How to Turn Down the Dial of Anxiety

Near the end of the Business Anxiety Breakthrough workshop in the membership this month, Jessica asked me (something like), “Okay, but what if you have already made peace with the anxiety to the extent that you can accept that it’s a dial instead of a button? What do you do if you’re still anxious? How do you turn down the dial?”  

I responded that answering this question is basically the same as answering, “how do you treat anxiety?”...which I couldn’t do in the remaining 10 minutes of the workshop. 

So SHE said, “okay then, how about you write us a follow-up post and answer that question.” 

So here we are and here I go.  

Let’s do this! I’m amping myself up to get ready for the (somewhat ill-advised) task of attempting to explain to you how to treat anxiety in under 1000 words.* 

Let me first stress here: my entire theory about how to actually, effectively treat anxiety hinges on the idea that you MUST – MUST(!!!) – start with the steps I taught in the workshop (experiments 1-3). 

So, I invite you to review the steps. If you’re thinking something like, “I know, it ends in compassion, blah blah blah” – please(!!) review the steps. I summarized them here for your convenience. 

So, now let’s get into it: how exactly do you turn down the dial further after you’ve done experiments 1-3? 

First, it might help to know this: the things that work for you once (in terms of things that feel good and support our mental health and mood) tend to work again.  

So, maybe start by asking yourself: “what has worked for me before in terms of lowering my anxiety?”  

Even if it’s been a long time since you’ve used a specific technique, it’s worth trying again. Now that you’ve done steps 1-3, whatever you’ve done before will likely go smoother and be more effective.  

Here’s a list of strategies that I like for reducing anxiety: 

1. Do exposure WITH updating beliefs: we might say that exposure is the most widely-known technique for treating anxiety. I think of it as a VERY important tool, like a hammer or a screwdriver. If you use exposure, you get the most bang for your buck by following it up with updating the belief(s) you identified in step 1. 

2. Explain the distortions: this takes a classic tool (identifying cognitive distortions) and gives it a little extra oomph. 

3. Find the root wound and then update your parts: the IFS (internal family systems)-style way of updating beliefs, with plenty of compassion. 

4. Progressive reframing (WRITE IT!!): a cognitive technique that I think of as a combination of utilizing perspective and shifting your focus (aka distraction, which we all need a healthy dose of!). 

5. Compassionate movement: this works best when combined with other techniques (if you don’t address the belief, you’re unlikely to get to lasting change with the anxiety, but since you’ve already done steps 1-3, this is a great time to integrate it). 

Maybe this list will remind you of something that you’ve done before and has worked well. 

And if you’re into this way I have of explaining these things and want to hear my explanations and suggestions for how to use each one on the list, go here! 

Pro tip: while you are making other attempts to turn down the dial, don’t forget it’s a dial.  

Forgetting that it’s a dial is a terribly easy and understandable mistake to make! 

Why? Because we have A TON of practice, almost exclusively practice, at trying to get the anxiety to “go away.” And “Go away, anxiety, I hate you and piss off forever,” is classic magic-button territory.  

Come back to the land of the dial, the land of compassion, the land of stepping towards.  

Remind yourself that there’s something good at the core of the anxiety here – the intentions, the ways in which parts of you want to protect you and are determined to do so in a “never again!”-type way. 

I hope this was helpful!  

If you’ve enjoyed the way I write about this, come on over to my email list! The water’s nice and warm (with compassion, not pee).  

And, if you’d like some help with getting from anxious to an anxiety breakthrough, I’d love to guide you through that process. Getting in there together with anxiety and figuring out just the right formula to get that breakthrough feeling (and making it lasting!) is one of my very most favorite things to do. 

If you’d like to get more in-depth with this, and are looking for a free resource, I recommend David Burns’ Feeling Good podcast. He talks in a lot of technical detail and he has very concrete theories about treating all kinds of mental distress, which he’s developed over something like 50 years of practice. He’s the one who originally codified and popularized the list of cognitive distortions that I mentioned above. I’ve used a lot of his techniques as springboards to develop my best stuff.  

Cheers to turning down that dial – to keeping all those good parts, with less anxiety and suffering! 

Julia 

PS, to anyone who’s asking “But what if I’m stuck? What if that dial will just NOT go down?” That’s a question that immediately came to mind when I finished writing this, and I realized I really wanted to answer that for you. So I did, here! 

*Since I share some qualities with our pal Jessica, I of course couldn’t stop myself from making this into a series of posts, which you’ll find with the links throughout this piece. And shout-out to Erica Holthausen, whose work gave me the idea to format this post as connected parts!