Hello everyone! For those who don't know me, I am a clinical hypnotherapist, Director of a remote practice and live my life with ADHD and GAD. Through my own personal experiences and those working with others with similar issues for the past several years, I'd like to share some things with you all today. I need to emphasize that, as a hypnotherapist, I am not working directly with issues like anxiety, ADHD or any other diagnosed condition. My work is more behavioral, teaching about the mind's functions we were never shown and helping to create growth, change and wellness.

Ok, so having anxiety sucks. I don't love it. When asked what it was like, I once told a friend that it felt like I was being casually hunted for sport. In fact, I didn't even realize I was feeling anxiety until I finally received a diagnosis and medication; the silence was almost deafening. I realized this wasn't a fix, but an opportunity to address and help myself without that lingering, low-grade fear. Before anything else, let me please encourage everyone to seek medical assistance if you think it will help you.

Anxiety is such a strange thing. It's a good thing, in reality. It is a subconscious response that exists to keep you alive, safe from lions and tigers and bears. It's there for survival. Now, that said... a project due or an upcoming social event is not a life-or-death event worthy of existential fear. Yet, it feels like it, doesn't it? Your subconscious: more specifically your primitive mind, your reactionary lizard brain that lies below even your subconscious, cannot tell the difference between these events. This is often why, at least speaking for myself, I would feel so guilty about my anxiety: I wouldn't give myself permission to feel what I was feeling because it seemed like I was 'overreacting'. That phone call isn't a wolf in the darkness, after all.

Simply giving yourself permission to feel what you feel is a big step. Emotions and reactions don't require validation, they exist. Sometimes they do merit examination, but to examine we must allow it to be present. On that same note, a feeling goes beyond an emotion. When we stop to consider our anxiety, it always comes with a physical feeling, doesn't it? Mine felt like a ball of ice in the bottom of my stomach. What does your feel like?

This is an important question because it leads me to something I'd like everyone to try the next time you struggle with feelings of anxiety. Examine how you feel physically and give it a description. A quality and a form. Where is it in your body? Imagine these feelings as a thing inside or around you. Now for the fun part... how would you resolve that thing? For example, my ice ball. The solution would be to melt it away, so this is what I visualize. Breathing slowly, calmly and deeply, I focus on that image of the ball of ice and see it melt away... and I feel better.

Why does this work? Because imagery is the language of your subconscious; by solidifying this feeling of anxiety into an image and manipulating it, you are speaking to your subconscious and letting it know that the feeling is received and understood but not needed. While this will not prevent feelings of anxiety from arising, it is a useful tool for addressing it when they arise. In fact, this is a tool I use in my own life.

So, let me know because I'm always curious... what do your anxious thoughts feel like?