Good Ol’ Anxiety

Good ol’ anxiety 
I’m not sure if I’ve ever worked with a client who did not deal with some flavor of anxiety. So, let’s talk about good ol’ anxiety.

I want to start by normalizing anxiety. We all get anxious at times. In 2025, you don’t have to look far to find something to be anxious about. In no way do I want to pathologize anxious responses. However, if your anxiety is making life hard for you, let’s explore some ideas together. 

What does your anxiety look like? 
Anxiety manifests differently for people, a combination of thoughts and/or body responses. It can be helpful to reflect on how your anxiety shows up and announces itself. Quietly, in your mind with racing thoughts? With perspiration, restlessness or irritability? Causes you to keep yourself busy? Or to shut down with fear? 

Anxious part
Alongside EMDR, the other treatment modality I most commonly use is Internal Family Systems. This model treats all of the “parts” of ourselves, sees them all as good and strives to learn from them while supporting their healing. Our anxiety is a “part” of us, trying to help us and protect us. I heard another clinician describe it as “an overly helpful friend.” So it can be beneficial to begin to see it and treat it as a part of us, creating a dialogue with it to gain insight from how it’s trying to help us. 

Ask your anxious part 
How are you trying to help me now? 
What are you afraid would happen if you didn’t show up in this way right now? 
Thank your anxious part for the ways it has helped you and protected you 
How old do you think I am? 
If your anxious part thinks you are a younger age, take time to update your part on your age and paint a picture of your current life and the resources you have now, that you did not at the younger age
Notice if the part feels connected to a memory from that age and if so, provide that part of you comfort in the memory through your imagination 

Anxiety needs compassion 
Gabor Maté, a brilliant physician and writer, has one of my favorite ideas about anxiety. He shares in his book about addiction, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, that regarding anxiety, it will always find a target to be anxious about, so it’s less important to focus on the target and more important to provide the anxious part a compassionate response. Let’s look at what that could look like below.

Ways to respond to anxiety 
“Oh, you’re here again, I knew you’d come back, welcome.”
“You can join me for the ride, in the passenger seat or backseat, I will be in the drivers seat.” 
“I do want your help, thank you for showing up, right now I am safe.”
“Oh, you’re feeling anxious again, that makes sense. This feels like something scary from the past.” 
Connect with your body through hand on your heart, movement, dance, self hug
My favorite go to self compassion exercise

What is underneath the anxiety? 
Another therapy modality, Advanced Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy, has a concept called The Change Triangle, that I find helpful when it comes to exploring anxiety. This model discusses core emotions, such as sadness, anger, etc and then also “inhibitory emotions,” anxiety being one of them. The idea is that anxiety blocks us from feeling a core emotion and so a beneficial question to ask ourselves when anxious is, “what could I be feeling under this anxiety?” Then we can specifically look for one of the core emotions and gain insight from what that core emotion needs from us.

What is the urge?
Typically our emotions give us an urge for how to care for them. We can pause in our anxiety and ask ourselves, what is the urge this anxiety desires? Is it an assertive conversation with someone? Is it prompting me to ask for help? Does it have a lot of energy and dancing through it would be helpful? Am I overstimulated and need some quiet and space? 

Creativity | Nature 
I’ve heard that when we are in creative mode, we can’t also be anxious. Something to consider is reflecting on your current creative outlets and how you can up your game in this arena. Nature is another grounding force, walking barefoot, touching a tree or staring at the sky. It can give us an “awe” response, which may create a sense of safety and help shift anxious thoughts.I know with mom life, this time is hard to come by and we have to intentionally choose how we spend the precious free moments we do have. So, you may choose these and you may not, just something to reflect on. 

Your anxiety is not bad, it makes sense, and you and your anxiety can become a team in your wellbeing.