How to tackle anxiety? A silent disease that plagues us everyday. What causes it and how do we prevent it from controlling our life? But isn’t worrying, feeling nervous, uneasy about the uncertainties of outcomes, part of our daily life?
In this article, I probe deeper into what causes anxiety based on my own childhood experiences to understand that the signs that make us anxious, are really indications to show us, what needs our attention, so we can take the next step in our journey. Are you ready for this?
The Rules of the Game—How to Tackle Anxiety
Let’s start from the very beginning. As a child, did you ever experience anxieties? Fear, rejection and even disappointment, these are all related to anxiety. And a child feels everything deeply without understanding what it all means. Parents, guide your children to understand their emotions and why they need to express them.
How is it possible for a child to feel so much more than we adults do? When my daughter was two years old, she would hide under the table when we had visitors and even with relatives, she would always stay away from them if they were loud. It was difficult for us to understand what was going on in her world. But the truth became clear to us, she feels everything deeply and would walk away if she felt uncomfortable or uncertain with her surroundings. How great to be so in-tuned to your instincts.
Think about it. When you were a child, were you ever afraid of the dark? I was and my imagination always made me flinch. But where do these genetic memory in our fears come from? Were we born with them?
The Ability to Feel Deeply
Apart from what we are born with, every other fear is learned from trauma or an impact in our external environment or both conscious and unconscious fears passed down from our parents. Do you know how to identify your fears?
Did you know trauma is not an event? It is a result of a reaction inside us, to the even that occurred.
These fears move with us into adulthood, if you push it away, they come back. A trigger within your environment can ignite a forgotten memory. Learn to recognize these signs to understand the reason why it keeps appearing in your life.
Stress vs Boredom
My first job was a bank teller, assisting customers with the receipt and withdrawal of cash transactions. And when the bank was crowded with a long queue, I got stressed and often made mistakes. But when the bank was empty, there was literally nothing to do, I became bored.
What if stress and boredom are signs providing us clues? Let’s go back in time to our childhood and reflect on these signs.
Learning Life Skills
When my son started school, he was bored, didn’t want to engage in class activities. We were told he was incapable of socially fitting into the education mold and was often in his own world. He had a medical condition only a pediatrician could diagnose. Have you ever met a child that was so eager to conform?
If you experience this behavior in your child—can’t keep still to listen, remember this. Children get bored easily but that doesn’t mean they are incapable of understanding what is going on around them. Childhood is not a disease.
My son became stressed and the children saw him as an outcast. But an opportunity opened up for me to teach him life skills. That was five years ago, my son’s doing really well now in high school and I’m glad I noticed the signs.
Like my son, my daughter too is quiet and gentle, different from expressive students at school. She has the ability to see beyond the play ground to gauge situations. Tears and loss friendships caused much stress but again, an opportunity appeared for me to learn life skills, to cope in an ever changing social environment. But in class, she became bored and stressed, displaying the same traits as my son. Remember life is a game and we are presented with everyday survival lessons to help us move on
As you can see, both are totally different scenarios and we had to figure out how to tackle anxiety from stress and boredom. Let’s reflect deeper into this problem plaguing our children.
The Signs of Stress and Boredom
When you feel stress, it is because you lack a certain skill to deal with an ever changing environment. Your body knows this and sends receptor signals to your sensory nerves. As stress increases, we become anxious because our body does not know how to deal with the stress levels.
Now you know what causes stress, this is how you can lower it. Our instincts of fear is an innate gift from birth, present to protect us. It is part of our genetic memory. Rather than run away from stress, we need to understand what or why we feel afraid. If you ignore it or push it away, that fear comes back to haunt you into adulthood because you didn’t pick up the lesson.
With boredom, it is the opposite. Both children and adults can feel bored because they have skills but are not challenged enough. But remember this, boredom is the playground where creativity begins. Let those imagination wonder with challenges …
Perhaps stress and boredom are messages, meant for us to discover. What if the core of the message is really a sign to show you the next step in our path.
The Mirror of Reflections-Look Within
Do you often look at your reflection in the mirror? Who hasn’t? It’s a habit to want to look our best. Let’s look at this mirror effect further.
Working as a bank teller, I’d get customers complain how slow I was at the counter. And I believed them because I felt I had no skills. I got stressed from worrying and made more mistakes. Have you ever noticed how everyone you meet reflects back a similar flaw? Think about it, why do you react to someone? Or are you really recognizing a reflection of them within you? As a child I was not taught to be me, to know who I am. And therefore everyone I met made me feel nervous or calm. Perhaps if we looked deeper into ourselves, we might see an area in our life that needed healing.
But here is a clue, every challenge presents an opportunity for us to learn a little more about yourself. A simple reminder that you’ve missed something that needs your care and attention.
The reality in our world begins in our thoughts. What’s scary is when we let other people’s opinion, attitudes or emotions own us.
What about you? Have you ever had someone scold you for not knowing how to speak up or for being slow or even for making a mistake? Did you believe them and put yourself down secretly?
Perhaps ask yourself, why did that affect me? Then listen because I gurantee you the answer will come to you naturally. Go on—give it a go! Alison
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