ANXIETY: YOUR SMOKE ALARM
“Beyond the Plain” – Acrylic on canvas
“Fear of the unknown or lack of control can consume and suffocate one’s self. To embrace and accept change can bring peace and contentment.” Grace and Bloom
Fear and anxiety are the emotional response to your brain’s internal alarm system. They motivate you to ACT QUICKLY to fight or flee from danger. You are a descendent from people whose alarm systems were active. Those were the people who acted quickly to escape the tiger or the bear and survive!
But if they are the same system how are fear and anxiety different?! Easy. Fear is a response to a known specified danger, like coming across a snake. Anxiety is a general response to a non-life threatening, poorly defined or unknown danger.
The part of your brain that controls fear and anxiety is like the hard wired smoke alarm in your house. Now the alarm in your house is very important!!! In the event of a fire it alerts you quickly so that you can either fight the fire or flee from the house to safety. The problem is the smoke alarm can’t tell the difference between an actual house fire or burnt toast.
Anxiety is like burnt toast.
I can’t tell you how many people come to me saying “I don’t want to feel anxious any more” or “help me to not feel anxious”. Kind of like saying “I don’t like my smoke alarm going off every time I burn some toast so I am just going to disable the alarm”. Not a good idea at all!
You need your alarm.
So what can we do? Well most people would say STOP BURNING THE TOAST! Some people would argue to simply avoid putting toast in the toaster altogether. Unfortunately, there are lots of other things that might set off the alarm and avoiding them all probably isn’t a great way for you to live.
Perhaps it is about putting measures in place to make sure you catch the toast before it burns? And sure, that’s a great idea. Being mindful of your actions, more present to what you are doing in the moment (anxiety loves to take our attention toward lots of possible scary scenarios that may happen in the future!) are helpful. Learn how to cook toast so it doesn’t burn. That means learn how to do the thing that you feel anxious about. Public speaking? Learn to speak in public. Just like cooking, the more you learn how to do it, the less often you burn things that set the alarm off!
Yet, despite your best efforts sometimes that alarm will detect smoke anyway. What then?
Well first when we hear the alarm beeping in our mind, we can check for danger. Is the house on fire? No? Good. Accept that the alarm may keep going off for a while until the smoke dissipates.
The smoke WILL dissipate on its own. But you can also help it (by climbing on a chair and waving a tea towel frantically at it!)… by opening doors and allowing air to circulate… Which means gentle breathing. Take a slow breath into your tummy, hold it and gently breathe slowly out of your mouth.
But sometimes, even when the toast isn’t burning and the house isn’t on fire, the alarm goes off.
What then?
Well you can either run around frantically trying to figure out why it is beeping (which won’t stop it from beeping), you can stand and stare at it yelling at it to stop (also won’t stop it beeping), you can try ear plugs (still won’t stop the beeping) or you can accept that the alarm is going off and go about your day the best that you can.
Sometimes you can’t control the alarm going off. But you can continue with your life even with anxiety. That’s not to say it’s pleasant. Or easy. But it is a choice that you have at that moment.
