“What does the experience feel like?”, “What do I hope won’t happen?”, “What do I dislike about this situation?” These questions provoked anxiety in Sadie. She responded with, “It feels like I can’t leave. And I’m not a fan of being too deep in any store. Especially a big warehouse type like Target. I don’t want to feel stuck. I hate when my hands shake. I feel short of breath and dizzy.”
3.Ask yourself, “Is it the experience I fear, or do I have anxiety based on a ‘What if’ thought?” (as in, “What if…happens?”). Sadie was plagued by thoughts such as, “What if I can’t get out of Target fast enough? What if I panic?”
4.If anxiety is triggered in more than one situation, ask yourself if there is a common theme during these moments. What do they all share, if anything, or are they separate? Although those who struggle with anxiety can have multiple fears, people with a complex phobia (something we’ll discuss more of later) fear one or two major themes. And these greatest hits are played ad nauseam! For example, Sadie shared that she felt anxiety in line at the grocery store and at Target. She added that she felt anxiety in traffic and elevators, too. We quickly identified the common theme as a fear of being trapped while believing a fast escape was difficult or impossible. This fear (and Sadie’s anxiety symptoms) led me to her diagnosis of agoraphobia. I then created her treatment plan accordingly.
What Anxiety is NOT
✻A phase: An anxiety disorder is not some child-like developmental difficulty that will vanish on its own.
✻Something you can distract or breathe your way out of: You’ve probably already tried these ineffective strategies.
✻A disease: It’s not like the flu. You’re not stricken by anxiety, and you’re no leper for having it either!
✻Personal: It’s not your identity. It’s a brain issue.
✻What you deserve: You’re not being punished, though it might feel this way.
✻Your destiny: No one is destined for a life filled with anxiety (unless they choose not to follow the proper strategies to overcome it).
✻The end of days.
A Dip in Your Family’s Gene Pool?
Your anxiety most likely has genetic roots. For example, many people that I treat at my center tend to have a family history of phobias, panic attack struggles, or OCD. The genetic connection can be close and obvious, like a parent, or less direct, like a second aunt or a great grandfather. To put it simply, this means that those with anxious wiring tend to be more prone to potential anxiety issues than those without. However, this propensity for developing an anxiety issue by no means suggests that it’s a foregone conclusion. It just means the table has been set, should you take certain actions to sit down and eat! This is analogous to someone with a genetic predisposition toward alcohol abuse. Even though the pull might be strong, you only become an alcoholic once you abuse alcohol.
Now this might come as a surprise…
Anxiety Is Also an Illusion
Most respond defensively to this construct, at first. They often remark, “But it feels real. Shouldn’t I trust my feelings? Don’t my feelings matter?”
I’m not dismissing how you feel. As a psychologist, I’m willing and able to validate anxious feelings. Just don’t ask me to validate parking! But my validating your anxious feelings only goes as far as offering understanding that you feel the way you do. Again, I’m not dismissing how or what you feel. Struggling with anxiety symptoms can be a challenge, at best. At worst, anxiety can be so destructive that it shuts down a life (only with your avoidance and without the tools in this book, of course). So allow me to clarify this “anxiety is an illusion” statement…
Anxiety Is Your Brain’s False Fear Message
That’s right. There’s no real danger. But there is danger in the false fear message you’re reinforcing and hearing loud and clear. So we’ll be discussing how to outsmart these messages in detail, in short order.
Anxiety Getaway Tip
Your anxiety symptoms can’t kill you. Here’s some proof: Ask yourself how many times you’ve been anxious. How many times have you experienced these anxiety symptoms? And yet, here you sit reading this book. So, anxiety symptoms can’t kill you. They can, however, make life rather unpleasant.
Reading this book demonstrates your readiness to break free from anxiety’s grip and move forward. So congratulations! You’re taking the first important step toward living with more freedom, opportunity, and joy. And on that note, let’s move forward.
“It takes brains…”
—Unknown author
“More brains…”
—Zombie from The Return of the Living Dead
In order to make your anxiety getaway by freeing yourself of anxiety symptoms, it’s vital that you first consider how the anxiety plane achieves lift off. Using this flying analogy, think of anxiety as having two separate, but connected, engine pieces. Your belief system is one. It plays a large, influential role. The other engine piece can be filled with vats of plane fuel and is, in large part, even more responsible for anxiety lift off. Yep, I’m talking about your brain.
Boarding the Anxious Brain Plane
Your anxiety is primarily a brain issue. It’s not really about you. Still, it’s easy to take anxiety personally because it sure does feel like you. After all, they’re your anxious thoughts, feelings, reactions, and symptoms, right? At least that’s what you tell yourself—it’s what everybody who suffers from anxiety tells themselves. You’re in the company of millions. Feel better? Probably not. Anxious misery does not love anxious company.
So how is anxiety a brain issue, exactly?
To answer that, we first need to talk about the biological gift that keeps on giving. It’s called…
The Survival Instinct
We’ve all got one. It’s part of the genius of our built-in biology. And it’s designed to save our lives, when necessary. The most basic expression of our survival instinct is the fight-or-flight response. It is this biological mechanism that could be responsible for the perpetuation of our species back in caveman times (or “caveperson times,” to bring it around to the twenty-first century). Without the fight-or-flight response, early men and women may never have survived all the hyena attacks (supposedly, that was a thing!) where they instinctually had to fight to the death or run like hell to stay alive. Getting an up-close-and-personal view of hyena choppers triggered their biology to kick in, with their adrenal gland releasing the hormone of adrenaline that prepared their body to fight or run.
Now back to the twenty-first century…
When it comes to the survival instinct in our regular, workaday lives, most of us are rarely faced with life-or-death situations (no, your in-laws don’t count as hyenas). But for those who struggle with anxiety, their life is threatened on a daily basis. Well, not exactly, but that’s what their brain is telling
