Mindfulness and Anxiety
Hi Yall,
This is the first of a short series on mindfulness and awareness - There are way too many golden nuggets pertaining to awareness to try to cover it all in one place, so let’s digest and discuss in small pieces!
Let’s start with re-teaching ourselves how to view anxiety and talk about what makes awareness in this step so critically important. Awareness is truly the cornerstone of change. I can talk all day about awareness and the multitude of functions it serves in building emotional intelligence and catalyzing healing in the mental health realm. But for those who experience unwanted anxiety and want to grow in managing your emotional regulation, it is absolutely imperative to increase understanding in how our brains neurologically form habits, create false narratives, and prepare our bodies to fight back against suspected harm.
So let’s start here - WHAT EVEN IS ANXIETY?
A good starting point, is understanding anxiety as a signal that sends a message to the rest of our bodies when there is an anticipated threat. Our brains anticipate threat by remembering past experiences, how they made us feel, and how we reacted. These memories and linked responses are stored in the amygdala.
WHAT IS GOING ON IN MY BRAIN AND BODY?
Similar to experiencing physiological changes triggered by immediate danger, the DSM-5 describes anxiety as what your body feels when it is preparing you for suspected danger. In other words, your amygdala sends a signal to your body, telling you in advance, you’re not safe -before the danger even occurs. Coming from someone who felt guilty for experiencing anxiety for years, and couldn’t name where it was stemming from, it has been transformational in my journey to understand that my brain was attempting to keep me safe by preparing my body to fight or flee from a situation similar to a past experience that threatened my sense of emotional, internal, or physical security. Through the process of understanding this, I gained so much compassion for myself knowing that my brain was attempting to avoid situations and/or feelings that were similar to ones that have caused me pain in the past. If you relate to this feeling of anxiety avoidance in any way, give yourself a hug, thank your brain for being neurologically wired to keep you safe, and practice some self-compassion!
AWARENESS IS THE KEY.
Once you have awareness in what is actually going on in your brain and body while experiencing anxiety, you can begin the process of rewiring your brain to no longer fear or ignore these signals. The next step would be partnering with a professional to peel back the layers on when and why the neuropathway attempting to keep you safe from something was formed. This also allows you to take yourself out of the passenger seat, merely experiencing the bumpy ride, and into the driver’s seat, with control over which route you want to take moving forward. The power of neuroplasticity means that whichever option you choose - whether it is remaining in the passenger seat and ignoring the anxiety, or putting yourself in the driver’s seat, and figuring out WHY your body is trying to protect you from a suspected threat - the more your brain will remember and strengthen the link between the experience with the chosen response. I want to emphasize the word CHOICE. Until we have awareness in what is causing a consistent state of fight or flight, we can not effectively heal from the past experience and choose a different response. But we can ultimately choose a new one.
Since our brains naturally conserve energy, and we know that neurons that fire together, wire together, our brains will automatically fire the response that takes the least amount of energy which has already been programed and strengthened over time - until a new one is created and practiced intentionally. That is exactly why practicing awareness is so important. Practicing the skill of awareness will increase the ability to process your anxiety and decrease the feeling of victimization from experiencing it. Practicing awareness teaches your brain how to process thoughts and emotions rather than using various band-aids to decrease symptomology without understanding the root cause. Awareness is the cornerstone of change.
I can’t wait for y’all to live a life free from the things that get in the way of you being who you were created to be. Practicing awareness will take you one step closer to that.
If you want individual coaching in this skill-building process, please email me at allie@staysalted.com
Stay Salty, Friends!
