Blog

The Impact of Anxiety on All of Us and What We Can Do About It!

This is a summary of my recent TEDx talk on the Impact of Anxiety and the three practical mind shifts we can implement to shift the anxiety (14 min. video).

We all have a worry voice in our minds.  It comes and goes but sometimes it can really take hold.

We need to name it and externalize it so that it’s something outside of identity that we can have power over.

I like to call this worry voice, the Worry Imp. 

As a child, I grew up in England, where it was common to hear a mischievous kid being called “ A little imp”!  The “Worry Imp” seemed to fit the concept that the worries play tricks on our minds and bodies.

I have been counselling children and teens for over twenty years and most of them come to see me for help with their anxiety.  In my counselling office I see children as young as four years old who are gripped by anxiety and I see teens who feel trapped by their anxiety as they watch their lives become more and more restricted. 

One teen girl, who I’ll call Lisa, explained that it was as though she was stuck in a glass bubble, where her reality was distorted.  She wanted to break through the glass but she was scared of what was on the other side. Being in this glass bubble stopped her from being able to do things.  She couldn’t go to public events and enjoy going out with friends because she was too scared to go.  Eventually her Worry Imp took over and it stopped her from socializing completely.  She stopped seeing friends even in her own home and missed a lot of school because she was too scared to step out of her bubble and she was too scared that people wouldn’t like her.

The pressure of social media also got to her.  She wanted to stay in touch with her friends but she couldn’t handle feeling that she could only post a perfect photo, with a perfect pose and a perfect caption.  She didn’t want to care about how many followers she had or how many people liked her post, but she knew deep down that this is how everyone judged each other.  It then made it worse when she saw her friends posting photos of them all hanging out together and she wasn’t with them, because she was trapped in her glass bubble being ruled by her Worry Imp voice. 

Then there was the pressure of Grade 12 grad.  The unwritten rule at her school was that you had to post a picture of your grad dress as soon as you got it, as no one was allowed to get the same one as anyone else.  The girls were all getting their parents to take them on long road trips in hopes of finding that elusive, unique dress.  Crazy making isn’t it?

INSTACURITY

Have you heard of this word?

The Urban Dictionary defines Instacurity as an excessive concern with one’s social presence, influence and/or likeability.  An insecurity about one’s presence on Instagram. 

Lisa had this feeling.

A teen boy I worked with, who I’ll call Jack, was also trapped by his anxiety.  He said his Worry Imp was like Darth Vader.  His mind was full of negative, dark thoughts. He couldn’t turn his mind off.  He always felt that something bad was going to happen, like an earthquake or a fire, and was living in fear.  He was scared of taking public transport and going into downtown Vancouver.

The good news is that both Jack and Lisa were able to find ways to shrink their worries and break out of their glass jars by using three powerful mind shifts.

Mind Shift #1 to Shift Anxiety

The first mind shift they needed to understand is the fact that normally we listen and trust our body’s signals but that there is an important exception…anxiety, the Worry Imp voice.

If we think about when we get goosebumps, it’s true we’re cold and need to go inside or put an extra layer on…

When our stomachs are growling and rumbling, it’s true, we’re hungry and need to get some food.

If there’s a fire in the building, this is a true emergency and we need to trust our instincts and flight – leave the building as quickly as possible!

But with anxiety, we get a false alarm in our mind and body.

Think about test anxiety, it  causes us to freeze but this isn’t helpful and it’s not a true danger. This is a false alarm, and this is one of those times when we don’t listen to our mind and body.

The Worry Imp plays tricks on us and sets off false alarms telling us to fight, flight or freeze unnecessarily.

This alarm part of our brain is called the Amygdala, which acts on instinct and is there to protect us.  It tells us to fight, flight or freeze when it can sense we’re stressed but it doesn’t know how to tell the difference between a true emergency and a false alarm.

So the first important mind shift is, to learn to ask ourselves:

“When I feel scared or worried, is this a true alarm, or is this a false alarm where I need to do the opposite of what my body and mind are telling me to do.”

This feels very counterintuitive but this mind shift is the key to us being in control of the anxiety vs. the worry imp feeding off us and getting stronger and stronger.

If we believe everything we think and feel, we feed our worries, lose our power and increase our anxiety.

Mind Shift #2 to Shift Anxiety

This connects to our second big mind shift which is to realize the power of our thoughts, to understand that our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings create our actions. It’s not actually the situation that creates our feelings.  It’s our thoughts create our reality. 

If you were to come across my Golden Retriever, Bailey, and he wasn’t on leash and I wasn’t around and you were uncomfortable with dogs, your Worry Imp voice might think “Help this dog is vicious , it’s going to attack me” and then you would feel worried and scared and go into flight mode and run away.

But if you were comfortable with dogs, you might think: “This cute dog seems to be lost.” Now you would feel concerned and compassionate and your actions would be to pet him and check his collar for a contact number.

By having this complete mind shift, from fear-based negative thoughts to positive helpful thoughts, you would be much more calm. In both cases, the situation is the same.  It’s the same dog, with the same person but the thoughts are opposite which lead to completely different feelings and actions.

Think about Disneyland…. Imagine what it would be like to be a four year old at Disneyland, in awe of meeting Mickey Mouse and the Disney Princesses.  Your thoughts create your reality and at age four, everything at Disneyland would have seemed real and magical.  Then as you got older, you realized that the characters and princesses are just people dressed up and your perspective completed changed.  You now see the reality through the illusion.

If we live our lives through a fear-based lens, we will always be in survival mode. Our ancestors lived this way out of necessity, but we no longer need to.

We all have anxiety which is important for keeping us alert for danger when true fear is upon us, but worrying all the time does not keep us safe. The idea that worrying keeps us safe is an illusion. It’s not real! It’s a fantasy!

Jack, also had a deep fear of earthquakes.  Every time he went outside, he worried about the possibility of an earthquake happening.  Once he realized that he was caught in an illusion where he believed that by worrying about earthquakes, it would somehow keep him safer, he was able to break through and see the truth and realize that worrying was not serving a purpose.  It wasn’t stopping an earthquake from coming and it wasn’t keeping him safer.

Do you know the difference between anxiety and fear?

Anxiety is about the future, it’s a perceived threat that may or may not happen, whereas fear is happening right now and it is a true emergency. 

Jack and Dianne learned that they could find tune out their Worry Imp voice by pretending that they had a remote control for their brains.  Think about how you feel when you turn on the TV and it’s a horror movie – you see a freaky vampire and feel scared but if you quickly change the channel to a comedy show you change your emotions to being happy.  So when we feel anxious, we can press “PAUSE” in our minds and ask ourselves, is this is a true alarm or a false alarm? Is whatever I’m worried about happening right now? How can I change my channel from negative fear-based thoughts to positive, trusting thoughts?

We can choose to live our lives based on taking the path of worry or the path of trust. We don’t know what our future holds so we can worry our way there or trust our way there.  Which path is going to create a more fulfilling journey?

Mind Shift #3 to Shift Anxiety

and the third powerful mind shift is to realize that even when we’re experiencing big uncomfortable feelings, we don’t have to react to them.

Research shows emotions only last 90 seconds if we don’t feed them. 

If  you clap your hands together really hard and then hold them apart a little, you will notice the sensation in your hands of stinging, burning and tingling.   But you’re not reacting, just observing. We need to watch  our feelings, like a spectator, and notice as they fade away.

We can use this mind shift when we’re experiencing anxiety. We can notice the big uncomfortable feelings inside of us and instead of reacting, we can take deep breaths, observe our Worry Imp voice and feelings for 90 seconds, and notice how they fade away. When we stay in the present, and observe our feelings instead of react to them, that’s what creates the shift.

You see our emotions are like a big wave that peaks and passes. If we get caught up in our emotions, we get tossed around, we react and perhaps say or do things that we later regret. If we stay in the present, take deep breaths and just notice our thoughts and uncomfortable feelings, we  can surf the wave of emotion.

Like Jack and Lisa who have both now broken through their glass jars.  Jack says he feels as though he gets to live his life all over again. Being free and able to make his own choices, go where he wants to go without worrying about earthquakes or fires, try new things and go downtown on the Skytrain.

Lisa, still struggles from time to time, but she has her go-to strategies and she knows that it’s just her Worry Imp voice playing tricks on her.  She’s back to hanging out with friends, attending university and has decided that social media is not for her. 

By practicing these three mind shifts of #1) listening and trusting the signals from our bodies and minds except when it’s  our anxiety voice #2) understanding that the worries are creating an illusion and our thoughts create our reality and #3) observing our big emotions and uncomfortable feelings for 90 seconds instead of reacting to them we can lessen the impact of anxiety.

Using these three strategies will give us and our kids more resilience and eventually create a shift in our culture where we can go from being less anxious and avoidant to more courageous and confident.

Please share this YouTube on The Impact of Anxiety with your tweens and teens – the audience for my TEDx talk was 500 teens ages 13-17yrs. and their teachers so it is relatable for the tween/teen age group.

Warmly,

PS. Registration is open for my next round of Brain Science groups to teach children ages 7-9 yrs. and 10-12 yrs. about anxiety and how to manage it.  The next groups will start in January.  There is still space in the 7-9yr. old group and the 10-12 yr.old group is full.  Please call Hailey at the ABLE Clinic to register at 604-922-3450.  To see the flyer with more information about the group click here.

PPS.  To receive my free ebook: 8 Common Mistakes to Avoid When Your Child Is Anxious, click here.

PPPS.  To learn more about my children’s book on anxiety for children ages 5-10 yrs.  Surfing the Worry Imp’s Wave ~ Empowering Child to Understand and Manage Anxiety, see the right margin of this page and scroll up.