Why are you afraid of being afraid?
The other day I was to talking to a client who was fighting with feeling anxious. And what she noticed is the more she fought it the more thoughts came to her head as to why she should be afraid, very afraid. And soon she was in a mad whirling dervish of what could, might, maybe, could happen.
When clients come into therapy they often have a long grocery list of emotions they do not want to have: sadness, anger, fear, loneliness, insecurity and many more emotions. They try to control it and it gets worse. They have tried to look at the bright side and be positive which sometimes has brought in an avalanche of feelings.
And then my all-time favorite they tell themselves to get over it. And I can promise you that it doesn’t work. What you need to do is get into it. People push their feelings down and you swallow it. It either eats you alive or it comes back up. When it eats you alive you worry and you can’t shut the thoughts off. It runs your life. You may be killing it but inside you feel like an imposter. You are always second guessing yourself and comparing your achievements to others. Sometimes it will come out in fatigue and exhaustion and loneliness where you don’t feel motivated when you need to. It looks like this:
- You do things you don’t want to do and you resent it.
- You no longer (or never did) really know what you want.
- You’re afraid to say what you really believe.
- You spend time with people you don’t like or you avoid people out of fear.
- You struggle to make your own decisions.
- You imagine that people are upset with you when they really aren’t
If it is coming back up you are having outbursts of anger or jealousy. You feel like you want to yell just to get it all out and sometimes you do and sometimes you don’t. But both alternatives feel terrible.
You want to get rid of this. You want to know that you are on top, that you can be generous and not jealous. That you don’t have to worry and feel insecure around other people and when something goes wrong in life you can give feedback instead of exploding but how?
You need to understand the nature of feelings. Feelings are not thoughts. Your feelings are directly tied to your body. If your blood pressure goes up, if your heart races, if your throat tightens from not crying you will have a feeling. So most people try to give themselves a rational thought to change the physical feeling. But mostly we try to ignore it until it becomes so bad that we can’t. You can’t think your way out. The energy is moving and in process. But you can feel your way out.
Remember when you hurt your leg as a child? I always skinned my knees. At first it hurt really bad and the intensity of it would peak and then it would throb and then it would go away. By putting your attention on the feeling it will increase and then it will dissipate naturally. And if you understand your body signals earlier the intensity will be less. Accepting the feeling and allowing it to run through you will make it go quicker. Once it is over that is when you think and that is when you make decisions that will affect you. Not in the middle of the whirlwind! You get to be authentic fully alive and healthy in how you handle strong and unpleasant feelings
This is a skill. What you gain is you become a dynamic, authentic, steady person who can deal with their own crisis. Who feels the ups and downs of life but is not thrown by them. Would you like to be this person?
I am a psychotherapist Ivy educated and street smart offering you a 12 week coaching program. Its 12 sessions because I don’t think it should take a lifetime to create the life you want. I am looking for a specific type of client. You know what you want and you want to work with someone to get there. You would be someone who has specific goals that you want to accomplish by the end of a 12 session period we would meet twice a month on Saturday for an hour. You will create a vision, find the steps to get there and the things that stop you then we will remove those obstacles.
I will be offering a free one hour assessment to help you develop that vision and to see if there is a good match between us. I can work with a couple but you need to have goals that both of you agree with! Call me for an appointment at (646)770-1603.