Anxiety is a common emotion that many of us experience on a regular basis. It can range from a feeling of mild unease to an intense and debilitating fear. Anxiety can have a significant impact on our lives, affecting our mental health and our ability to face everyday events. In response to anxiety, people often develop coping mechanisms to manage their lives better, but many environmental and internal factors can reduce their effectiveness.
Interpretations of Events Cause Anxiety
To understand anxiety, we must understand that anxiety is a fear caused by our interpretations of the situations we are in. For example, if we interpret a situation as toxic, unsafe, or having dire consequences, then our minds and bodies will respond with a stress response to warn us of the danger we are expecting. When this stress is disproportionately magnified by our past experiences and insecurities, we experience it as anxiety. If identical situations happen often enough and anxiety is continually felt, the feeling can become conditioned so that the situation becomes a trigger even if there is no actual threat to your safety or well-being.
The Role of Trauma and Adversity in Anxiety
The main reason we default to interpretations that cause anxiety is due to trauma or adversity experienced early in life, especially during childhood (often referred to as ACEs or “adverse childhood experiences”). The anxiety felt back then may have been warranted, but when those feelings carry over to present day, our lives become severely impacted and difficult to handle. Eradicating this unwanted emotion at its source is key to living a life that you truly want for yourself.
What We Can Do to Address It
While traditional therapy has focused on strengthening coping techniques to get through your day, constantly coping can become exhausting and people often get into trouble when those coping mechanisms stop working. On top of that, if the client also has self-worth issues, they may stop therapy or stop using their learned strategies if they don’t feel like they are worth the effort to perform necessary self-care.
With Free2Decide’s coaching, we work together with our clients to identify and permanently eliminate the source of their anxiety as well as any related issues so that they can live the life they want without having to rely on coping strategies. Get in touch or book a free strategy session to see what you can overcome!
