In last week’s blog we talked about how we’ve got anxiety wrong. Our efforts to reduce and eliminate our anxiety often have a paradoxical effect. The harder we fight against our anxiety, the more anxiety we experience. If fighting anxiety doesn’t work, what can we do?
In the next several blogs, we will focus on what we can do to master anxiety. It’s important to emphasize that “master” is different than “eliminate.” Anxiety will likely always be part of the human experience, and eliminating anxiety is infeasible. To master anxiety means learning how to experience anxiety and still live a full, meaningful life. Although there are many different ways to master anxiety, we will focus on the following five areas that create the acronym RELAX:
Reengage relationships
Embrace anxiety
Live in the moment
Acknowledge thoughts
eXecute action
My hope and belief is that by putting these RELAX processes into practice, your anxiety will have less prominence in your life. In other words, instead of the goal being to experience less anxiety, perhaps the goal is for anxiety to have less impact on your life. When we take steps to build and strengthen relationships, drop the struggle with anxious thoughts and sensations, take time to be present, practice catching thoughts, and take consistent, intentional actions, our lives often begin to flourish.
Before we start with reengaging relationships, I want to share a brief story about food poisoning that illustrates how the mind works:
Have you ever had food poisoning? I have. Almost 20 years ago. At a well-known fast-food restaurant. And although it was 20 years ago, I have not returned to that restaurant. And although it was 20 years ago, I can remember it like it was yesterday! Now, can I remember what I ate 5 days ago? Nope. (Although pizza is a decent guess).
Our mind’s primary purpose isn’t to make us feel good. One of the main functions of the mind is to protect us. If we experience something painful like food poisoning our mind is going to remind us, through uncomfortable sensations and emotions, of the dangers of eating at that restaurant again. As a result, when I drive past that restaurant, I’m going to experience a little discomfort. And if I ever decide to step foot into that restaurant again, I’ll likely experience anxiety. No amount of deep breathing, no amount of positive thinking, is going to eliminate the anxiety I feel when I enter the restaurant.
So, if you’ve found that no matter how hard you try, your efforts to eliminate anxiety, depression and negative thoughts haven’t ultimately worked, perhaps you can take comfort in this: it’s not because you haven’t been working hard enough. You’ve likely been working very hard. Instead of the solution being to work harder, maybe the solution is to respond differently to your anxiety and negative thoughts. And that different way of responding is to RELAX.
In the next blog, we’ll start with learning how to reengage relationships.