Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash
The following story contains mention of suicide. Please engage in self-care or reach out to your loved ones or a mental health professional if you’re experiencing suicidal thoughts or tendencies.
This is the fourth of a multi-part series. Please click here for the first, click here for the second and click here for the third. Names have been changed to protect identities.
by Aamir Vesamia
The 7 Key Principles of Shape Well-being are listed here:
Empathy
Compassion
Acceptance
Non-Judgement
Open & Honest
Genuine & Real
Empowerment
It’s a funny world we live in. You can walk down the street and see dozens of people looking calm and collected. Internally though, probably a different story.
And it makes sense, right? If we all behaved how we felt inside and acted on our impulses, society might have some real issues functioning.
Anxiety is internal and harrows us in the form of symptoms from an increased heart rate to sweaty palms and an inability to function normally.
I’m plagued by anxiety. Much of it is my own doing. Negative thought spirals, a propensity to overthink and validation-seeking behaviour are all struggles I face on a daily basis.
It can be challenging to deal with anxiety, especially when I’m on my own for too long. It’s easy to exacerbate the issue when I’m left alone without human contact and forget to remind myself what I think of myself isn’t necessarily what those around me do.
If anxiety is internal, stress is the external force we might feel from others. Stress might come from deadlines, arguments or even various noises which cause similar symptoms to anxiety.
I tend to avoid places where stress can be prevalent. I get pretty stressed out when I feel I’m being watched, especially when doing something I suck at.
Living on my own, and working from home, has led me to a life where I can quite easily avoid stress, however, in turn, that can lead to a lot of anxiety.
This is where the 7 Key Principles come in.
Jeremy and His Granddaughter
As usual, the sessions took place in the Triad format. I was up first listening to Jeremy. His granddaughter had recently had her first drink and had been to a nightclub. She was underage. Jeremy’s daughter is also an alcoholic.
I feel Jeremy had applied Judgment to the situation by extrapolating his daughter’s situation onto the granddaughter. This was understandable, however, not necessarily the case.
Listening to Jeremy speak about it, and reading his body language — hands covering his chin — I could tell it was causing him a lot of stress. Following the feeling, I jumped into his world, asking how it made him feel. I felt Empathetic to his plight given his own daughter’s trouble.
Being Open and Honest about my own struggles with alcohol as a teenager, I disclosed some of my teen experiences. My struggles with alcohol were a coping mechanism I’d developed in my early 20s to avoid reality rather than just experiment and have fun as a teen.
Just listening and applying some of the 7 Key Principles can alleviate some anxiety and worry. Allowing Jeremy a safe space to communicate his feelings, noticing his body language and validating what he felt is the first step to Empowerment.
As the session moved on, Jeremy’s body language shifted. Being Empathetic and Honest about my own experiences seemed to have alleviated at least some of Jeremy’s stress about the situation.
The anxiety wasn’t just going to go away. I wondered if Jeremy had spoken to his family or granddaughter about the situation. An Open and Honest dialogue where the Principles were upheld could quell his anxiety.
Inner Anxiety
Photo by Adam Jang on Unsplash
When I was to speak, anxiety was at the forefront of my mind. As of late, I’d been anxious about the new friendships I was developing having just moved to a new city. What people thought of me, how I felt about myself and the other superficial bothers that were consuming me all flew out.
I tend to be quite selfish when I’ve had a bit to drink. Approval-seeking behaviour’s a part of me that’s lingered with the move, as much as I’ve tried to work on it. As soon as I feel validated by one person, I’ll move on to someone new. It’s a parasitical part of me that activates when I lose self-control.
Whilst it might feel good at the time, there are repercussions the next day. I feel like I’ve sabotaged relationships I put work into. I lose genuine Empathy and Compassion for others when I end up in these states.
In the Triad Sam had done a great job in allowing me to self-empower. By expressing how I felt verbally to another, my anxiety began to dissipate.
In my head, I often work myself up into these states where things might seem a much bigger deal than they are. By verbalising them I began to realise that whilst there was work to do on my behaviour and alcohol consumption, I could take steps to continue to build up on relationships.
Realising I hadn’t done anything horrific and that I’d just had too much to drink was the first step in acknowledging I could take control of my anxiety and empower myself to do better.
Coping with Stress and Anxiety
Stress and anxiety are beneficial in small doses. The problems occur when they begin to overwhelm me.
Being Non-Judgmental about my worries was a big step in acknowledging and accepting my anxiety. My feelings are valid. But that doesn’t mean my worries are real.
Focussing on the feeling rather than engaging in overthinking has allowed me to empower myself by reframing my anxieties into things I have control over, rather than things I can’t change.
After listening to others, the workshop made me realise I might need to put myself in more stressful situations. Whilst I struggle with anxiety, the internal, my stress levels from external sources are pretty low.
I’ve resolved to do things that make me uncomfortable — which for me means activities like climbing where I have to face my fears. Those fears are heights and being judged for being poor at something.
