Let’s just start off by saying that struggling with anxiety, panic disorder, and agoraphobia sucks! Like, absolutely sucks. And the recovery journey is hard. At times, it can feel so incredibly frustrating, annoying, and defeating, especially if you’ve been struggling with anxiety, panic, and fear for months or years, or ever since you can remember, which is something I hear often.
And it really sucks to feel like… I’ve literally tried all the things and it doesn’t matter what I do, I’m still struggling. And I think what makes any healing journey hard, is that it’s filled with so many emotions, and some really tough ones, like with anger, sadness, fear, embarrassment, shame, and hopelessness.
In general, it’s just really overwhelming. Because you’re essentially struggling with something really hard while trying to heal, which is so tough. And let’s be real, as humans, we’re not really good at just allowing ourselves to struggle without constantly trying not to struggle. We sort of live in a world that perpetuates this idea that we should always be okay, and if we're not, then there’s a quick fix for it and we just need to do X, Y, and Z and then we’ll be all better. So lots of us end up walking around feeling really bad about ourselves and what we’re going through, and feeling like a failure for not being able to get better (especially quickly).
And I get it because I felt this way for a long time. For years, I tried so hard. For years, I tried anything and everything. I pushed and I pushed. I felt like I was doing it all, but despite my efforts, I was still struggling daily with anxiety, panic attacks, and intense fear. But a big reason why I struggled for so long is because I was always pushing but I was never really pushing myself in a healthy way… until I began to recover, And this is why I wanted to create this episode. Because for years I was stuck in a cycle of trying to fix, force, and get better but in a way that never really felt good or worked. And I don’t want you to fall into the same traps that I did.
So, let’s dive in and talk about why you’re continuing to struggle with anxiety despite doing all the things! And I hope this gives you some insights and tips so that you can get unstuck and keep moving forward in a healthy way, and in ways that feels good…
01. One of the biggest reasons why people continue to struggle with anxiety despite doing all the things is because they’re doing all the things but they haven’t accepted where they’re at. Meaning, you’re trying all the fixes, and you’re doing all the work that is often prescribed, but you bypassed the part where you actually allow yourself to meet yourself where you are and let yourself be human - without trying to force yourself to heal and get better. This was me for years. I was always trying to problem solve, fix, and force myself to get better, and I was never just letting myself not be okay. And it’s because this step is so hard. Just letting ourselves be and accepting what is. Ugh. But acceptance is such a huge piece of how we heal.
There are so many themes of acceptance throughout the anxiety recovery journey, but when I start working with my students and clients, we always start with the acceptance of just allowing yourself to be where you are - in it, in the struggles and the hard stuff. I know we want to try to skip this part, right? Like, I don’t want to accept that I’m here and struggling so badly. And I think part of this is fear, right? Or a lot of it is fear. Like, who wants to accept that their life might not look how they thought it would? Who wants to accept that they’re really struggling without trying to get out of the struggle? And it might sound like… Well, I’m afraid if I accept it, it means I’m doomed and I’ll always struggle… Or, I’m afraid if I accept it, it means I let anxiety win. But it’s the opposite of this. Yes, of course you want to things to be different, but accepting and meeting yourself where you are allows you to come face to face with what you’re struggling with and helps to give you a path for moving forward. This isn’t accepting your fate or letting anxiety win, this is actually taking back your power.
So much healing happens when we truly accept ourselves just as we are in the current moment and we have lots of self-compassion for ourselves. It’s not your fault that you’re here, and it’s okay that you are. It’s important to let yourself feel all the sadness, tough emotions, and grieve so that you can accept and move forward. And I think when you meet yourself where you are, it actually causes you to stop fighting so much to make things better - it causes you to stop trying so hard to force your healing, which helps the healing to happen more easily and in a way that feels much better.
02. Another big reason why people continue to struggle with anxiety despite doing all the things… is because they’re doing all the things… You’re meditating, exercising, journaling, cold plunging, listening to podcasts, trying all the supplements, exercising, going to therapy, journaling, trying to create the perfect routines, and on and on… Sound familiar?
Trust me, I get it. You're looking for the thing (or things) that will help you and take all of the anxiety away, which of course you are, right? You're struggling and you just want to feel better. But! Anxiety showing up is often a sign that there's been too much… Too much stress, overwhelm, change, busyness… So when anxiety shows up and you add even more to the mix, you're unfortunately just sending your system (and your mind) into overdrive… which is kinda the opposite of what you need when anxiety shows up. Anxiety is a sign that you need to slow things down.
You know, I heard Glennon Doyle say this on her podcast - We Can Do Hard Things, and it really stuck with me… She said (and I’m paraphrasing here), Struggling means stop, not keep going or push even harder. And I think this is so true. Struggling means we need to slow things down, stop, and just meet ourselves where we’re at, start becoming more aware, start getting curious, allowing ourselves to just rest and then practice taking just one small step every day.
Now, I'm not saying things like meditation, exercise, journaling, cold plunging, podcasts, and supplements aren't supportive… But do you really need to be doing all of them? Can you maybe just pick one or two things that are helpful and stick to those? Because really, when we’re doing all the things, we’re just trying so hard to get rid of anxiety. And this never works with our emotions, especially not anxiety. So rather than trying to do all the things to make anxiety go away and make it so that you’re not struggling anymore (aka asap), how can you pull back on the doing and practice letting yourself be more? So much healing happens here.
03. Another reason why people continue to struggle with anxiety is because they’re doing all the things but they’re never letting themselves feel. This is a really common coping mechanism I see in lots of people that I work with, and it’s one I did for years and years. You’re using all the things to try to make anxiety go away, rather than accepting it and working on creating a healthy relationship with it and a healthy relationship with yourself. You’re throwing all the fixes, tools, and hacks at it, you’re always staying busy, you’re always putting on a face and pretending as though everything is fine, you’re avoiding lots of things - mostly feeling, and you simply aren’t slowing down and letting yourself feel.
And this makes sense, right? Let myself feel anxious? Um, no thank you. I get it! But, this is a huge part in how we heal our relationships with anxiety and ourselves. Our emotions are designed to be felt, not fixed. So trying to analyze, problem solve, strategize, think, and do your way out of feeling anxious are things that never really come in handy when you're struggling with anxiety. Feeling without trying to fix is a big part of how we heal.
This is one of the biggest things I talk about because this is probably the biggest area I went wrong in when I was struggling. I was doing all the things, including facing my fears (exposures), but I was continuing to struggle because I wasn’t actually letting myself feel anxious. I was always trying to prevent, resist, and get rid of it. Dropping the resistance and letting yourself feel is a major aspect of healing. Because I say you can take the healthy steps all day long but if you aren’t letting yourself feel you’re just honestly going through the motions and torturing yourself. Please don’t do this to yourself. Practice letting yourself feel, it’s hard but it’s so so worth it.
04. Another reason why people continue to struggle with anxiety is because they’re so busy looking outward (aka outside of themselves) and they’re rarely or never looking inward to their own knowing and wisdom. I see this a lot… People looking to books, groups, podcasts, articles, their loved ones, to other people in general, or to hacks and tools, and they’re never checking in with themselves to see if maybe they have what they’re looking for and can give themselves (which spoiler alert - we often do).
But I get why we do this. It’s mostly because when you’re struggling with an anxiety disorder, you really don’t trust yourself or your body. You think you’re the last one with answers and the last one who can help yourself, but this is so far from the truth. You are the biggest key to your recovery. Looking inward is one of the things that helped me the most in my recovery journey. It was slowing down and pausing when I found myself wanting to look outside myself for answers to solutions and giving myself a chance to check in with myself and see if I could give myself what I was looking for. And honestly, slowing down just sometimes helped me not to go to the thing I knew wouldn’t be helpful in the first place.
One of the biggest ways we allow ourselves to heal is by slowing down and listening to our own inner knowing and wisdom, because this is how we build trust and safety within ourselves. So instead of constantly looking outside of yourself and using all of the things to make anxiety go away and calm yourself, let’s take more small steps to look inward, because anxiety is lessened when we work to build trust and safety within ourselves. You’ve got you - you always have. You’ve just gotta take more small steps to help yourself see this!
05. The next (and last) big reason why people continue to struggle is because their environment or their relationships aren’t supportive to your healing. I came across this post on Instagram by Helen Marie and I couldn’t have said it any better myself: She says, “We can do all the journaling, meditating, walking in nature, deep breaths, yoga poses, gratitude practices, and lighting our favorite candles, but if the people around us don’t make us feel supported, aligned, or safe, then our nervous system will struggle to feel the ease that it’s craving. We are relational beings, but we only truly thrive when those connections are in the presence of trust, understanding, and love.”
This is something I see often. People have done so much good work, but the work isn't paying off because their environment or their relationships aren’t supportive to their healing. Their home environment, work environment, or just where they live. And relating to relationships, I’m not just talking about romantic relationships here. Some of the relationships I’ve seen to be most harmful to people's recovery journeys has been parents and other loved ones. You can do so much good work, but if you continue to avoid making some tough but healthy changes, having tough conversations, setting boundaries, saying no, making changes you know you need to make, you’re going to continue to feel as though you’re stuck.
And this all hugely comes back to building trust and safety within yourself. If you aren’t listening to your needs, honoring them, and making healthy changes relating to your environment and relationships, it’ll be really hard to heal. So much of our healing journeys depend on us listening to ourselves and making hard, but healthy choices. And it’s in these hard choices that we heal and grow. So although it’s incredibly hard, it’s also incredibly worth it.
All the stuff I’ve covered here are things I walk my students through in my 10-week program Panic to Peace program. These 5 things are big areas we spend time working through and on because these are the areas in which people often get stuck and it’s where the healing happens. I open this program twice a year - once in January and once in September! You can get on the waiting list for the next round of P2P here.
I really hope this episode has given you lots of insights and some nudges for how to continue to move forward in healthy ways.
Until next time, keep taking healthy action.
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