Here’s what you should know about anxiety
Anxiety is a natural human response. Understanding it and working with it, whilst adapting our life to cater more to safety, is the ideal when it comes to anxiety management.
Honouring yourself
Honour your anxiety with safety. Honour your exhaustion with rest. Honour your fear with an open heart space. For these are human experiences, and to try and ignore or suppress them is futile. But to honour them, soothes them.
Anxiety may show up as…
External: aggression and anger, clinginess, avoidance, running away, shaking, vomiting, fast and shallow breath, not able to inhibit behaviours, perfectionism, quick temper, need to control, need to conform, hyperactivity, lethargy and more.
Internal: A sense of rage, fear, exhaustion, digestion issues, increased heart rate, tightness, nausea, headaches, nervousness, worry, shut down, inability to focus, inability to talk, apathy, unable to recognise emotions and more.
Why do we feel anxious?
Here is a list of things you should know about anxiety:
When we become highly aroused (AKA worked up, anxious, testy), the thinking parts of our brain start to shut down. We need to focus on supporting the emotional brain before trying to utilise the cognitive brain (for both ourselves AND our children).
When we speak that which isn’t our truth, even in the best of intentions or in the name of please others, we suffer the physiological experience of lying.
Brains since the industrial revolution = artificial lights, synthetic fibres, devices, global consumerism, mass production, brand conglomerates, internet, wifi, screens, global news sources, extensive wardrobes, extensive toy collections, extensive channel selection, extensive options, extensive expectations.
And they wonder why anxiety rates are higher than ever before.
Let’s talk about anxiety in children
Visualise your brain as an email box. Now visualise the gazillions of emails dropping into that inbox every day - in the form of every single thing we see, every single thing we hear, all the data to process and decisions to be made. And now imagine yourself trying to get that inbox to zero every day.
And then picture a child’s brain trying to do the same.
Childhood anxiety isn’t a ‘why’ issue, it’s a ‘no wonder’ issue.
Children never, ever CHOOSE the meltdown, or any anxiety related behaviour, in the same way that YOU would never, ever choose to have a meltdown in front of your family, colleagues or friends. A meltdown is not a choice, it’s a byproduct of a brain that isn’t coping with something. And that brain needs to be showered in love, compassion and safety. Not punishment, fear or shame.
Problematic behaviour is never the problem. Problematic behaviour is always the biproduct of the actual issue - a brain that isn’t coping with something.
Supporting the brain is infinitely more important than addressing the behaviour!
