you're going to be in a better position to help yourself move through it more effectively.

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To close today's episode, I want to walk you through three practical approaches for working with anxious parts of you. The first relates to our thoughts. It's the cognitive approach. Cognitive approaches to anxiety are what we call top-down approaches. We're going to start with our thoughts. We're going to assume that at the root of our anxiety is our anxious thoughts.

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Now, again, sometimes that's true. Sometimes it's not. If it is true, cognitive approaches will really help you. If that's not the root of your anxiety, they're not going to help you that much. You are the best student expert of your own soul. 

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Here's what we're trying to do with these cognitive approaches. The assumption here is that anxiety amplifies negative thoughts. We're prompted to imagine worst case scenarios through anxiety. One way to calm this anxious part of us that's spinning out all the worst case scenarios and the negative thoughts and the worries incessantly is to begin to notice those thoughts and gently question their accuracy.

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So for example, if you catch yourself ruminating about all the things that might go wrong with this new job or with this relationship, and you can't stop those anxious thoughts, a cognitive approach would encourage you to capture that thought, name it, notice it. What is the thought? And then try to reframe it.

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I go through a bunch of these in chapter five of I Shouldn’t Feel This Way. I call them thinking traps. Let's say you are trapped in an all or nothing thought pattern. For example, if I'm not the very best at this, I'm going to fail.

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That's an anxious thought. If I'm not the very best parent in the world, my kids are going to turn out horrible. If I'm not the very best at this new job, I'm going to be a complete failure. That's an all or nothing thinking trap. As you begin to notice that thought pattern, you can then reframe it.

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What if I'm not the best, but I'm also not the worst? What if I'm doing my best at this moment, and that's enough? What if it's not going to be the best case scenario, but it's also not going to be the worst case scenario? What if things turn out better than ?

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You're not trying to gaslight yourself when you reframe an anxious thought. You're trying to name the anxious thought, and you're trying to say, listen, this is what's happening. This is what I feel, but what's true is maybe this isn't going as well as I would have liked, but I'm also hanging in there. I'm doing okay. And every single day I'm getting it a little bit better. 

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You start to talk yourself down to what's actually true. When you make that mental shift, it eases your anxious thoughts and can bring in a more grounded, hopeful, realistic perspective. This can be super helpful and it's especially helpful to do in partnership with someone else.

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You can even talk through to someone else, hey, I'm catastrophizing. I'm going to the worst case scenario. Can you talk me down and talk me through to what is actually realistic? It's a holistic, grounded thing that's going on here. When you do that, it's really empowering because you can then take brave steps to address the reality of your situation, instead of that catastrophizing or that worst case scenario.

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So basic questions to ask yourself, if you're noticing some of these anxious thoughts: is this thought true? Is it accurate or am I preparing for the worst? And if it's the latter, what is the worst thing that actually could happen? And is that even likely? And ask a third party objective, a trusted advisor to help you with that. What's actually true here? What's actually going on? 

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Facing the truth, even of things that are hard, empowers you to take brave steps through. The best scripture that supports this work of really noticing the content of your thoughts is 2 Corinthians 10:5, to take captive every thought, and examine it under the light of Christ's truth.

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You can use that verse as a reminder to stop and do what I call “mind your mind”. Notice what it is that I'm thinking about. What is it that I'm worried about? I'm not doing that to shame myself. I'm doing that with a posture of curiosity. I'm trying to discern what is actually true here.

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Number two are somatic approaches. Somatic approaches are bottom up approaches. We start at the body level. This can be super effective with anxiety. Anxiety tends to be in our minds. It tends to live in our heads. Sometimes, fighting fire with fire doesn't work. If you're fighting anxious thoughts with thoughts, sometimes that's too much. It doesn't work. 

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These bottom up approaches, starting with your body and moving up, can really be helpful. Anxiety tends to make our bodies tense up. It tends to make our breath short. It tends to make our pulse race. Anything that we can do physically to reverse those states helps reduce our anxious thoughts. 

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You might try grounding techniques, which means you connect with things you can see. What do I see? What do I taste? What do I smell? What do I feel underneath my feet? What do I hear? Really start to attune to those bodily senses. Another thing that helps so much to return to calm is taking deep breaths. This really works. I do this all the time. You take that deep breath, breathe in deeply, breathe out.

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Right there is a physiological intervention that begins to slow down the firing of those anxious thoughts. Simply taking a walk, being outside, and movement can help to change the physiology of your body. Sometimes people will grab ice or cold water to  interrupt the anxious firing, and it can really help bring you out of your anxious mind and into your body. 

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You might ask yourself, what physical sensations am I noticing? Do I notice myself taking short breaths? Do I notice tension in my shoulders? Do I notice that my heart is racing? And you begin to intervene physiologically.

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When I think about these somatic interventions, these bottom up interventions, I think about Psalm 46:10, not as a shaming mandate, but as a reminder to take that deep breath and be still and know that I am God. That takes us into our bodies. Be still, be still. How do we become still? 

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We have to sink into our bodies. We have to take that deep breath. We have to release the tension in our bodies. That stillness is something we do physiologically to drop down out of our minds and into our bodies. And when we train ourselves to do that, we teach ourselves how to move out of that anxious state.

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And then lastly, emotional interventions. We need to sometimes understand that anxiety is often masking deeper, more vulnerable emotions. And this is what IFS really teaches us. Anxiety is a manager part, trying to protect us from those more vulnerable emotions like sadness, like loneliness, like fear. 

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You can begin to notice anxiety and ask yourself, what do I fear would happen if I was a little less anxious? You will notice those more vulnerable emotions bubble up to the surface. You might start crying, you might notice grief, you might notice an incredible sorrow, you might notice feelings of pain. 

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You might notice some of those deeper emotions that actually need to find their way out, and anxiety has been keeping you from honoring the validity of those emotions. When you're using an emotional intervention, you might need to give yourself some space to acknowledge the more tender parts of you underneath, realizing that they're real, they're valid. 

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Honoring the fact that man, I'm scared. This is hard. I am really lonely. And I don't want to admit that, but it's true. Or I'm really sad about this. When you begin to honor those more vulnerable emotions underneath, paradoxically, anxiety loosens its grip. 

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Now, it's so important to honor those more vulnerable emotions in a safe environment, especially if you're new to this work, to talk to a friend, to talk to a therapist. Often underneath the urgency of anxiety is a tender emotion in need of your care and God's kindness. And for this one, I think about 1 Peter 5:7, to cast our anxiety, and in this case, that anxious part of us, on God, because he cares for those heavy burdens that you carry. 

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Whether through honoring your body, whether through capturing anxious thoughts, or whether through learning to honor those deeper places of vulnerability that exist inside all of us, the process involves continually inviting God's loving presence to be near every single part of who you are.

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To be near that anxious part of you, to be near those more tender parts of you underneath that are scared, sad, or hurting, and to be very near that power that you have at the core of who you are, to regulate your breath, to regulate your movements, to ground yourself. It's incredibly empowering to do this work in partnership with God's spirit.

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As you get to the root of your anxiety, you honor it, you name it without shame, and you gently invite God's presence to meet you in that place. You will begin to see the next brave steps you need to take. And with each brave step, you'll be strengthened, encouraged in a sense of your own agency, and in trust in God.

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You'll begin to lead those anxious parts of you instead of the other way around. You're stepping into this place of integration where anxiety has a seat at the table, but it is no longer leading the control board of your life. Instead, you're leading with strength, and with wisdom, and you're bringing more of that strength, that wisdom, and that goodness to the other people in your life. 

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