ANXIETY DOESN’T DEFINE YOU
How to Stop Living Neck Up & Start Living Neck Down
Welcome to this week’s Substack! In this week’s blog, I will discuss how to write a new story about anxiety. As someone who was diagnosed in therapy with generalized anxiety disorder, I have experienced firsthand what it can do to the body and the brain. For years, I felt like I suffered from a mental disorder with no cure that perpetuated a cycle of thinking that I would always have these feelings and the overthinking that comes with it. I am here to share with you that this is not the truth. If you are an anxious person or have experienced anxiety, keep reading to adopt a new belief!
EXTERNAL FACTORS GETTING IN THE WAY
You will never cure anxiety from the neck up. Unfortunately, overthinking, ruminating, and obsessively thinking about something will never make that anxious feeling go away. Once we realize this as a fact, it becomes significantly easier to live a less anxiety-ridden life. I used to say that I was a chronic overthinker and that I had no control over the compulsive, intrusive thoughts that hijacked my brain, and now I realize that it was never the truth, just a story I told myself to make myself feel better about why it was happening.
I mean it felt significantly better to chalk it up to have this symptom of a bigger condition like “I am Brianna and I have generalized anxiety disorder, therefore I have intrusive thoughts that make me obsessively think about everything, and therefore feel anxious in a lot that I do.” (Basically, I have this, therefore I act this way.)
OR
“I am Brianna. I used to be diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder, but I now recognize I have the power to treat my anxiety as an alarm system from my body and choose to move through the feeling, knowing it doesn’t define me.” (I may have this feeling come up in my body, but I have the power to work through it.)
Now that’s a narrative I’d like to believe!! Not only just a “fake it till you make it” concept, but it is the truth of who I am. Because the truth is, all anxiety is, is just an alarm system from your body showing you that you care. You feel anxious before a date, you feel anxious before a presentation, you feel anxious when an ex calls, any scenario in which you feel anxious, you are being reminded that you care about your life. Once we view it as such, it is then our responsibility to go neck down and move through that anxiety and not let it define us.
GOING NECK DOWN
Now this is where we make the common mistake, we take that anxious feeling and go directly upstairs, neck up. We ruminate, overthink, and try to say “what if” over and over, trying to use logic to think our way out of feeling anxious. When in reality we can’t think anxiety away, we have to move it out of our bodies. Think about it this way: when you experience anxiety, your palms sweat, your heart rate is elevated, and you can’t breathe in rhythm, but we believe that somehow we can think those symptoms away.
When has that ever worked? NEVER!! It’s like when you are tired while reading before bed, and suddenly your eyes start closing, you can’t think your way out of being tired!! So when it comes to anxiety, we should focus our breath, take a walk, or engage our brain in a puzzle or some sh*t, then all the uncomfy feelings will dissipate. Now I am not advocating for just distractions to the mind, we can still process why anxiety came up in the first place, but I am advocating for healthy alternatives to move neck down in the moment, so we no longer act on the instinct to start overthinking. This and only this will allow you to control your life and see anxiety in a whole new light. Because again, anxiety shows us that we care, and that is a beautiful thing, but our thoughts are the ones creating a whole other narrative.
YOU ARE CAPABLE
I find that the root of anxiety and the ruminating that follows often boils down to one core instinctual belief we have, “I am not capable, and I don’t have the capacity”. I get so mad whenever I think about that statement and the millions of people out there who experience anxiety every day, including myself, who subconsciously believe that! For years, I sat idly by my own life, telling myself every time I had anxiety that I wasn’t capable of overcoming that feeling in the moment. I would try to rationalize to myself that the situation was too much, the feeling was too much, I couldn’t overcome it and as a result, reinforced a belief that I wasn’t capable of getting through it. AND GUESS WHAT, every time I did.
Granted, I didn’t view anxiety the way I do now, so the way I got through it involved a lot of overthinking at first until I probably finally went to sleep, went to the gym, or just had to say “Enough is enough”. But I want anxiety to no longer control our lives for that long. Imagine feeling relief and power over our anxious bodies and minds almost instantly. Within 5 minutes or so of moving neck down we would skip the step of living upstairs and using the “power of thought” to get rid of the anxious feeling.
And I get it, we can’t change our belief system overnight. But once we become aware, something clicks, and then we can start to practice it in the moment. If there’s one thing to take away from this whole blog is YOU ARE CAPABLE.
We have the power to dictate, be the director of our own lives, and truly create a new narrative at any moment. The belief you had yesterday doesn’t mean you have to believe in it today. The way you went about doing things yesterday doesn’t mean you have to do things the same way today.
DON’T CRINGE AT WANTING CHANGE
No one is forcing your hand or cringing at you for choosing to do or believe in something new today. Sometimes we have this invisible force over our heads that if we suddenly switch up we should feel guilty for abandoning the old version of ourselves. As if choosing something that betters our life the next day should make us feel guilty for moving on so quickly?
AS IF! It’s one thing to acknowledge that a part of us is comfortable and doesn’t want to get on board for bettering our lives overnight. But to sit in that for days, weeks, months, and even years, letting the fear of ever getting started ruin what could be, is giving the power completely up to how we want to live our lives. Letting go and shedding the old is hard; it requires a sense of mourning for who we used to be so that we can make space for the new. But if we make the space, we can make room for beautiful things to blossom and flourish in our lives. We can adopt new beliefs that will transform dormant ideals of who we used to be and make way for who we are meant to become.
I came across this art installation 3 years ago, and I not only fell in love with the statement, the colors, and the use of neon signage, but also because it made me rethink anxiety. I remember looking at it and being like, “if only anxiety felt this pretty in my body”. 3 years later, I recognize that it can! By changing our mindset and viewing things a little differently, anything can be shifted into a whole other perspective. Anxiety no longer has to be this scary, overwhelming monster taking over your body and mind. It can be a colorful wave of emotions that will come, be acknowledged, and then exit. Next time you feel anxiety creep up on you, take that moment to reframe your brain, remind yourself you are capable, this feeling means you care, and then go neck down to move it out of your body. Thanks for coming to my ted talk, see ya next week (;
If any part of you resonates with the stories I shared, the overall message of healing consider tuning in for my weekly blog. I am just a girl with a big heart who wants to share the very things that have helped me lead a life of love. I appreciate you taking the time to get whatever you needed out of this and keeping an open heart & mind to the possibility of healing your limiting beliefs. Until next time, treat yourself with kindness <3
