The 3As of Anxiety
Is your anxiety at an all-time high? And your self-esteem at all-time low? Maybe you have been sharing your life with anxiety for many years. If so, that stops now. Remember, anxiety doesn’t have an identity of its own and gets to run your life.
Anxiety can’t be avoided but it can be reduced. An essential part of managing anxiety is practice. As a starting point, get to know your anxiety better. You can’t manage something you don’t understand. Consider, how does anxiety show up in your own life? Anxiety can manifest in different ways. In therapy, we talk about the three As of anxiety. They are as follows:
AVOIDANCE - steering clear of certain situations, putting things off etc.
AMBIVALENCE - having a hard time making decisions and all the mental anguish that comes with it.
ANTICIPATION - making negative predictions. Engaging in ‘what-if thinking’, overthinking things to the point of overwhelm.
Firstly, avoidance is a short-term solution. It can provide temporary relief. However, in the long term, it creates a vicious cycle and undermines your self-confidence. Consider the following questions:
Do you use avoidance coping? (If so, how is that working for you?)
What is underneath the behaviour? What is the payoff of avoidance?
Secondly, ambivalence is the mental mess that exists before you have to commit to a decision. This state of inner tension can lead to anxiety. In and of itself, ambivalence is not necessarily a bad thing. It is part of the human condition. For example, when making a big life decision, it is prudent to take time to think things through and sit with the mixed feelings, instead of rushing to make a decision to avoid the feelings of discomfort. The problem exists when the ambivalence remains unconscious. When it is unconscious it remains in control and can be paralysing.
Consider the following questions:
What do you know about yourself in this area? Do you prefer closure, making a decision, and moving on quickly? Or do you like to weigh the pros and cons of each option?
What is your current comfort level with difficult emotions? Can you tolerate grey areas?
Thirdly, anticipatory anxiety or future tripping. The brain is a prediction making machine. In its defence, its main job is to keep you alive. However, to do this, it will try to prepare you by throwing all these different eventualities at you, often with a negative bias. Of course, in life, it is impossible to be prepared for every eventuality. You can never have 100% certainty about anything. So, this worry about future events can be exhausting and lead to dread. What’s more it can set-up a negative self-fulfilling prophecy cycle.
I hope that was helpful. This was just a brief rundown. In future anxiety posts, I’ll share some of the strategies and techniques that can help reduce anxiety.
