For the Stickiest of Anxieties
If you’re stuck with anxiety, and if you’ve tried all the things I taught you in the workshop AND tried some techniques to follow up steps 1-3, but that dial will not budge, you’re likely stuck because of one of the following reasons:
You wrote it down in your head
Not to be criminally obnoxious here, but did you write it down? Like REALLY? You may think you can do it in your head, but our heads are really, REALLY good at spinning us in circles.
Even if you’ve been in the therapy or self-improvement space and you think your years in this space allows you to test out of this step – nah. Write it down. You’ll be amazed at what you find. If you have NOT written it down, what you know is this: you feel bad – bad-anxious-tense-overwhelmed-blah-yuck – but it’s really hard to get at exactly WHY you feel bad.
Even if you're a professional therapist or coach, or a professional-level consumer of therapy and coaching (I consider myself both): when’s the last time you were struggling with anxiety and paused to write down what you’re telling yourself? When’s the last time you wrote it, and then figured out and wrote down the underlying beliefs?
Write it down, write it down, write it down. If I say it 3 times, that’s like a spell, and instead of Rumpelstiltskin appearing, what will appear is you, writing it down.
You need more of step #2
Hey – compassion is hard.
Most of us were super NOT taught to have a compassionate attitude towards ourselves.
You might think you “have” compassion, but what that might actually mean in practice is that you get, intellectually, that you, in theory, deserve compassion, just like everyone else deserves compassion. But you might ALSO have wily parts sabotaging that by keeping the “compassion” at a surface level.
And, to go ahead and make it even trickier, this step is actually twofold.
The fist “fold” of this step is the compassionate attitude. Which, again is simple in theory, but in reality is usually very challenging, and takes time and practice for most of us to get to.
The second “fold” of this step is that your parts need to feel understood for their good intentions.
Can you explain, with warmth, how that anxious part is trying to help you, and why this anxiety-provoking situation is so hard for that part?
If you can, you’ve got both folds!
So maybe what you’re missing is a compassionate attitude – warmth, friendliness, softness. Or maybe what you’re missing is spending time with your parts, explaining to them that you get why they’re trying so hard to help you with their anxious thoughts.
You’ve got anxiety-opposing parts that need attention too (you need compassion infinity)
In people who tend towards anxious coping, there’s usually two “sides:” one side that is anxious, and one side opposing the anxiety.
Those anxiety-opposing parts get to you DO things, regardless of anxiety. They typically think that things like softness, slowness, gentleness, friendliness – those are poison, or at the very least, they are a definite waste of time, and thereby poison to how those in-charge parts are used to getting by via methods like rushing and pushing through the anxiety.
You can practice understanding and compassion with the parts that oppose, prod, and push the anxious parts too! I call this compassion infinity.
(We’re getting complicated now, and parts-work therapy - like IFS or Internal Family Systems - can be SUPER helpful for people who relate to this dynamic.)
You need more structure and consistent practice
If you’ve been in therapy/coaching/self-improvement space before, but didn’t know how to answer when I asked you what has worked for you, in the past, to reduce your anxiety, that’s a clue that you haven’t had enough structure or consistent practice.
Most therapists are not big emphasizers of structure or consistent practice outside of sessions. And I think it’s quite hard to set up structure for practice ourselves.
And, if you think about it, how can we be expected to change if we practice something 1 out of 168 hours a week? (I did the math here – that's how many hours are in a week, so if we do traditional, weekly therapy, and don’t have a regular structure for practice outside of sessions, we’re trying to change an important thing that we really want to change by practicing new things for 1/168 of our week. Wow.
You have underlying trauma/wounds that need healing
Okay, duh, I know, but hear me out: most therapy does not usually get to this as a concrete step! Most therapy takes place in an insurance-determined container. And we all know how good insurance companies are at letting us do what is best and most effective, right?
Doing healing work in therapy in 50-60m chunks typically makes it stilted. Almost every therapy session I’ve ever conducted starts to get really good, into an additional layer of depth, right around minute 40.
I think that the most surefire way to make certain that your insurance-covered therapy actually gets to the steps of therapy that lead to healing that facilitates permanent change is to find someone who uses a specific model with a high level of fidelity (like IFS, somatic experiencing, or EMDR).
That structure that the person is tracking and guiding you within will lead to you being much more likely to change underlying beliefs that keep the anxiety motor running unchecked when they’re not uncovered and addressed.
Or you can check out my program for anxiety breakthrough, which I’ve specifically designed to include some healing steps and point you in the direction of how to ask for the ones that come next.
If your anxiety is sticky, chances are that one, several, or all of the above (sorry) is what’s tripping you up.
If you’re feeling discouraged, I invite you to remember: anxious patterns are hard to change! You’re here. You’re reading this. And that means you’re one step closer to figuring out what’s in your way, and how to shift it out of your way.
Cheers to moving things (compassionately) out of your way,
Julia