When worry is too much…
The word ‘anxiety’ has become a much more common phrase that I am seeing around the world. Remarkably, we have become accustomed to using the phrase “I’m anxious about…” in our regular speech. On one hand, it is a very precise phrase that expresses the press of tense, ruminating discomfort that we feel when there are threatening or stressful stimuli. On the other hand, it also is a highly medicalized phrase that carries with it some baggage that I wish it didn’t. What is true is that there are some times when the worry is too much and the anxiety becomes overwhelming.
As a person who originated in a family steeped in anxious worry, I have worked on managing my levels of stress for many years. Becoming a mental health professional helped cultivate a “toolbox” of techniques to help regulate my physiology as well as to be exposed to the normalizing experience of working with clients who also experience intense worry. Even with this practical knowledge, the journey to managing worry is a lifelong one and I often think about the practical work of implementing anxiety management skills in the same framework as implementing physical exercise skills (indeed the work can be curiously similar).
One thing I have come to understand about anxiety is that no matter how good your skills are, no matter how sharp your knowledge, sometimes it gets to be too much. It’s a theme that even when folks I have worked with (colleagues and clients) have good skills they sometimes have a really bad day. Often, these moments cause people to think that they aren’t good enough, working hard enough, or using the right skills. Walking with people through these moments can be tough as it is a reminder that I can say the same things to myself. It is hard to remember that even Olympic athletes have a crummy day. We must remind ourselves and are reminded that sometimes we need grace in the hardest moments of our lives. Grace to know that we sometimes fail to achieve the goal we want, acceptance to know that we are still good enough to try again. When the worry becomes too much, remember to take a pause, acknowledge the pain, and move forward… you matter and it’s okay to try again.
