Exploring Anxiety

Anxiety is often why clients seek support and is often beneath the surface of or exacerbating other reasons for seeking support.

 We could debate ad infinitum the rise of anxiety, the prevalence – even pandemic – of anxiety. We could discuss the impact of a society that is constantly switched on, receiving ridiculous amounts of information and levels of stimulation and input all day long, saturating our nervous system with just too much to assimilate and not enough time or space to switch it all off. We could consider how, or if, we filter and process our constant distractions. We could argue the comparison culture we are immersed in, exacerbated by social media and the constant seeing and hearing  of how others are and we perhaps ‘should’ be living. We could wax lyrical about the pressures we are under in our lives, the expectations to live up to unrealistic ‘norms’ in every single aspect of every day. And the simple fact that life is difficult for many of us right now for many reasons. We could even reflect on our disconnection from nature, from community, from intimacy in our hectic lives. Yes, we could certainly identify a myriad of potential roots of and explanations  for the rise of anxiety and anxiety-related issues and disorders.

The reasons behind anxiety might well be our starting point with clients, including what reduces and what exacerbates anxiety. Awareness is a crucial first step in resolving the problems, barriers or concerns the identified anxiety creates.

But what of the solutions? These are as unique and individual as is each client we meet. There is never a one-size-fits-all, nor a ‘one and done’ to something so potentially deep-rooted and complicated as anxiety. Below is a selection of strategies and approaches that I have found to be helpful personally, with my young son, and with my clients. I hope there may be something of value in here for you.

·       Explore and understand the anxiety fully. When it is worst? What brings it on? What does it feel like? Encourage clients to get to know it, describe it and understand it – how it feels in the body, how it manifests, physical symptoms, thoughts that circulate before, during and after it, etc.

·       Children often like to give the anxiety a name, and/or describe its colour or shape. This can also make it feel less scary.  

·       Helping the client to explore the precursors and how anxiety  comes on, ‘rises’ and grows brings awareness to the body and its reactions and responses, as well as more potential agency or ‘control’ over the anxiety.

·       Identifying what is most likely to precede  debilitating anxiety is helpful, although clients often live with low-level anxiety, the cause of which they cannot always ascertain. Supporting clients to become more aware, perhaps through journalling or keeping a diary, can be empowering.

·       Similarly, knowing in which situations, environments, places and with whom we are least and most anxious is beneficial. Awareness is always the first step.

·       This exploration of what anxiety is for the client can be drawn upon when creating hypnotherapy scripts, too.

·       If there is an Initial Sensitising Event, it might be that we deal with that specifically. We will find this out through our exploration more generally.

·       Discourage the client from owning and labelling the anxiety such as ‘my  anxiety’. The brain attaches greater significance to what we claim as our own and will hold onto it more. Avoid attaching to it.  Name it ‘the anxiety’ or just ‘anxiety’.

·       Similarly, challenge labels that clients present such as “I am an anxious person” or “I have severe anxiety”. Obviously we are not undermining their experience but we do want to empower them to step into a new identity which does not attribute anxiety as its defining feature.

·       Differentiate between anxiety as a state and anxious thoughts. This can help clients to notice and stop anxious thoughts before they spiral into anxiety.

·       Normalize anxiety. It is a perfectly normal, valid, important and prevalent emotion, feeling or state. Anxiety is on the spectrum of human experience.  It does not need to be a trait or personality or identity – everyone experiences anxiety. It has an important function to keep us safe, whole and thriving.

·       To that end, we do not want to remove anxiety. It is necessary and serves a purpose. Be explicit about the aim – it might be to reduce anxiety or it could be to manage anxiety so that it stops negatively impacting life, or to soften the grip of anxiety – we are not intending to remove anxiety or expecting to never feel it again.

·       Sometimes, an understanding of how the brain works is helpful. I find that children  in particular find this illuminating.  Knowledge and understanding is gold – if you know what is happening and why, it can often make you feel less out of control and powerless over it.  

·       Taken from the work of Dr Kristen Neff  and Dr Tara Brach, encourage acceptance of and self-compassion for experiencing anxiety.  This is powerful for all conditions, not only anxiety.

·       Encourage clients to be gentle with anxious thoughts and/or anxiety, not pushing them away or feeling angry or worried that they appear. The Law of Reversed Effect, the harder you try the harder it is! Also, knowing  our body floods with cortisol when we react with stress, including inner talk, we want to avoid negative responses to anxiety.  Gently noticing the anxiety and welcoming it in with a friendly “Oh, here you are again, anxiety – what do you want me to notice today?” is helpful. Analogies such as allowing the anxiety to have a seat at the table but not the head of it, or being allowed to sit in the car but not drive it, can help ‘allow’ the anxiety without being overwhelmed, taken over or ruled by it. Linking this back to its function – why is there anxiety? – what do you need in this moment? is useful.

·       Mantras are beautiful tools and repeating these whilst embodying the belief in them is transformative. Creating their own wording is most impactful for clients. Three powerful personal examples: “This is a moment of anxiety. Anxiety is a part of my life just as it is everyone else’s. May I be kind to  myself in this moment. May I know that this moment will pass.” “Breathe. Calm. Grounded. I can handle this.”  “I have experienced anxiety like this before. Nothing terrible will happen.” Incorporating somatics helps greatly – include the body and feel the mantras/affirmations rather than repeating them mechanically.

·       Talking in second or third person creates distance that can strengthen belief in affirmations. Instead of “I can handle this”, encourage “Karen can handle this” or “You can handle this”. The brain tends to believe this more, apparently, although I personally prefer first person (see what resonates with your clients).

·       Create an anchor and really get the body involved (this is often the missing piece with mindset work and hypnotherapy). I find it very helpful to demonstrate to clients whilst they are lying or sitting with me what happens to their bodies when they create something in their mind. Having them create the anxious situation safely with you, highlight physical responses, etc.  Next, ask the client to imagine safe, calming place or situation free from anxiety (this needs exploring in advance and you need to be sure that the client can access a safe space in their mind – really check this carefully!) and notice the physical responses. Move between the two and create an anchor to use in anxious situations. It is often profoundly illuminating when clients are asked to reflect on the fact that nothing had changed in their environment apart from their thoughts, yet their physiology and biology completely changed. The power of their thoughts and their own control over them is an important teaching.  

·       Encourage the client to record evidence of times without anxiety and to seek out and ensure more of these. The more experience and evidence the brain has of these, the  more it can seek them out and find more. It also ensures that the client can notice what helps and build more of that into their day.

·       Encourage nervous system regulation. With anxiety, the body is often or almost constantly in fight, freeze, flee or fawn mode and may have normalized this as its default. We need to support our clients to prioritise bringing the body back into a place of safety, time and time again until it becomes the baseline. This needs to be in ways that suit the client – there is no point in suggesting something a client hates doing or cannot build into their day. Breathwork is especially accessible and effective and time-friendly but it could be walking, meditation, exercise, time in nature, yoga, stretching,  mindful movement, gardening, relaxation…anything that brings the body to a place of calm, safety and a regulated state where the mind is not overactive.

·       Somatic strategies such as hugging oneself, tapping or gentle rubbing, internally  squeezing muscles, or pressing feet into the floor can support regulation. This moves attention from anxiety, bringing it to the body and focusing on the feedback from that.

·       Teaching self-hypnosis empowers the client to leave you equipped with a tool for life.

·       Breathwork patterns can be taught which move energy through the body and reduce anxiety in the moment. They also divert attention and energy elsewhere, away from the thinking that is creating or exacerbating anxiety. Added bonus – breathwork regulates the nervous system quickly and is always accessible and possible to easily, discretely, independently  practise.

Embodiment is essential, in my opinion. Working only on mindset or the subconscious is powerful, but supercharged by enabling the client to truly embody, feel like and be the person who is not experiencing anxiety in the way that caused them to seek support for it. Teaching them to experience, imagine and practise this repeatedly is ‘training’ for a new identity, one not unnecessarily hindered by anxiety. This increases agency, impact and sustainability. Yes,  hypnotherapy does work without this layer, but if a client is willing and able to develop ‘muscle memory’, through visualising, journalling, recording evidence and other shared tools, the deeper the rewiring will be. We tend to separate mind and body, with the mind seen as running the show. The mind, or brain, is not a separate entity that we need to practise linking with the body, it is actually part of the body! Nervous system regulation is a key ingredient in managing anxiety, so never skip this part either.