Nullifying situational anxiety

Despite the presence of seasons of anxiety in our lives, there’s also the presence of situational anxiety in otherwise ordinary seasons where anxiety isn’t predominant.

Situational anxiety is commonplace.  Every human being faces situational anxiety—it’s what makes us capable of feeling and thinking.  It makes us human.  Even the most relaxed of people face situational anxiety.

Being situationally anxious doesn’t mean we’re less than anyone else.  It doesn’t make us ‘weak’, even if we do feel vulnerable.  It means we feel.  It means we’re alive to what’s going on around us.

Experiencing an anxiety for what are the apparent stresses of life is a typical human response that’s helped best when we simply see that anxiety is the explicable response.

Only when we see that how we’re responding has rationale about it are we then in a position to respond adequately to challenge and change our response to the situation.

This is about facing the truth first and foremost.  The humility to face truth is always the first step.  It’s the very first thing we can and should do in every endeavour in life.

The problem we have is in our shying away from the truth, and if we’re honest, we’ll see how often we do that.  We’ll see the ways we do it.  And if we enquire a bit further, we might find out WHY we do it.  The whys of life are so critically important.

There’s no shame in being fearful, in being overwhelmed in sorrow, in shedding tears and many of them, just as there’s no shame in not knowing why we’re all at sea emotionally.

Situational anxiety begs to be understood, which is simply about exploring the WHY of the anxiety—not through judgement but through curiosity.  It’s like this: it’s not, “Damn you, Anxiety, I hate feeling weak, vulnerable, pathetic,” but it’s more, “Well I’m anxious, and this anxiety MEANS something, and I want to find out because I’m on a journey of discovery about myself.”

Nullifying situational anxiety’s not about shoving it down and spreading a rug over it to pretend it doesn’t exist.  Such methods do not work.

Nullifying situational anxiety’s about acknowledging it to begin with.  Have you ever thought that to truly know yourself you have to SEE you?  Putting it into the first person, if I wish to be at peace with myself, I must SEE the truth of what I’m dealing with—the full unabashed truth about how things actually are—and then just face it.

This is a one-step process: nullify situational anxiety by acknowledging it, being attentive to it.  Not by wishing it away.  Not by facing it and then running from it.  It’s about attending to the situational anxiety and being present with it as long as required.

Sometimes, rather than wishing it away, it’s about saying, “This anxiety is here for a good reason, and I understand.”  What the little boy and little girl inside us need most of all is for us to say to ourselves, “I’ll stay here with you (me) through this however long it takes.”

Realistically, anxiety cannot be wished away, but we can bear it just by being present with ourselves, and seeking the support from others that’s needed, offered, and available.

Bearing anxiety is the way to nullify it.  Its effects may still be there, and we won’t like it, but by being present with ourselves in it, we can find a way in our situational anxiety to experience a situational joy, hope, even peace.