Stop Cuddling Anxiety: The Dangers of Just Coping | ES197

Dr. Friedemann Schaub: What I'm about to tell you may come to

you as a shock. It may appear rather controversial. But I want

you to know that what I'm saying comes from love and compassion

for you. And for anyone who is struggling with anxiety. Because

I know anxiety, I have been struggling with anxiety, you

know, for several decades, and I have been helping countless of

my clients to overcome anxiety without medication. So I'm

familiar what anxiety is like, where it comes from, but also

what it can do to us. And so one of the things that I always find

really, really difficult about anxiety and in some ways also

annoying, is that anxiety, get sometimes cuddled by us, it's

almost like as if we are taking the anxiety as a general excuse

for us, not really showing up as the best versions of ourself.

And we don't do this consciously. It's like what

happens when we let the anxiety do this to us? It's when the

anxiety becomes our identity, when we are seeing ourselves as

anxious people, and not as anything else, when we are not

really understanding that anxiety is just a small aspect

of us. Yes, a loud one. And the anxiety can certainly feel

intense. But in the end, it is not really describing all our

gifts and talents and truth that are inside of us. Now, the

problem is that so many people are told, Well, you're an

anxious person. So you need to just learn how to manage and

cope with the anxiety. And then there are all these messages out

there that are basically just reinforcing. Yes, it's so hard

to being anxious. And yes, of course, you're so brave to still

show up with anxiety, it's all true. And it's only a little

step towards real healing and towards real empowerment, which

I believe is really what the anxiety can lead us to. The

point is just that I have seen countless times that anxiety can

somehow diminish who we are, so that we are actually showing up

as a lesser version of ourself. So here are five ways the

anxiety can make you a diminished version of yourself,

a person that you look at and say, well, that's not really who

I want to be. But somehow, I didn't realize that this is who

I became. Number one is, anxiety can make you act very selfishly.

What I mean with that is that when we are anxious, and when

we're so focused and absorbed by this emotion, we lose sight on

anyone around us, or what other people need or want, doesn't

really appear as important as us just having to struggle with

that feeling. Because somehow we are saying, well, you know, my

anxiety has precedent and my anxiety is more urgent and more

important than anyone else's issues. And so we just become

more self centered, and not really seeing ourselves as

people that actually are here to be of service to make a

contribution to, to give to others as much as we are also

able and willing to receive. So number two is that anxiety also

can make us look for for short term relief where we just avoid

anything that feels uncomfortable. We let's say have

problems with with social gatherings. So we are the ones

who are just last minute, cancel everything just because the

anxiety is too much or we're you know feeling like that. Because

anxiety so great. We can really deal with, you know, tasks at

hand or, or things that our job would require us to do or maybe

even paying the bills and so that form of avoidance

procrastination, not wanting to leave the comfort zone is also a

way that makes us feel smaller and More power less then really

our most confident and authentic selves. And the more we are

acting, then in that way that just goes for how can we get

short term relief, the more we're losing trust in ourselves,

because maybe we had good intentions and said, Yes, of

course, we're going to do this. And of course, they're going to

go to this birthday party. And of course, they're going to, you

know, finally clean up the house, and then the anxiety

overcomes us. And then we are just seeing ourselves once

again, as flaky, as incapable. And as I said, this is not what

the anxiety is intending for us to be. And other ways, of

course, with this, you know, getting relief that we self

medicate, that we drink too much, that we are going into any

kind of drugs just to feel a little bit better. And once

again, not really dealing with the issue understanding what's

the anxiety really here for what is it trying to tell us? What is

the underlying root causes a wound that hasn't been healed?

But we're just saying, well, the anxiety is a constant, it's

here, it's a little bit like this annoying noise that we

cannot really stop from the neighbor who is doing some

construction. So I just going to put my headphones on, or I just

going to drink myself into Oblivia. Because I cannot really

make it go away. Well, that's not true. If the anxiety is a

part of you, that actually needs you to take the lead and show

that No, it's not unsafe to be here, no, we are not unlovable

are not good enough. No other people are not a threat, if the

anxiety needs you to prove the opposite of what it has been

believing, well, by giving in to this instant relief need, you're

pretty much reinforcing, then that idea, that notion that the

best way to exist is in a smaller and smaller comfort

zone. Now, another one of those pitfalls where anxiety literally

makes you a not very good person, is when it takes a way

your core values. And that's something that really shocks me

always, when I see people, all of a sudden, because of anxiety,

become more racist, become more homophobic, become more afraid

of the other, more just limited in their ability to look beyond

their own beliefs and see that people of different cultures or

colors or lifestyles are also just people with needs and love

and hearts. And that shutting out anything that is perceived

as a threat, that takes away our decency, that takes away our

ability to have compassion. And that is a way that often people

try to protect themselves and building these walls around

themselves. But as they're protecting themselves, and

creating these big obstacles, they're also walling off their

hearts to themself. And if we are not letting people in, and

we are not having access to our own hearts, basically everything

that makes us us. And that is a very, very slippery slope. When

you're living away from your core values. When you're living

in this fear and anxiety, if everything outside of you

becomes a potential danger, then the next thing that can happen

is that you will also be manipulated by those forces that

try to take advantage of your fear.

And then there is also the problem with anxiety. That is

that it sometimes makes us very impulsive and makes us do things

that we later regret how many people have quit their jobs

because they felt too overwhelmed or anxious or how

many people have been giving up in relationships because it tell

themselves that they're just not ready. I'm dealing with so much

anxiety right now and the expectation which is often an

imagined expectation of the other person is too great. Or

how many people would say like no I I really cannot go into get

any kind of coaching or therapy or something like this. Because

this is too uncomfortable to vulnerable. I rather just going

to isolate myself and sit by myself with my anxiety and all

those impulsive reactions that are about instant relief. In the

end lead to nothing. They don't really make us heal ourselves,

they don't make us even recognize our potential or, or

see the opportunities for more joy and more connection in life.

Again, this is where anxiety has all about short term, and

usually doesn't look into the long term ramifications, the

long term outcomes. And then there is, of course, where

anxiety can also make us really a lesser version of ourselves

when we are selling ourselves out, when we are telling

ourselves that others are really what we need to feel safe and

comfortable. Just like a client of mine told me that basically,

he feels so anxious about being liked the need to be liked, that

he constantly pretends to be someone else. And he really is.

And if there is something uncomfortable, like an

uncomfortable truth, or something comes maybe out that

he's not very proud of, he either tells a lie about it, or

he hides it. And, and he does not want to admit who he really

is, just because it's more important to get some kind of an

approval, and a sense of belonging, then just being his

true self. Now, of course, that always backfires. Whether you're

pleasing, or you're a chameleon, or you're just someone who is

always giving to others and never asking anything back. In

the end, no one really knows you. And in the end, you're so

dependent on what you may get from others, that you are not

your own source of comfort and safety, you make other people to

that source. And that makes you feel even more powerless.

Because you cannot control other people, no matter how much you

bend over backwards, you cannot really control whether they're

in the mood to like you whether they want to, in that moment,

give you a little pat on the back, or, you know, give

something back to you. Or if they just take you for granted

or just are grumpy themselves and, and make you feel like Oh,

I must have done something wrong. All this is to say that

anxiety doesn't need you to react to its concerns to its

worries, it's dilutes anxiety, like a child just wants to get

away from anything it's afraid of. And our job is to not just

give in to that impulse, our job is to say I can see the anxiety.

And I understand that there is a consistent messaging of the

anxiety that needs to be understood and needs to be

listened to, I understand that there may be something from the

past that made me more comfortable hiding out in a

wardrobe with a book and not wanting to deal with the

fighting parents downstairs. And that ignoring the traumas and

just dealing with the symptom, this anxiety doesn't make that

go away. Because that matrix of self defense is sticky, it stays

inside of you and it doesn't change until you are changing

it. And the way to change it is to step up as a person that you

want to be and that you actually see the anxiety as a catalyst to

become rather than becoming that what the anxiety feels in the

moment comfortable with which is a person who is small person who

is dependent, a person who rather prefers to invisible a

person who just tells himself that no one cares. So why should

you whatever these anxiety messages are, don't let them

make you the person that you later on regret, to have become.

We all are more than the anxiety tells us we are. We all are more

than the people of the past allowed us to be in what the

anxiety is really, really requiring us to do is to look

inside for those gifts and strength and treasures and for

that truth that really defines us that sets us apart that makes

us unique. So help the anxiety to outgrow itself defense. And

don't give in to the self defense compulsion. Don't give

in to that need to have instant relief. Don't give in to those

limiting beliefs that the anxiety may still somehow

bombard you with. Don't let the anxiety make you that smaller

version that the anxiety believes you still are but

instead step up and show to your anxiety You know, that's not who

we are. And that's not what we're standing for. That's not

how we want to live. And even sometimes it's hard to do the

opposite what the anxiety is expecting you to do. When you do

it. When you go through all these things I told you, all

sudden the anxiety we'll see, I can trust this person. And this

is how you will outgrow your anxiety. There is a way and it

starts today, one step at a time. So don't let yourself be

held back by the illusion of that anxiety is all that you can

and all that you are