Could you be addicted to anxiety?

Hear me out! I am not going to say that any of us enjoy anxiety or want it to be there but often what I see with clients is that it becomes their identity, it becomes who they are.

One thing I find with clients as they start to make progress, even start to feel glimmers of happiness breaking through, they are often met with resistance. It can feel uncomfortable to be happy – because it’s the unknown.

Our beliefs and our identity are built from a young age and what we tell ourselves, about ourselves, becomes part of who we are. It is your brains job to make your thoughts real. Imagine being a child and having to speak up in class or give a presentation (an experience many of us would have had). It then makes you so uncomfortable and anxious you say to yourself ‘I am never doing that again!’ Fast forward 20 years and you have to give a big presentation at work. You have told yourself you are never doing it again because it was so awful and your subconscious will be fighting you every step of the way, working to protect you from it.

Now imagine how it feels to rid yourself of ‘who you are’ and take away a feeling you have been familiar with for a long time (which is how it feels once anxiety becomes part if our identity). We say we want to feel good, we say we want to be happy, and that isn’t a lie as consciously of course we do - but we are also creatures of habit, we like comfort. When we have had anxiety for a long time, especially since childhood – it feels comfortable.

Anxiety is our in-built safety mechanism and it provides protection. The idea of letting go of our protection is likely to feel more scary than it is exciting. This can then lead to more anxiety which begins its own vicious cycle! When our anxiety provides protection, we can feel comforted which is actually a nice feeling, and nice feelings we tend to want to hold onto!

The biggest issue with this isn’t actually keeping you safe. Anxiety is an emotion…not a shield. This is where we want to actually lean into anxiety and learn to change the relationship we have with anxiety and more importantly the relationship we have with ourselves. This will absolutely mean facing that discomfort and perhaps the thing we often find the hardest…embracing the unknown. If you take a moment to think about those things that make you feel anxious, you’ll find most of them relate to the unknown. Learning to feel safe with unknown can completely change your daily life as well as your relationship with anxiety and put you in control of those uncomfortable thoughts.

The good news is, even with addictive component of anxiety it is absolutely possible to move forward to a life filled with calm, confidence and contentment! Learning to change your relationship with the unknown is key to controlling your anxiety. If you are ready to start making the changes you want in your life then my ACE your Anxiety framework is the perfect starting point!

ACE Your Anxiety

For only £11 you can lifetime access to 19 files including, video trainings, worksheets and hypnosis audios to give you all the tools to get you going on your journey to anxiety freedom!

Or for a little taster into hypnotherapy, you can download my free anxiety release hypnosis below:

Anxiety Release Hypnosis

Lauren x