You know the feeling. You start feeling frightened and scared. Your heart starts racing. Your mouth feels dry. You don’t feel comfortable.
All these are symptoms of anxiety.
It may be a reaction to a particular situation. Or it may be a regular feeling you feel most of the time.
Anxiety is not a pleasant feeling.
That is the way your body designs it.
It is a feeling you are required to pay attention to. To respond to.
If you never learned in childhood to see anxiety as a positive thing, then it is unlikely to feel positive now in adulthood.
If that feeling accompanied traumatic events in your childhood, then you are unlikely to see it as positive.
Anxiety may well be a sign you have been triggered and thrown into a reaction you cannot control.
That type of reaction is one you will probably only learn to control with counselling.
But there are other times when you feel anxiety, even times when the anxious feeling comes before you are triggered.
These are the times you can work with.
I mentioned earlier that our body designs anxiety to be paid attention to.
What if you saw anxiety as something positive. As your body producing energy to allow you to meet a challenging situation. Your body getting ready to attend to the challenging situation.
What if you realised that the more challenging the situation is, the more energy your body produces to attend to the challenge.
When you were a child, you did not have the skills to attend to those challenges without help. If you had help, then you learned anxiety was something you could handle.
If you didn’t have help, you learned that anxiety was something you could not handle.
Now you are an adult and you can handle the anxiety and the challenges that come with it.
Try welcoming those anxious feelings next time. Tell them you know they are there to give you the energy to meet the challenging. Thank the anxiety for letting you know it is there to help. It won’t feel pleasant, but you might find you meet the challenge.
And after the challenge, thank the anxiety for showing you that you were able to handle the situation.
This is no magic pill, but over time it will help you change your attitude to anxiety.
As for those major triggers of your trauma, with counselling you can learn how to work with them too.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your anxious feelings and trauma triggers, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz