Lessons from Therapy - Anxiety
Last year, I had just taken the GRE in preparation for grad school, and I felt awful about it. I was so unbelievably frustrated. The anxiety spiked as I spiraled into a never-ending worry about not getting into grad school. A week later, the simplest of things triggered an anxiety attack. As I slowed my breathing, I knew something was wrong, and I needed to talk to someone. Within a few weeks, I began therapy.
In the first session, I shared everything that was going on. At that point, I just needed to get it out, and I needed someone to tell me what to do about it. She listened, and she helped. I want to share some of the tools she gave me to help with my anxiety in hopes that someone else may benefit from some of the techniques she suggested.
Are you resting? The all day everyday grind only made my anxiety worse. I had over-committed to several things in my life and needed to make space to rest. One way she had me look at this was that every week has 21 squares. 3 squares (morning, afternoon, evening) each day. She asked that I take at least one square and set it aside for rest. Friends, this worked wonders. Rest can be so helpful.
Grace statements. A lot of anxiety stems from worrying about what we already did, what we are doing, or what we are going to do. And I know for myself, I am very critical of most things I do. Why did I respond that way? How am I going to get that done later? My counselor had me write down some statements that I needed to tell myself regularly to be more kind to myself. If you can silence the voice of your critic, your anxiety may also become more silent.
Schedule your worry time. Ever heard of worry o’clock? No? One technique she taught me is to schedule one hour a day where you can worry. Want to worry from 3-4 pm? Okay, but you’re only allowed to at that time only. Any other time you have to stop yourself. The idea is that you’ll most likely forget once 3pm hits and lose out on your worry time.
Get to know yourself. When you understand what makes you tick, your motivations, what causes you to worry most, etc., you can understand your anxiety better. Try reflecting, personality typing, etc. to learn more about who you are and how anxiety is involved.
STOP. Use this acronym as a way to halt the spiraling in its place.
Stop
Take a breath
Observe - What’s going on inside and around you?
Proceed. Mindfully.
The above are just a few techniques I learned in the past year - there are many more. If you are struggling with anxiety, you may benefit from seeing a counselor. Anxiety does not have to control you.
Challenges/Points:
We are all likely to deal with anxiety at some point in our lives.
Ways to cope with anxiety include resting, grace statements, scheduling worry time, getting to know yourself, and using STOP.
If your anxiety is high, try using a couple of these methods this week to see if it helps.
Questions:
Have you dealt with anxiety this year?
What techniques are you currently using to ease your anxiety?
Which of the above techniques seems most useful to you?
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