Two Fun Ways to Kick Anxiety’s Butt
Are you tired of being pushed around by overwhelming anxiety and fear? Do you feel like your anxiety is running you thin and in charge of your life? Living with anxiety or generalized anxiety, as therapists put it, is exhausting and unhealthy. One day of anxiety can have as much ware and tear on your mind and body as three or four days of none. Are you getting very little sleep? Is your sleep low quality and not deep rest? Does your anxiety keep you up at all hours of the night worrying about things? If so, your anxiety is controlling you and has taken over. Our brains get stuck in perpetual thought loops of fear and they ruminate and obsess over our worries when anxiety takes control.
The human brain takes the path of least resistance when its thinking circuits are firing. It’s normal and human for this to occur. We were built for survival and in life threatening situations our brains need to respond quickly. But this serves us well only when it's a real threat. Unfortunately, your thinking is usually causing anxiety in situations that are not as threatening as it feels. Think of your brain’s circuitry like it’s a two-track road with deep wheel ruts. The wheel ruts are so deep that you can take your hand off the wheel and the ruts will force your vehicle to stay on track. That’s exactly what our brains do. Over the years, repeated worry and anxiety has created a two track in your brain. It’s so deeply grooved in its neuro pathways that it automatically follows the rutted path of least resistance every time there is a perceived threat to you. This type of thinking will cause problems, over reactions and a whole lot of unnecessary stress for you.
Milford Counseling’s therapy team has solutions to your anxiety. A good counselor can help you to develop the awareness and skills to put anxiety in its place. One of the funniest and empowering ways to control your anxiety is what I like to call the “MMA Approach”. Your anxiety is not playing fairly and will never stop ruining your life until you decide to stand up to it.
I have two fun ways for you to kick anxieties butt.
MMA Approach: Mixed martial arts is a tough sport and if you watched it before you know that the goal is to either knock or tap your opponent out. Let’s do an exercise. I want you to give your anxiety a name and a face. Maybe it’s a monster or an evil looking villain. Imagine submitting or knocking this bad guy out. Imagine walking right up to your fear, toe to toe, and giving it a right hook, it didn’t see coming. Imagine your anxiety laying on the mat with stars floating around its head like the cartoons. Do this several times and imagine different scenarios of you beating your anxiety. The next step is to put this thinking into play. Next time you notice your anxiety creeping into your thoughts and preventing you from feeling or behaving the way you want, imagine punching it in the face. If it’s a terribly bad fear, do what you must. Go Full Attack Mode! Feel how great it is to show your anxiety whose boss and make the choice to own it rather than it owning you. Simply put, punch the bad guy anxiety in the face and move on with your day.
CEO Approach: Picture yourself as the CEO of a fortune five hundred company. Everyone looks to you for the answers and you have enjoyed a lifetime of hard work and success. You don’t waste time and you treat your business like your life and family depend on it. Imagine yourself sitting in your company’s board room around a big table. You are directing your executives and giving them orders to follow to strengthen the mission of the company. But this mid-level manager, aka your anxiety, keeps interrupting you and making comments about how stupid your ideas are, how they will destroy the company, and everyone will be out of a job if you do this. Ask yourself this question. How did this mid-level manger, your anxiety, get into this meeting with you and the rest of the company’s executives? He’s not supposed to be here. Any CEO in this situation would ask the anxiety to leave the meeting. If they didn’t and continued their nonsense, they would be escorted out of the room and fired. Fire your anxiety right now. Tell it to sit down and shut up. Your anxiety is unwanted at this meeting and the comity up stairs wants the fear and worry to leave. Effective immediately. Mr. mid-level anxiety man, here’s your walking papers.
I have a life to run, and you are fired.
These two exercises can be a lot of fun and they work. Try them and take control of your anxiety right now. Be the MMA champ and CEO. You are the boss. You are in control of your life. You get to choose what you want to do today and how you want to think and feel. One of the best choices you can make to gain control of your anxiety is to seek help from a professional therapist. Milford Counseling and our team of counselors can help you end anxiety. Call us now to request an appointment: 248-529-6383. It would be an honor to serve you.
