What is anxiety? Anxiety, at its core, is fear. However, we do not clearly perceive anxiety as fear, because we're not consciously aware of the source of our fear, and therefore, we refer to it as anxiety. Therefore, anxiety is the perception of a threat that lies outside of our conscious awareness. Once the threat becomes conscious, it usually is more readily recognized as fear.
Much of our anxieties stem from having deeply held beliefs that most of the time come in the form of "I should, I ought, I must, I cannot, I always, I never".
For example:
"I cannot fail [at anything]" or "If I fail once then I am completely dumb"
"I must always make everyone happy" or "If I don't always cater to other people, then I will be rejected"
"I should always be nice" or "I am a lady, and a lady never get's angry."
These deeply held beliefs are essentially what I was referring to as "blockages" in previous articles. Search the site for "blockage" if you want to read more. Basically, by holding back something that is bubbling inside you, you end up with anxiety. For example, if you believe that you are a lady and ladies NEVER get angry, but someone makes you angry, then you fear becoming that which you "are not."
Many people experience anxiety the same way that they would experience fear (the fight or flight response): Sweaty palms, racing heart, trembling... I'm sure you can Google a better description of possible symptoms than I can provide you with here. In more intense cases of anxiety such as panic attacks, one can even experience narrowed vision and difficulty breathing.
"I don't know what's going on! I'm just feeling anxious!" is a common starting place for people dealing with anxiety. The next step is to explore this signal that is anxiety, slowly. Remember, be patient with yourself and take your time. How do you begin exploring this? The Gestalt way would be for you to listen to your body. By that I mean, focus on the actual physical symptoms that you are experiencing (trembling hands, tightness, muscle spasms). Observe them. Make a nice detailed list (in your mind) of all the symptoms. Familiarize yourself with them. Once you are familiar with all the symptoms, often times some of the anxiety may subside. The reason why often times some of the anxiety subsides is because not only are you anxious due to some unconsciously perceived threat, but also because you may have anxiety related to the unknown (fear of the unknown). What is unknown here is what is happening to your body as you experience anxiety. When anxiety causes us to have many symptoms simultaneously, we can get overwhelmed and confused, resulting in additional anxiety of not knowing what is going on. So, the first step is always to get to know all your symptoms of anxiety. Make friends with them, so to speak. Know them well.
Once you know your symptoms well, you can try this: Ask your symptoms (you can ask 1 symptom at a time, or you can ask them all at once. All up to you) what it is that they would like to do. "What are you trying to make me do? What are you trying to tell me?" Listen for a response. See if anything comes up. If something comes up, you can continue to have a conversation with it until you figure out what it is that you're feeling anxious about. As you work your way through the conversation, you may find that certain answers feel more truthful than others at the gut level. If the answer you get does not feel strong at the gut level, you can say something along the lines of "I don't believe you / You're beating around the bush / There's more to this / There's something else."
A heuristic that I like for finding out what the anxiety may be related to is to ask yourself questions:
"What am I afraid of?" -- Think for a while and see if anything comes up. If nothing comes up, then take a couple of guesses. Don't expect yourself to get an "A HA!" right away (though it's possible). As you work your way through various guesses, pay attention to how correct your guess feels. The level of correctness can range from an "a ha! That's it!" feeling, to a vague "hmm, maybe", to "definitely not." From my experience, you will spend most of your time in the gray area of "hmm, maybe." For more information about how to work from the gut, see my article on intuition.
If you guess something that feels roughly correct, remember it. Use it as an "anchor" so to speak, and start guessing around it. Perhaps you'll guess something new that feels even more correct. If you do, then remember that as well, and also use that as an anchor. Keep doing this until you feel satisfied that you have found your fear. At this point, depending on your fear, you can either address the issue, or you can do some form of reality testing to see whether your fear is realistic.
Some other questions that you can toss around while working this way are:
What am I concerned about?
What am I stuffing inside?
Am I not allowing myself to feel something?
What am I not allowing myself to feel?
Remember, most importantly listen to your gut. Your general felt-sense of "rightness" when working with your own mind is as indispensable as a compass when lost at sea.
Ed.M. in Mental Health Counseling, Columbia U.
Trained in Gestalt Psychotherapy
http://revelationsofapsychotherapist.blogspot.com/
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