Dealing With Anxiety and What it May Be Telling You

Dealing with anxiety can be a very big problem if we do not understand how it works and how we can get rid of it. This emotional stress does not need to control your life any longer. Here is where your loved ones’ or your anxiety will meet its match!

Welcome to our website. We are glad that you are here. We will be talking about a few things that you may not know or fully understand in dealing with anxiety. The first thing is what it is, and what makes it damaging to our quality of life. There is an association we make with certain stimuli that is beneficial to us under normal circumstances, for it keeps us from harm. However if the stimulus is present too much of the time, or else the associations are too strong, then permanent life-damaging anxiety will be the result. Anxiety can come from several sources and for different reasons, and we must understand the source first, which will tell us how to deal with it.

Understand the threat

Anxiety can come from a real threat, or anxiety can come from an imagined one. Surprisingly dealing with anxiety from real threats is rare indeed. However, most of our dealing with anxiety is from imagined or misperceived threats, based upon our unmet needs from childhood, or low self-esteem in our adult life. We will talk about dealing with anxiety from all causes and their remedies here. In dealing with anxiety from real threats, we change our posture to exclude the threat, however dealing with anxiety from misperceived threats and strong associations with failure or rejection for example require a different approach entirely. We will learn how to tell the difference, and the proper responses to all causes.

First, let us begin at the beginning to see where all this started, and why. Let us pretend we are walking in the woods as children and we discover a low hanging tree branch with a nest full of newly hatched birds in it. They are all sleeping, and we in our excitement bump the tree branch as we struggle to look in at the baby birds. Instinctively, the first thing they do is to awaken suddenly and they begin frantically looking around. What are they trying to do? Gather information. Nature accustoms them by instinct to look for threats first and then secondarily to look for Mom Bird and Dad Bird to give them some food. In the bird world, being mistrustful of your environment and looking, on guard always is a good thing. Extreme anxiety is a big benefit to the birds since non-anxious birds do not survive for very long. Birds are notoriously good eating, and since everything in nature knows that, birds understandably do not rate highly in hospitality, trust, and friendliness! Birds deal with anxiety by using it as a tool to stay alive, which is a very good use. For them hyper-vigilance is definitely the way to go. Birds in the wild live out there lives in mistrust and anxiety, which are necessary tools in their survival. However, we humans can also acquire the same type of learned emotional condition, even though we are not on anything’s menu necessarily. However if you are reading this in the middle of the African Savannah with Lions, hippos, and Crocodiles between you and home, you better keep the birds’ anxiety for a while until you get to the house. Do not read this any further!

Remember, we said this stress comes from more than one source. The first source is the stressor, like combat, an abusive parent or spouse, or a hardship living situation. The second source is the association, like associating something to be like combat, an abusive parent or spouse, or a hardship living situation. Let us talk about each of these situations as it relates to dealing with anxiety and see what the cause of your emotional distress really is. Each source requires a different response, since they are entirely different. If you were swimming in the ocean at the beach, and you see a fish coming at you, and it looks like a shark you would feel anxiety caused by fear. What we need to know is it real danger because it is a shark, or is it imagined danger because it is a porpoise and it looks to you like a shark. Both are similar, but one could be a very hungry fish, and the other is merely a curious mammal playing and investigating you. Take time to look at what is causing your stress and be very specific about what it is that is bothering you. Make a list and write down everything. Define it precisely as to nature, and to quantity, and lay out what it is that could happen to you for which you are afraid. This step may be hard because it will require you to be honest and admit that you may be afraid of rejection or that you have an unmet emotional need for companionship. This step may require you to face fears you are deeply ashamed that you have. Be honest with yourself and write down everything.

If we encounter combat in the military, or we had a childhood under hostile neglectful parents, we can experience life-threatening or emotionally traumatic events. When this happens the anxiety tool is very beneficial for our physical and our emotional survival. Used originally, our anxiety tool is beneficial because it keeps us safe. The problems come in later after the Stimulus of Origin passes away. The stimulus of origin is where we first learned that we could be harmed by something. We bet you have never heard that term before have you. That is because only highly credentialed and licensed doctors, psychiatrists, counselors write the other sites, and most of them learned about depression and anxiety in college for the first time as adults. We on the other hand grew up in emotionally traumatic backgrounds, we have undergone exhaustive losses in our lives, and we have lived to tell about it afterwards. We are masters in dealing with anxiety, and we know how to deal with it from real threats and deal with it from fears just in our minds. In our dealing with anxiety, we have learned how to tell real threats from imagined ones, and that skill we will talk about here. We have entered the belly of the beast of Anxiety and we have emerged triumphant over it. We know every step of the way. We know how serious it can be. Without a mentor, teacher, and guide to lead you out, you can stay in severe anxiety the rest of your life. We however are not going to let that happen. Experience is the best teacher, and we will match our capabilities against any therapist out there. That is a little background about where we are coming from, and about us. Now back to you, for you and your loved ones are what are important here, and do not forget that!

Anxiety and hypervigillance are postures, which help us to avoid or survive terrible situations. When we experience stress such as anxiety, our senses are sharpened and adrenal output and blood pressure increases. Our bodies deal with anxiety by breathing shallower breaths. Lungs half full tense more quickly, and release hand and foot movements instantaneously. Our bodies deal with anxiety by posturing to defend ourselves against harm. Anxiety elevates heart rate because of anticipated oxygen demand. We also become mentally very keen and aware of all things around us, even those things that we cannot see. The bad news is legitimate stressors require all of our strength and attention to survive whatever the threat is, which tax us tremendously in health terms. Automobiles running red lights while you are walking through the intersection, incurring the wrath of a robber in a store, being abandoned by a loved one or finding disfavor from an unethical employer are all legitimate stressors. The good news is that stressors actually are very rare indeed. If you look at the statistics, the chances of experiencing harm from the stressor that you fear are microscopic. Actuarially speaking you have about as much chance of experiencing your feared injury or loss as you do of seeing Elvis fill his Cadillac convertible in a gas station late at night out in the middle of Nowheresville. For ninety nine percent of us the fear of the loss is more harmful than the chance of the loss itself. We are speaking in averages here.

For some of us we live everyday with the stressor in our lives and we cannot escape it, as in the case of ill health. We will speak of God here, but we define God as the Divine Plan the Universe has for itself, not as a religious entity. Dealing with anxiety then means accepting God's presence as a protection as a balancing factor to living everyday with our threats. If we feel we are a part of God's plan for life, our dealing with anxiety is easier because we see ourselves as valued and significant. Regarding God and what he created, we are necessary and part of God’s life unfolding; we are not just an add-on or an afterthought. Dealing with anxiety with an ever present and unavoidable condition then would mean acknowledging God’s presence with you as you live in the setting in which he sent you to do your work. If you are supposed to be there, doing what you are doing, then God is definitely there with you protecting you. No person ever is without God if he or she is where he or she is supposed to be, with or without religion! For these present stressors, we need to keep in mind the remoteness of possibility, and God’s presence and his will for us to be there.

To improve our emotional lives, we may not only have to learn skills to deal with stress, but also look deeper as to the origins of our stressors, and see if we are causing them to ourselves. Now let us talk a little about dealing with anxiety from threats, but for which we may actually create. Anxiety from fear of job loss, or emotional abandonment, or a repeat of some past lived failure are not likely to happen again unless we replicate the settings with our own bad choices. Being afraid of a spouse assaulting you with shame will only happen if you have a poisoning loser for a spouse. In this case, you can choose a loving nurturer for a spouse instead of a predatory loser. Dealing with anxiety for you then would be first getting rid of you damaging relationships, then working on your emotional needs by seeking nurturers. Anxiety from fear of abuse or abandonment is under your control because you can dump them before they cause injury or shame, or they dump you. It becomes a matter of who drops the bomb first. If your stressor is a person, whether it be loved one, relative, coach, teacher, employer, or neighbor, the controller is always you and you can drop the bomb on them first, if resolution is not possible. Dealing with anxiety would mean dealing with losers, and you do that by always getting rid of them! Replace them and get away from them. There is one cardinal rule in life that we live by here. Say this to yourself until you are blue in the face and it becomes part of you mentality: “For every loser in my world there is a hundred loving nurturers waiting in line to meet me.” If you look around, you will begin to see many gentle nurturers waiting to meet you! You always have control over any stressor that is a person, if you look carefully at your available choices in your life. Remember, losers are actually harder to find than nurturers are!

If your stressor is a situation, such as lack of education, underemployment, or lessening income and finances, the bottom line is you still have control over it as well. Unlike being a tree planted by a stream that is drying up, you can relocate to a better part of the country economically, or another profession, financially. Change is not easy, and relocation is very difficult, but if it results in a much higher quality life, then the effort is well worth it. It is your anxiety, and if it is a legitimate stressor causing it, then it is time for the stressor to go. Dealing with anxiety in this type of situation means looking at how highly you regard yourself and your self esteem. You must see yourself, as worth effort to improve your life, otherwise the motivation to change your self-punishing lifestyle will be hard to dig up. There are a million stressors possible, and we do not wish to over simplify this and show disrespect to you. Dealing with anxiety is important and your feelings matter. These are just a few examples to get you to see if possibly, the legitimate stressor may be controllable. We find by looking around us, that we have much more control over our environment that we actually see. By looking at all the possible choices we can make, reasonable, extreme and ridiculous, we can see choices we never considered before. To improve our emotional estate, the most important factor is the permission we give ourselves to see and make those choices for our betterment. If we have self-esteem issues we need to address, then we will overlook obvious choices, simply because we feel we do not deserve a pleasant life. We may see dealing with anxiety and harm is what we deserve. Abuse and its attendant anxiety can be our way of punishing ourselves for imagined past disappointment we caused our parents if we feel we have let them down.

One tool you may put in your emotional tool box, or recipe in your recipe book if you are a woman, is the statement, I am not a mistake and I am not a disappointment to life, for I am beautiful and complete just as I am.

So far, in review we have looked briefly at the stressor aspect of your loved one’s or your anxiety. We looked at the Stimulus or Origin, and some facts around it. We looked at our original stressor. Then we looked at other facts we may have not seen previously. We learned that there is almost no chance of our Stimulus of Origin repeating. The probability of what happened in our original setting of childhood, or previous home, school, or original employment happening again unexpected is almost none. We learned that if the stressor remains in our lives, then we need to consider if we are replicating our exposure to the same danger out of shame, guilt, or low self-esteem. Those factors will make us replicate legitimate stressors in our lives because we overlook all the good choices we can make to liberate ourselves from them. continuously encountering danger to ourselves, real, or subjective, is a function of Shame and low self-esteem over the long haul. Dealing with anxiety will mean looking at our sense of self worth. Random chance creates dangers over the short term in life; we ourselves create continuous and repeated danger over the long term. Short-term anxiety is a good thing and a tool, long-term anxiety is a red warning light. At some point, we need to see if there is an emotional energy within us that prevents our considering life-enhancing choices that would liberate us permanently.

Being out of our true place in life

Since true stressors rarely happen more than once, there may be another cause of unhealthy anxiety. That cause is why we may be exposed to this danger on a prolonged basis. Since we all have different self-definitions of our power, we all have different perceptions of fear. Let us use a car as an example. A car represents humanity. Since we are a part of humanity, we are parts of the car. You may be a piece of chrome plastic that adorns the steering wheel and is pretty. I may be a piece in the inside of the engine, like a spark plug. You may have a terrible fear of heat since it would melt you since you are plastic. I being a spark plug am terribly afraid of being out in public, like on the steering wheel, since I am a spark plug and cannot speak in front of crowds and do not look pretty. What you are afraid of and what I am afraid of are different, yet they are legitimate fears. Exposure to heat of the engine causes you anxiety, and exposure to the public causes me anxiety. Those are what we call Validated Fears because they represent legitimate fears from real threats. However, in this case they represent threats we should not have and fears we should not be facing. This type of threat arises out of being out of our element where we are not supposed to be. Remember that term, ‘being where we are not supposed to be,’ that is important. If we are city types and we are living out of our element in the country where we feel lonely we will have to be dealing with anxiety from that. A country person is happy there even though it is the same setting. If we went into the country setting to please someone other than our selves, we must deal with the anxiety of not pleasing ourselves. Because we really do not want to be there, we will never be happy there no matter what, period! Dealing with anxiety from being out of our element, and for not being where we truly want to be will mean putting ourselves first and going where our heart truly wants us to go to be happy. If you are where you are happiest, then you can handle all the stress in the world because it will be stress and challenges you will look forward to conquering. The solution, start putting yourself first and taking responsibility for getting your own needs met, and do not delegate that responsibility to others.

How accurately do we perceive our threats?

Now let us talk accuracy in how we perceive our stressor, and get back to our ‘shark or porpoise’ example. Let us say our stress is uncontrollable because we are afraid of heights, or we are afraid of flying. This gets close to home because that is what my cause for fear and stress was for many years. On the face of it that sounds like a legitimate source of stress. We go 35,000 feet up in a man made object traveling at 600 miles an hour with only two engines, maybe one, through freezing rains and turbulent clouds that could drown out the engine or rip the wings off at any time. The stresses on the plane are a thousand times greater than on any car part, and if anything fails, we are history. Add to that, we are flying over oceans full of hungry great whites, or high mountains with canyon walls almost a mile high that can run straight up! Temperatures outside the plane, only inches away are often sixty below zero and would freeze us in seconds. Add to that the engines often run close to wide open for hours on end at speeds 150 times faster than your car engine without blowing up or flying apart. Is this not a legitimate fear and cause for concern?

Now, this is the reality of it: commercial airliners are the second safest place to be on this planet as far as chance of personal harm coming to you. To incur any chance of injury or death, you would have to fly every day for 26,000 years to chance an accident resulting in death. A large American made commercial airliner is the most reliable mechanical device made by man, period. Overall risk, air travel is the second safest activity you can do! On top of that, the airline with the longest air routes, over the roughest skies, Qantas Air Lines, has the best safety record of any airline, with no losses ever! Do you see what the point is? How we perceive our stressor can be far different from the reality of that stressor, even though we interact with it intimately. Notice we said ‘American made.’ If you are now traveling over the Himalayas in a 200-passenger Doloon 400 made in Mongolia, with duct tape on the cracked windows, a toothless peasant with a chicken on his lap beside you, we seriously hope you make it!

Rejection from others, the most powerful specter of all

Fear of physical harm actually causes us very little stress, for there are even more terrifying fears we may have. Dealing with anxiety from those sources is what we need most. For most of us, fears of rejection, ridicule, or failure cause us more stress than all other causes combined. We are not afraid of flying as much as we may be of panicking while on the flight and embarrassing ourselves in the presence of other passengers. Speaking in front of a group, starting a project, or seeking a date with someone you are interested in is where most of our problems lie. These social situations cause us anxiety because we associate it with something resulting from the experience itself, like refusal, rejection, or failure. Almost all stress comes from fear of rejection, ridicule, embarrassment, or failure in some social context. We experience anxiety because we are afraid of others not liking us, or others rejecting us if we show some side of ourselves, we do not want rejected. That is a powerful thing to be afraid of and rightly so. Anxiety may come from associating some attempt with something we are wrong for doing, and therefore we feel out of place to try it. If we feel ugly, we are anxious about attempts to find a date even though we are very lonely. If we like other people and crowds but we feel out of place because we feel we may not have anything to offer socially, we will feel stress at reaching out and trying to make friends. We associate failure with our attempts to get our nurturement needs met because we fear rejection. We can also associate our attempts for love with shame because we feel undeserving. Such shamed attempts are doomed to failure and rejection. Dealing with anxiety is impossible because we know the secret that ‘others will be disappointed in us because we are unworthy of their love and their company. Once they get to know us they will not like us.’ That assumption about ourselves is wrong, but we feel it deeply because we have never been with our own kind with whom we fully connect.

Finding our way to the Promised Land and finding our way Home

If the stressor is persistent, then we must consider if we are in the right place for us. Getting back to our car example, if you are that piece of chromed plastic we talked about and you have an exposure to heat; you are in the wrong place for you, for you should not be there. You as a piece of chromed plastic should be an ornament on the steering wheel where the driver can see your beauty. If I am afraid of being out in public because I am not ornamental in nature, then I must ask myself if I am in the right place for me, for spark plugs to not have to look pretty, only make sparks. Therefore our stressors can be an indicator that we are not in our element in life, for if we are where we are supposed to be we should be happy and without stress. Chromed plastic pieces adorning the steering wheels of cars do not experience anxiety if they are looking pretty on steering wheels. Likewise, spark plugs do not experience anxiety if they are deep in the engine making sparks.

We need to ask ourselves if we are in the station in life that God wants us to be in to be happy. That is a big question. God could be telling you through your anxiety that he has something better for you, in a much more pleasant setting that he wants you to find. If the stressors are real, then it may be time to move on. God may be prompting you to move on to your promised land where life awaits you. If that is the case, there will also be a longing in your heart as well for something not yet done, and a place not yet seen. Only your heart knows for sure. Search within to find out. That means asking yourself what your wishes are and what do you want? Dealing with anxiety will mean taking your needs for nurturement more seriously, and getting rid of losers. It will also mean taking your desires more seriously and deciding if you are living up to your wishes, or if you have been doing what someone else wants instead of yourself, like a pushy parent, or abusive spouse. Dealing with anxiety means putting you and your emotional needs first above all else in your life.

If your stressor is from a social setting, common to all stations in life, then you must consider if your anxiety is from fear of failure or rejection in getting your emotional needs met. If your cause for anxiety is in fear of reaching out in a social situation, then you must ask yourself if shame or guilt is telling you that you do not deserve that which you seek. In summary, you can experience anxiety from these following causes: The first may be if you are out of your element and God wants you to find your happiness elsewhere. The second cause may be if you feel incapable or undeserving to get the love and acceptance you so desperately need in your correct setting, if you reach out for it. The third cause may be if you incorrectly associate harm and pain with a stimulus for which no danger actually exists presently but did happen in the past.

Dealing with anxiety is possible if you can see if it is anxiety from a threat, or anxiety from an unmet need. Remember, we all need love, security, and fulfillment as much as we need the air that we breathe.

Beyond religion, God made you a special person like no other on earth, and somewhere there is a setting where you will be happier than you ever thought you could be. Moreover, God wants you to find that place. If your fear is in reaching out to others for love and acceptance, then you question if you are attractive enough, pretty enough, or desirable enough to be accepted by others. However, there is a social setting out there where a special set of friends, your set of friends, need you and cannot wait to meet you. To the right persons you are attractive, beautiful, worthy, and very talented, for you have exactly what they are looking for in a relationship. To them, you are it! When you find them you will see your present anxiety is unfounded. Talented stars are not afraid of going out on their stage and performing, but those that do not feel talented sure are afraid.

Whether you long for a new setting, or you are unsure how to reach out to get your selfish nurturement needs met in your correct setting, there is an answer. God does not like it that you are unhappy. The truth is there is more power inside of you that you can apply to life than you ever imagined. There is also more virtue within you than you can ever fathom. You will be warmly accepted anywhere your heart wishes to go. Life is waiting out there for you to come to it, and you perfect setting is waiting as well. The first steps to overcoming anxiety are the choice to begin trusting again. The wonderful secret we want you to learn is, if you trust life, life will send you trustworthy loved ones and settings with which to interact. Try it and see! We talk about this extensively in our first book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind.

God did not give you stress or anxiety as a punishment, but to teach you something good about yourself! Within you in a space smaller than a 'nothingness' is a universe of talent, good, and potential for happiness far greater than you can imagine. You can find the fullness of life you deserve! Dealing with anxiety is the first step in your journey home to 'you.'

For more on this very subject of overcoming anxiety and getting in touch with the good that is within you please consider our first in series book Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of your Mind. For help with any emotional abuse, self-esteem and emotional healing issues, please consider this book as the definitive answer to your or your loved ones difficulties. In our book, we talk about the whole overview of our soul’s journey as we follow our heart’s dreams to our ultimate destiny. We answer many questions about selfishness, prosperity, psychotherapy, and finding our dreams and happiness. We talk about the importance of getting our emotional needs met, as we grow older in our changing world. We also talk about the spiritual controls we have within to bring our good to us. Those controls are our Sincerity Switch, Spontaneity Switch, and lastly our Feelings and Dreams Switch. Written for sufferer, loving family member and friend, this is the ultimate book for your type of situation.

Thanks for visiting us. God bless you as you begin your new life today. We would love to hear from you. We promise to answer personally every Email that we receive. Please tell us how you are doing in your search for answers, and to share your trials and victories with us!

Shayne and Lori North

Leave Dealing with Anxiety and go to Overcoming Depression from Emotional Abuse/The Tools of Your Mind The Book

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