6 Things Fueling Your Anxiety
Are you one of the 1 in 5 people who feel controlled by their anxiety on a daily basis?
If so, it’s likely that you’ve sought help, advice, or treatment of some kind–but it’s NOT as likely that you’ve experienced the freedom that you were promised.
Maybe for you it was a pastor confidently promising that God would give you a "peace that transcends all understanding" -- as long as you "let go and let God" or pray that magical prayer.
Or worse, maybe you were told that anxiety was just a lack of trust in God, or that it was sinful and rebellious -- so "you better stop that and
Or maybe it was a clinical professional who meant well, but couldn't help you get past dealing with it to actually healing it.
Whatever is causing the anxiety in the first place.
At its core, anxiety is a responsive human emotion–just like all our other emotions. When we judge a problem only by its severity, all we can hope for is to mitigate the damage it’s doing.
I have no doubt that your anxiety can feel completely debilitating and overwhelming - it probably is!
But why your anxiety is such a struggle is what we have to figure out if it’s ever going to change.
We've forgotten the utility of our anxiety.
Listen to what Dr. John Delony says in his book Redefining Anxiety: What It Is, What It’s Not, and How to Get Your Life Back:
“Anxiety is just an alarm system. [It’s] our body’s internal notification that our brain is detecting danger, that our body is in desperate need of sleep and restoration, that we are disconnected from our tribe or community, or that we are lonely.”
When we treat anxiety like the problem, instead of a symptom, it’s a bit like stuffing pillows over the smoke alarm, ripping out the batteries, and going back to sleep while the fire rages on.
But when we learn to listen well, our anxiety leads us to the real problems in our lives–the dangers that are threatening us, or the wounds that are still hurting us.
So what are some of the “fires'' that are setting off our anxiety alarms?
It’s not just “clear and present immediate danger” that puts our bodies on high alert. Some of these might surprise you.
➊ Financial Instability
If you’re in significant debt, constantly worried about a layoff event or job loss, or unable to weather an emergency expense, your anxiety alarms could–and should–be going off.
Financial instability is a survival issue, and your body will always react to viable threats. It’s likely that you won’t be able to calm your anxiety if you stay in a precarious financial situation, and it’s important to find the right help to solve that problem.
➋ Secrets (A Lack of Witnesses)
Most likely, you’d first identify this as loneliness. It’s pretty clear why loneliness would set off your survival alarms: researchers have found that lonely people are 50 percent more likely to die prematurely than those with healthy social relationships.
But what leads to loneliness?
Secrets: things about you that only you know.
There’s a reason we all have heard that pithy little thought experiment: if a tree falls in the forest… does it really make a sound?
Who truly knows you?
Is anyone celebrating your wins, affirming your growth, and compassionately holding space for your struggles?
Does anyone know what you’re least proud of, but has still made it clear they love you anyway?
Until you do, it’s likely your anxiety alarm will continue to ring.
➌ Unprocessed Grief, Hurt, Anger, or Other Intense Emotions
Have you ever hit something in a desperate attempt to “get out” your anger? Or maybe you’ve tried to “drown your sorrows?”
We all intrinsically understand that our biggest emotions have to “go somewhere,” because the last place we want them to stay is in us!
What we’re talking about is actually called emotional metabolism: the process of how we process, regulate, and utilize our emotions. When we don't sort through and metabolize our emotions in real time, we start to break down.
Our minds will just keep begging us to pay attention to the un-metabolized emotions, because something is wrong.
If you allow them to, those dangerous-feeling emotions could become important teachers about what is most important to you, and how to find the best possible path forward.
➍ Your Life is Too Easy and You Don’t Feel Necessary
Sound a bit strange? It won’t for long.
For nearly all of human history, life has been a struggle to survive. Our modern world has effectively conquered nearly all of the day-to-day challenges that once threatened our lives.
But in his book Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging, Sebastian Junger paints that modern world in a less flattering light:
“Humans don't mind hardship, in fact they thrive on it; what they mind is not feeling necessary. Modern society has perfected the art of making people not feel necessary. It's time for that to end.”
You don’t have to be the one that changes the world and dies a household name. In fact, that pressure could very well lead to much more anxiety.
But ask yourself honestly: do you feel like you matter?
After decades of clinical practice and psychological research, Dr. Jordan Peterson makes a bold claim that...
“…the purpose of life is finding the largest burden that you can bear and bearing it. You positively need to be occupied with something weighty, deep, profound, and difficult.”
When you don’t know what part you play, who is counting on you, and what mark you’re leaving on the world, something is bound to feel wrong.
You were meant to be more than a cog in a machine that simply makes more cogs for more cog-making machines.
Your anxiety alarm may be trying to tell you to go find adventure, purpose, and a meaningful burden to bear.
➎ Codependency (I’m ok if you’re ok)
While it’s very important to feel necessary, have people that depend on you, and bear a meaningful burden of responsibility, there is another side to that coin.
As simply put as possible, codependency could be described as the feeling that “I can only be ok if you’re ok. And if you’re not ok, then I can’t be ok.”
If you grew up in a home where big feelings like fear, anger, and shame went unacknowledged, therefore never dealt with...
Or if those big feelings were implicitly (or explicitly) pushed to repress your emotions, ignore your needs, and excuse others’ behavior...
...then you may have unconsciously learned this dynamic.
Codependency becomes a deep desire for control, but it’s based on something no one could ever control: other people’s thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.
If your well-being is dependent on someone else’s, the alarms will continue to ring–you weren’t meant to bear that kind of weight.
➏ Socially Acceptable Drugs We Forget Are Really Drugs
Of course we shouldn’t throw around the word “drug” lightly, but it’s important to note that we have become very accustomed to many highly addictive substances (and behaviors) that are wreaking havoc on our nervous systems.
Ever find yourself saying something like...
“I can’t work without…”
“I gotta have my…”
“Oh I never wake up without…”
What’s that thing for you? Is it coffee? The average American consumes 3 cups of coffee per day–caffeine is by far the world's most widely consumed psychoactive drug.
Here’s your healthy reminder, even though you probably know it’s true: coffee is addictive. So is refined sugar. When we forget that, it’s easy to underestimate its effects on us.
Your body will develop a tolerance for these substances, and you will “need” more. And any time your body believes wholeheartedly that it needs something to perform, to show up, to bring home a paycheck, or to be capable, the alarms will go off.
Plus, these substances hijack your nervous system, threaten your ability to sleep, and put you (intentionally) on edge. If you hype up your system all day, every day, it has severe consequences that feel a lot like anxiety.
God gave you those alarms as a gift.
Anxiety isn't quite the villain that it's been built up to be -- but we'll keep playing whack-a-mole until we figure out what's causing it.
That's why we must listen to them and decode the messages our anxiety is trying to send us. Your anxiety may feel crippling, scary, and overwhelming–but it does not have to be your enemy.
But learning to listen to those alarms, much less make a feasible and proactive plan to untangle the issues causing them, can be an incredibly daunting task.
If you need help connecting these dots in your life and getting beneath the surface of your anxiety, I might have something that can help!
It's called Decoding Anxiety - a 3-step plan for Understanding, Responding to, and Moving Forward beyond the anxiety alarm that seems to be stuck in the "on" position.
It's based on what the Bible REALLY has to say about anxiety and other big, negative emotions - AND what the most reliable neuroscience has discovered about how God has wired us.
Believe it or not, this is spiritual work. God is always trying to invite us to see behind the symptoms, because that's where He wants to meet us.
Ready to live free?
