Hello my friends,
Welcome back to your weekly mental health check! This week we are continuing with our mini series on “negative” emotions. Today, it is anxiety. Often anxiety is perceived as an unpleasant emotion that we want to avoid at all costs. Anxiety is labelled as a secondary emotion, meaning that it is often a consequence of another emotion such as fear. Primary emotions are the first instinctive response, whereas secondary emotions occur as a consequences of the primary emotion, often culturally dependent and learned. Anxiety can encompass feelings of helplessness, dread, panic, or nervousness.
But is it really that unpleasant? Why do people watch horror movies, and love the feeling of fear? Why do people procrastinate on a task despite a major deadline looming and thus increasing their anxiety?
Without anxiety how would we live our lives? It would probably be a very short life. From an evolutionary perspective, anxiety is life-saving. Without it, we would constantly put ourselves in danger. Anxiety warns us about dangers in our environment, obstacles in our way, threats to our goals. Remember the post from last month, in turning stressors into motivators? (Read here: Turning Stressors Into Motivators: Burn, Don’t Burn Out). In essence, when we thrive under stressful situations, we thrive on negative emotions, and in particular anxiety.
Anxiety is a complex emotion, that provides information about threats in our environment but it also provides the energy to “flight” as part of the stress response. Without anxiety, our lives would feel incredibly dull. Emotions colour our experiences, without emotions everything would seem bland and boring. Without negative emotions, how would we be able to experience positive emotions? When I was younger, I loved performing on stage. Everyone who performs on stage knows the feeling of stage-fright. And, I think many will agree, this anxiety can feel debilitating at the beginning, but can turn into euphoria when the performance begins.
The same goes for a looming deadline and challenging project. You know that feeling, when everything becomes too much and overwhelming? You work like a crazy person and lose track of time and place, and in the end, you have accomplished it – and the feeling of relief, of happiness and of pride sets in. Without the anxiety, you wouldn’t have had the energy and the focus to work that hard. Without the anxiety, there would not be the wonderful feelings of euphoria or relief.
Go high and higher! Don’t let anxiety take control over you
I think I would not have reached any major goal in my life if there hadn’t been some level of anxiety (I am really good at procrastinating and loving comfort….). This week, observe yourself in stressful situations – do you experience some level of anxiety? Do you notice that there is a moment, where you think you might not be able to finish on time, or that it’s getting too much? What did you do? Work harder, more focused? If yes, then you have mastered channeling anxiety for motivation. If you feel overwhelmed, freeze, hating every second of it, and unable to do anything, try this: accept the emotion, the defeat. But then, try a small part of your to-do anyway (it can be as little as making your bed in the morning). The anxiety is trying to help you! Accept the flow of energy and just do something, even if not useful or logical. Anything that puts you back into the sense of control.
Stay tuned for next week, where we will look at the hidden meaning of anger.
Take care – and take charge!
See you next week,
It’s me, Jules, your biggest fan
Leave a Reply