312: 4 Hidden Mistakes Making Your Anxiety Worse
Welcome to the Joyful Mom Podcast!
I want to preface this whole episode by this fact. Everything I’m going to share, is a part of anxiety and there’s a reason if you’ve been doing these things that you’ve been doing them, because anxiety is so uncomfortable. So as you listen to these things- they absolutely make anxiety worse, but what I would ask of you, is if you find yourself doing these things, have some compassion for yourself, because it’s almost as if you can’t help it because anxiety is so powerful….and if you want help with these things, I can absolutely help you, and while they may feel impossible to stop, there are things we can do to help and make it a lot easier.
Without further adieu, let's dive into these things…Again- you may find yourself doing some, you may find yourself doing all…just give yourself some grace!
1. Caring about it
The more you care about the sensations or thoughts that come with anxiety, the bigger they get. If you don’t care, they get way less. For example..have you ever noticed that if you’re anxious and then you start noticing that your chest is tight, and then you start really paying attention to it and getting more worried about it, it’s almost like it gets worse? And the anxiety gets more intense?
So this is where anxiety about anxiety comes into play. Where you care so much about whether you have or experience anxiety or not, that this is actually what makes anxiety worse if it happens to pop up. So not only did it pop up, but now it’s getting so much worse! How the subconscious mind thinks about this is this way- that the response that’s going on in your body is a result of fear response, which means, the subconscious mind has detected a threat, this could be real or imagined, and so because it detected a threat, all the sensations are happening in your body. So the subconscious mind thinks there’s a lion chasing you for example. And then, if you were to start getting nervous about tightness in your chest, the subconscious goes, oh my gosh, there must be 5 lions, so lets start ramping this up- thus anxiety and sensations increase.
2. Believing the thoughts/feeding them
It seems like I don’t have to tell you, but maybe I do have to say this, that 99.9% of thoughts that come from anxiety are not true or not useful. And the more you feed them, the more they come. Think of them like seagulls on the seashore. When you start to feed a seagull, what happens? All the seagulls come out of nowhere! More and more and more. So when you start feeding the seagulls, it just gets worse. It’s the same with thoughts. When you start feeding them, they also get worse. If you don’t have a way to just shut the thoughts off, which is what I do nowadays because I can communicate to my unconscious mind so I can turn them off, but when you can’t do that, at least stop feeding them.
But when you start to realize that if you’re having anxiety, and any of the thoughts that are coming in are likely untrue, then learn how to just be in the moment rather than feed them. Just watch them, and know you don’t get to choose your thoughts, thoughts just pop in your mind, So you are not your thoughts, you did not choose these thoughts, but you get to choose which thoughts get to stay and make a nest in your mind. Don’t let these thoughts live rent free in your brain.
3. Avoiding triggers and things that make you anxious
You may think that it’s better to avoid or quit things that make you anxious. It may feel better for a moment. Think if you were going to go away for a weekend, but it was making you anxious to leave your kids. And the anxiety was just getting intense, and then you decided to not go on the weekend away. This would momentarily bring a huge sense of relief. Because now you don’t have to go, now you don’t have to leave your kids, and the anxiety is completely gone. Well now, your mind just got rewarded for staying home and not leaving your kids. So now, next time you try to go on vacation, it will be even that much harder to go because the mind thinks it’s safer to stay home and it wants to keep you safe.
So while it feels good to avoid a trigger, it truly doesn’t do you any good to go out of your way to avoid doing these things.
4. Striving to be comfortable: this is kind of similar to avoiding triggers, because the reason you might be avoiding triggers or things that make you anxious, is because you are looking to be comfortable. One of my favorite quotes is when someone strives to be comfortable, the less comfortable they are, and the more comfortable someone becomes with being uncomfortable, the more comfortable they are.
I think of it this way…that when you go out of your way to do something that is uncomfortable, your subconscious mind automatically understands that it’s safe. Because no one would logically do something that is dangerous. But when you avoid things that bring discomfort, in seeking of being comfortable, then the mind starts to automatically label that as dangerous. So if at first, let's say someone started to feel uncomfortable getting on and off the freeway. And then in one direction, because it was uncomfortable and they were seeking comfort, they might start avoiding the freeway. And now, mind is starting to automatically understand that the freeway is dangerous because this person is avoiding it. And you only go out of your way to avoid things that are going to make you die, in the eyes of the subconscious mind.
On the other hand, if the person instead of trying to be comfortable and stopping going on the freeway thus making it more difficult to ever get on the freeway again, if the person instead kept going, and sometimes they might need to introduce new feelings and experiences surrounding getting on the freeway, this is something they could do inside of Cleared. My program, but the more they do it, the more mind gets it that it’s totally fine.
So can you see, in one scenario, the person got more boxed in and trapped where anxiety was controlling their life more, and in the other scenario, the person was able to expand their capacity to do things and keep doing the things they want to do..
Okay, there are the 4 things today that I wanted to share with you that are absolutely making anxiety worse if you find yourself doing them- again, they were caring about it, feeding the thoughts, avoiding things that make you anxious, and striving to be comfortable.
Again, if you are listening to this episode and you like it, let me know! Take a screenshot of this episode, share it on IG stories and tag me at megan_hillukka. I would love to see where you are listening from. And if you do that, I will send you a little gift to your IG inbox!
Next week, I’m so excited to share the episode with you- it’s a lot of my friends giving their best motherhood advice, and my friends are amazing, so I can’t wait to share them with you!
Until next week, take care!
If you want to learn more about how you can clear anxiety more automatically by rewiring how the mind is working and processing things, go to my website www.meganhillukka.com where you can click on a link to register for my free training, where I will show you what you need in order to do this.
