Lies Anxiety Tells You and Ways to Overcome Them
The anxious mind will have you believing things about yourself, your circumstances, and your future that are just not true. Anxiety lies. Plain and simple.
Once you can acknowledge that your mind plays tricks, you’ll be able to get back in the driver’s seat and regain a sense of control of yourself and your life. Let’s take a look at some of the most common lies that your anxiety will try to convince you of…
1. Worrying about the future is an effective method of problem-solving.
Endless worrying is NOT helping you! You might try to justify your worry by telling yourself that this is how you avoid surprises in the future, but let’s be real for a second… worrying about situations that have not occurred yet doesn’t necessarily prevent anything from happening. In fact, it just becomes a major hindrance to your ability to be your best in the present moment because it creates more opportunities to beat yourself up and perpetuate fears.
Worrying boils down to a need to feel in control. That makes you feel safe and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, you have to accept that you cannot control everything. Once you can come to terms with that, you can develop a healthy sense of control and do a better job of managing those parts of your life and experiences that you have a real influence on.
2. You should fear everybody sensation you get.
Those of you with health-related anxiety struggle with this one the most. Every flutter, tingle, and twinge triggers a reaction for you that often throws you into an anxiety attack or even a panic attack. Our bodies are made of complex systems that are constantly operating to keep us going.
Sometimes we feel things, but that doesn’t always mean that something is wrong with us. If you’re a person that has a fear of death; maybe because you’ve witnessed others suddenly pass on or have experienced medical issues that were traumatic for you; you might have become overly aware of bodily sensations. This hyper-awareness could be fueling your anxiety and causing you to believe that there is a problem where there isn’t one.
3. You’re weak.
Anxiety is rooted in fear and as such has little faith in your abilities most of the time. It will cause you to feel incapable in many different ways. This is a bald-faced lie! It’s one of the most debilitating lies because it makes you feel shitty about yourself AND interferes with your ability to ask for help from others in fear of their judgment or perception of you.
You might feel like a burden on others to ask for support or be concerned that if they know you need help that they may view you as incompetent or defective. By dispelling this belief you can build your confidence and become more aware of your strength.
4. You’re not safe.
A feeling that you are not safe is the essence of anxiety. It all starts with your amygdala, the most primitive part of your brain. Its job is to initiate the fight-flight-freeze-fawn response in your body. While its motive is simply to ensure your survival, those of you with anxiety have an overactive amygdala. It's the ability to recognize true danger is all out of whack.
When you live with heightened anxiety, your brain is perceiving threats EVERYWHERE and this will steer you away from a lot of things in life. You may avoid social gatherings, job opportunities, conversations, and new adventures because they all feel unsafe to you. But living in isolation out of fear is NOT benefiting you either. You can retrain this part of your brain to recognize real danger and learn to create safety for yourself.
5. You’re going to be stuck like this forever.
That’s a terrifying thought… forever is a long time! Feeling stuck is one of the most common reasons folks find their way to my therapy office. When we feel stuck we start to question everything... what’s my purpose, where am I going in life, have I made the wrong decisions for myself? These kinds of questions for an anxious person can cause you to feel completely trapped.
Being stuck comes with feeling hopeless a lot of the time, so I encourage you to change your language. Let’s use the word immobilized instead. This means you’ve stopped moving, and there are loads of factors that cause us to slow down or stop. By bringing awareness to those factors we can develop strategies to get the wheels moving again. Just because the vehicle has stopped doesn’t mean it’s broken down never to move again.
How to Overcome The Lies Anxiety Tells You
1. Ground Yourself and Observe
As a person with anxiety, you know that sometimes you feel unable to move but other times you have so much energy that you just want to jump out of your skin. A good way to get grounded is to get out that excess energy first. Do a bunch of jumping jacks, vigorously shake your body, arms, and legs, or go up and down your stairs for a couple of minutes.