Your anxiety isn't real...

Happy end of July, and before you roll your eyes at the heading let me explain…

This knowledge comes from a mix of personal experience, my work with hundreds of teenagers over the last eight years, client experiences, and the latest neuroscience research.

I want your full attention for the seven minutes that it takes to read this email, and I want you to read it whether you *have* anxiety or not, because every single one of my clients over the last 6 months has experienced some form of anxious feelings, even if they didn’t want to attach themselves the label of being ‘anxious’.

What is anxiety? It stems from the word anxious, which is defined as:  apprehension, tension, or uneasiness that stems from the anticipation of danger, which may be internal or external.

I used to laugh about it with work colleagues on a Monday morning, each of us joking about the very real feelings that we were experiencing about meeting upcoming deadlines, or the uneasiness after a big celebratory weekend and a few too many beers. I saw it every day in the classroom, from mild cases of unwillingness to raise a hand in class, to severe cases where students couldn’t write down a single word on an important exam, or worse still, when it was so crippling that it would cause a melt-down in front of peers and the realisation of that perpetuated another cycle of anxiety-shame-embarrasment-anxiety.

In either case, it’s widely accepted as the norm in today’s society, and you only have to scroll through Instagram or any other social media platform to hear about the plethora of people who are suddenly feeling this crippling indecisiveness and worry.

Almost a third of Australian teenagers were diagnosed with anxiety in 2023.

I remember even as a teenager, this overwhelming feeling of stress and frustration at myself for all the things on my to-do list, and my inability to take action and get any of them done. I often felt like I was frozen on the spot and I could never achieve anything until it was just before the deadline when the adrenaline would hit my veins and I’d smash out a 3000 word economic report, turning it in just on time at 11:59pm. In the lead up to the deadline though, I’d be furious with myself and disappointed knowing that I could have achieved so much more if only I could get a head start and commit to it thoroughly.

My frustration would cause me to lash out at those I loved and my family knew well to avoid me during those assessment heavy periods of the school year. My poor old mum had a saying, ‘You can only do your best darl, you can’t do any more than that’, and while completely true and a beautiful sentiment, I used to hate it because I knew that I could probably do so much better, but those anxious feelings seemed to manifest so loudly in my head that I couldn’t write down a single word if I tried.

This continued through my university days, and through my teaching career as well. I was proud of the fact that I could write student reports that were articulate and succinct in a much shorter time-span than what should be possible for any teacher. I justified my actions by stating to anybody who would listen that I ‘worked best under pressure’.

And while there are certainly different working types and styles and everyone has their own unique flair for achievement, I want to preface this by saying that my style, while effective, wasn’t healthy for me. It was often accompanied by feelings of anxiety, shame, disappointment, and then on the flip-side, when I accomplished the task last-minute, I would have a surge of euphoria, joy and elation that I had gotten it done. This extreme cycle would see me go from one end of the spectrum to the other such a short timeframe.

Those extremes of feelings aren’t healthy. The stress of that period leading up to a task would be so severe it was crippling my actions: we know that an intense release of cortisol is triggered for our survival when we encounter a stressful situation. The problem is, that our human systems haven’t adapted to the changing environment of the last few centuries, and they’re still hardwired for fight, flight, or freeze, because back then a stressful situation meant life or death with a tiger. Now, our situations aren’t nearly as problematic; they’re much more concerned with our psychology, not our physiology. That release of cortisol caused the crippling overwhelm, or freeze response, in relation to writing an essay.

During those periods of time, my mind would be shouting at me with a range of thoughts from what if it’s not perfect, to I don’t know anything, to I should have paid better attention, to you’re not clever enough to be here, to I am a disappointment, to what if there’s an error or I say something wrong and they judge me for it. That would loop on repeat and I would pay attention to it and feel all the resultant feelings that it bought up: shame, guilt, despair, worry, fear.

The voice that you can hear inside your head everyday, your subconscious mind, is really only focussed on your survival. It’s just repeating the patterns that have become ingrained in it since the day you were born. But it’s not you and it’s not reality.

Let me repeat that: the voice inside your head is not you. It’s a combination of all of your past experiences and fears wrapped up inside your head, designed to keep you safe. Safe being a subjective word here, because anything that feels uncomfortable to you is deemed as ‘unsafe’. So any time that you feel disappointment, anger, sadness, shame: those feelings are all going to feel uncomfortable in your body because society has taught us that our feelings are shameful and wrong. So your mind goes into overdrive every single day to try and protect you from ever feelings these things again… cue the anxiety.

No wonder it feels like you mind is racing a million miles an hour worrying about every little thing could go wrong! Your particular strain of anxiety mind not be task- oriented; maybe you thrive off getting tasks completed in an orderly fashion. Your anxious thoughts might show up in people- pleasing behaviours, or FOMO (fear of missing out). The fact is, if you are having thoughts that make you feel anxious, then you are letting your mind run the show.

It’s not all doom and gloom though: there are ways that you can essentially learn how to rewire your thought patterns and the way that your mind works. And contrary to popular Western medical beliefs, it doesn’t always have to involve a pill from the doctor. There are ways to learn about your dominant thought patterns and transfer them into something more positive, something more attuned to your actual reality, where your daily stressors aren’t actually life-threatening tigers and lions.

Here are thing things that I have personally has success with, that I have studied and read about for hundreds of hours, and that I recommend for my clients:

1. For the short-term fix: find an activity that will help ground you in the moment when you feel the overwhelm, stress and anxiety welling up. I personally love Emotional Freedom Tapping, because it’s a really quick practise that anybody can do at any time of day, and it immediately resets your emotional response to the situation. Book in with me to learn it for yourself and get a recording for your own practise. You could also try breath work, movement, meditation, mindful colouring… anything that is going to get you out of your head, and back into your body and the actual reality of your situation.  

2. For the longer term fix: Study how the human mind was developed for survival and how it actually works. Find a book, a podcast, a documentary; whatever works best for you. I’ll make a little list of recommended books and podcasts in next week's email.  

3. Learn the dominate patterns of thought in your own mind. When you start to become aware of your own thoughts and you observe them without judgement, it will give you clues. It’s important to observe these thoughts, because that will reveal to you what you believe about yourself, and what you believe about yourself will determine what habits you have, and what actions you take in life. This eventually makes up who you are at your core: your identity. If you are really patient, conscientious, and willing to put in the effort, you could do this yourself with meditation, journalling etc.  

4. Otherwise, hack the timeframe and book in with a life coach so I can help you understand your thought patterns from an objective point of view and transform them then and there. The awareness is one thing… but it will only get you so far. I was aware of my patterns of thought and aware of how debilitating and unhealthy they were, but those feelings of shame and inadequacy only made me blame myself for my shortcomings, and that was even worse. I started taking group mindset programs to learn how to rewire those thoughts and beliefs and they were super helpful, but I really saw the most amazing transformation in myself when I started working with a one on one life coach because she had the tools to really analyse and transform my individual beliefs in the moment. I mean, some of those negative beliefs I held about myself (for over 30 years) were completely dissolved in as little as a 60 minute session.  

Ultimately, like building muscles at the gym, or up-skilling yourself with education or in the workplace, it is going to take some time and effort on your behalf to learn about your mind. But the reward: improved concentration and focus, improved mood and stable emotions, more positive self-beliefs, elimination of procrastination or people-pleasing, an appreciation for your current reality and the present moment, happiness and gratitude for who you are and what you can achieve, more fulfilling relationships… I could go on and on about the benefits, but if you were even to achieve just one of these wouldn’t it make life so much more enjoyable?

Let me know if any of that hits you in your soul… I’ve been seeing a lot of clients lately who have been feeling fed up with these emotions and their actions, but just didn’t know how to overcome it. If thats you, please know that you’re not alone, that there are solutions, that you can take your own power back.

I’m sitting here, camped right in front of a creek at Robin Falls, listening to the water gurgling over the rocks and feeling the sun warming (and probably burning) my back, and I’m recalling all the times when I would be somewhere but not really be there. My body was there, but my thoughts were not. I'm so grateful for each moment now, because I am working on being really present and just enjoying to for what it is.

I overheard a conversation the other day between two travellers, and one said that she wasn’t really impressed by the waterfall because she’d seen so many in the NT already and she just wanted to be home… and I thought to myself, how sad. This is one of nature’s most beautiful locations, and you’re not even present in this moment right now. You’re too busy thinking about the future to enjoy the present.

And that is how life passes us by.

How many times have you heard ‘time flies’ or maybe you’ve even remarked yourself how quickly time seems to be passing each year… maybe time isn’t moving any faster, maybe it’s just that your brain isn’t actually appreciating the present moment because it’s always trying to think three steps ahead?

What if you could retrain your brain to live in the present moment and enjoy it fully in the here and now?

I'm going to continue visiting waterfalls and enjoying every moment that I am lucky enough to be there and soak it all in. I have another bog week of exploring National Parks at the top end, and of course, more waterfalls to check off my list.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions, really loved the advice, or just want some more information. I’m always here via reply email or in my DMs. If you want to catch up on previous blog posts, or check out my life coaching offers please click on the website link below ⬇️

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Sending love, warmth and sunshine to wherever you are in the world,

Haley 🤍