This week I am pleased to offer insights from my colleague Karen Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed. She is a therapist and the author of 8 books.. I’m confident you will find her insights on anxiety to be both interesting and helpful. You’ll find a link to her webpage at the bottom of this article.
Putting The Brakes On Mounting Anxiety
You may doubt that something as powerful as anxiety can be stopped. Of course, we can’t avoid all our anxiety, but we can reduce the intensity of angst and, yes, sometimes stop it before it hijacks our minds and bodies. We can take charge of our mental state by distinguishing between reacting from recall and responding from reality. All it takes for success is awareness and practice, with a goal of consistency, not perfection.
Fears Based On Recall versus Reality
The first thing to understand about anxiety is that it’s often generated by a perceived, not an actual, threat. The key word here is perceived because our reactions to events can be wildly distorted and not based on what is actually going on. Rather, they’re influenced by the memory of emotionally painful events, often from childhood, which are similar to current ones.
For example, let’s imagine that when you were a child and your mother would drink in the evening she invariably then began to pick a fight with you or your dad. Tensions would rise and things would end badly. Now, as an adult when visit with your friend Sheila, and she starts to get tipsy, you suddenly feel anxious, even though Sheila is known to nod off after a second glass of wine. Or maybe you were poor growing up and felt ashamed that you had to beg for food from neighbors who were not always generous or kind. Now when you go to ask someone for a favor, you get a lump in your throat because you’re sure they’ll think less of you.
The triggering of painful memories that are similar to current situations may cause an unconscious re-experiencing of childhood feelings. This process generates a mismatch of employing childhood feelings as a basis to deal with situations in adulthood. Though we may feel at risk, we are actually quite safe. Long past childhood we now are equipped with fully developed brains to effectively manage our lives, a greater understanding of how the world works, and the ability to make independent choices.
Recall Activated
My client Devora, 51, has lived with sky-high anxiety for most of her life. Her insecure mother worried endlessly about outward appearances and picked at her constantly, while her father begrudged giving anyone a word of praise. Because Devora’s childhood world was frightening, she always strove to be at the top of her game and prepared for her parents shifting from nice to nasty in a heartbeat. She believed that if she were perfect her parents would love and accept her. On the other hand, if they did not do so, it must be her fault.
Many years later, as a third-grade teacher, Devora was constantly anxious about whether her students were learning enough, and if their parents and her principal thought she was doing a laudable job. Her major anxiety was about being fired due to parents complaining about her substandard teaching and her failure to live up to school system expectations. In reality, her principal gave her glowing evaluations and she’d never had a run-in with a student’s parents.
This discrepancy between Devora’s perception of herself and the facts was due to her inability to distinguish reality from recall. Her reactions were from anxiety-embedded childhood memories of dependence on her parents and her desperate need to please them and hold onto their love. As an adult, however, the truth was that she did not need the glowing approval of parents’ or her principal. She may have wanted their accolades, but they were not required in order for her to survive.
At an unconscious level she operated as though she was still a victim of her parents in an unsafe, untenable situation. In reality, Devora had options—if she lost her job, there were other schools and students who’d appreciate her teaching skills.
Once we recognize that we’re safe in our current circumstances, anxiety diminishes and we’re able to focus on how to live well in the present. As Devora learned to distinguish between being in reality and recall, to anchor herself in the present and assess her threat level objectively, she began to respond to life as the highly seasoned teacher she was and felt less anxious and more secure.
Four Crucial Questions To Ask When Fear Begins To Rise
How can you recognize when you’re in recall? By knowing your reactions are excessive and inappropriate to a current situation, by noticing that your emotions are wild instead of mild.
For example, do you drop friends because you’re afraid they’ll get close enough to see your vulnerabilities? Do you feel suspicious when someone gives you a compliment because you assume they must want something from you? Perhaps you experience panic whenever you don’t have complete control of a situation. When you have hurt someone’s feelings does it result in sleepless nights? It feels impossible to stop working on projects or tasks until everything is perfect.
When you become anxious, here are four crucial questions to ask yourself:
Am I in recall (reacting from memory of events that are similar to a current one) or reality (responding only to present day stimuli)?
What age am I in my memory?
How am I wiser now compared to then? What is the difference between my options then and now?
Am I safe?
Conclusion
Much of the anxiety we carry around is displaced from the past and stored in memory because that’s how humans are hard-wired. The key to decreasing anxiety is to accept that the struggles of your childhood are a thing of the past. The war for independence is over and you emerged victorious. You are as safe as anyone else from worldly threats.
For each of us it is important to recognize when we slide into recall, and know how to drag ourselves back from the brink. This is pivotal to stopping anxiety from encroaching on the bountiful wonders and pleasures of life in the present, the only time that is ever truly ours.
Karen R. Koenig, LCSW, M.Ed., is an eating psychology expert in practice for over 30 years, currently out of Sarasota, Florida. She is an 8-book, award-winning, international author and popular blogger who can be found at karenrkoenig.com.
