"Everyday anxiety is a fact of life and can actually be helpful. How you use it makes all the difference. As the world gets faster and more uncertain, it’s easy to let [anxiety] overwhelm you. People get hijacked by their reptilian brain, survival instincts, and fear. On the flip side, denying or running from anxiety causes you to
become complacent. You can use anxiety in a positive way and turn it into a powerful force in your life if you strike a balance." - Bob Rosen, author of Conscious: The Power of Awareness in Business and Life.
Here is a new way to think about anxiety: it’s just energy. Like we do in Key 4 with our sex drive, when we talk about sexual transmutation, today we want to start with taking a different view about anxiety. Instead of trying to deny or repress it, why not just acknowledge it, and work WITH the energy, rather than trying to shut it down?
Interesting idea, but how do you do it? Here are four thoughts:
1. Stop viewing anxiety through an exclusively negative lens
“We see anxiety as something to fear and avoid,” says Rosen (quoted above). “That thinking is self-defeating and makes it worse. In a sense, we need to see anxiety as a wake-up call; a message inside of our mind telling us to pay attention. We need to accept it as a natural part of the human experience.”
Let your anxiety be a reminder to pay attention to something, but "paying attention" doesn’t mean you should obsess about it. The source of your worry is something that you either: (a) need to take another specific, tangible step on, or (b) something you need to pray about and let go of.
2. Stop idealizing stability, and recognize that a good life will involve change
“For centuries, change was viewed as dangerous or life threatening,” Rosen says. “But stability is an illusion, and uncertainty is reality. Uncertainty makes you anxious and vulnerable, and anxiety leads you to worry or run away because you’re not in control of
life anymore and you feel worse.”
Get comfortable with things being in flux. That’s the way life is. You have two options: (a) make peace with some amount of uncertainty and ambiguity, or (b) live with anxiety all the time.
3. Remember that anxiety is contagious
“We communicate our level of anxiety to others because we’re connected to each other,” he says. “Studies show that your blood pressure can go up when you deal with a manager who is disrespectful, unfair, or overly anxious. People are hijacked more and more because of too
much anxiety.”
The article doesn’t emphasize this, but to me this is a REALLY important reason to be careful about who we include in our inner circle of community. If we spend a lot of time with highly anxious people, we’ll become more anxious too.
4. Recognize that we need a balance — too much OR too little anxiety can be a problem
Some people naturally have too much anxiety, and that’s a problem. “These are the people who need to be right, powerful, in control, and successful,” says Rosen. “They orchestrate
everything around them, and are mistrustful or suspicious. They’re scared of inadequacy, failure, being insignificant, or being taken advantage of.” [But] Too little anxiety isn’t good either. “You put your head in the sand in the face of change,” says Rosen. “You don’t want to take risks. You value status quo and live in a bubble.”
Source: This writeup is adapted from the article https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-to-make-your-anxiety-work-for-you-instead-of-against-you
