Our minds tend to get twisted into knots as we try to unravel the mystery of the anxiety state, how we fell into it, and how we can get out of it. We tend to over-complicate our anxiety, but there is one thing and one thing only that caused us to fall into this state, and is keeping us there. It is the strength with which we react to our anxiety. We must turn down the heat.
To help explain this, I’ll use an analogy.
Anxiety is Like a Pot of Soup
Think of the anxiety state as a pot full of soup, heated over a flame, and giving off steam (symptoms). If we press down hard on the lid trying to prevent the escape of the steam, so long as the flame underneath is burning the soup will continue to boil, the pressure will build, and the steam will force its way out one way or another – no matter how hard we fight it.
This is exactly how anxiety works. As long as we are continually giving energy to our anxiety, however hard we try to suppress the symptoms, they will force their way to the surface.
How to Turn Down the Heat
To cool our anxiety down, we have to stop heating it. We have to turn down the flame. Think of this flame as your reaction to the symptoms. As long as you react to them, you continue to add energy to your anxiety, and your symptoms keep forcing their way to the surface. The more strongly you react, the more symptoms you get, and the more intense they are.
“The only way for your symptoms to reduce is to lower your reaction to them.”
Now of course it isn’t as simple as just flipping a switch and not reacting. But it is possible to gradually reduce the strength of your reactions, and to change them from powerful emotions like fearing the symptoms and hating them, to welcoming them (even inviting them) and becoming indifferent to them.
I use the words react and respond to indicate the difference. A “reaction” is usually sudden and intense and often involuntary, whereas a “response” is more measured, gentler and usually deliberate.
We can think in terms of replacing our knee-jerk reaction to our symptoms with a chosen response. Instead of fighting and running from our symptoms, we intentionally turn and face them. Instead of fearing them and hating them, we learn how to welcome them but treat them with disdain or indifference.
The words that we say to ourselves reflect whether we are fighting or accepting, avoiding or facing. There are many examples in my book, both of thoughts that make our anxiety worse, and ones that help us recover.
Taking a deep, slow breath and sagging our body also gives our anxious brains the message of slowing down and reducing our intensity.
Cooling Off Takes Time
By reducing and eventually stopping our reaction of fearing, hating and fighting the symptoms and replacing it with a measured response, we turn out the flame and stop energizing our anxiety. The pot of soup doesn’t cold down immediately; same with anxiety. When you reduce your reaction, bit by bit the force and intensity of the symptoms will diminish.
So, when you find yourself with a big boiling pot of anxiety, don’t fight to keep the lid on tight, TURN DOWN THE HEAT.
