When Anxiety is Running Your Life
When anxiety is running your life you feel overwhelmed, depleted, isolated, and trapped in your fears.  Too much of your time is spent in worrying about things over which you have little or no control.  Anxiety can become the driving force in your life, limiting your capacity for joy, limiting your experience of yourself and the world, preventing you from living the life you want to live, and isolating you from those you love.  Often it becomes hard to love and trust others with your sensitive heart when your fear of being hurt or misunderstood has become so large.

Why Are You Anxious?
Very often we are confused by our experience of anxiety.  You may ask, "Why me?  Why am I so anxious?"  You are not alone in this struggle.  In fact, today more people are suffering from anxiety than are suffering with depression.  There are many factors contributing to your experience of anxiety.  Most often we find there are several contributors. 

High Intelligence
Almost always an anxious person is also a very bright and sensitive person.  Your busy thoughtful mind may get the better of you when it gets in the habit of being busy with worry and fear.  Your  high ability to solve problems effectively may actually get in your way when dealing with your own anxiety.  You are likely to feel you are smart enough to solve this on your own, or that your strong will-power and determination can be used to solve your feelings of anxiety. Unfortunately, these assumptions can often increase your levels of anxiety and ultimately your feelings of helplessness, as it takes more than intelligence and will power to overcome anxiety.

Biology and Environment
Anxiety in our families comes to us in two ways.  Very often we find anxiety runs in families, from generation to generation.  Some of these contributors are biological, in that you may have inherited a sensitive nervous system. For example, many anxious people have also had histories of being more sensitive to foods, chemicals, sounds, and stimulation than most other people.  Another way our family or life experience contributes to our anxiety is by what was taking place in our environments when we were growing up.  There may have been critical parenting, chaos, a very anxious parent, loss through divorce or death, substance abuse within the family, or medical emergencies, among other things.  The precursors of anxiety are not only to be found in childhood experiences, however.  Trauma and sudden unexpected changes can take place at any time in life, and when they do, significant levels of anxiety can be triggered.

Your Habits
Regardless of your biological and family history, the single most important contributor to your experience of anxiety are the habits you have developed to deal with life.  Invariably, those of us who are anxious have not learned how to take care of ourselves.  We prioritize other's needs over our own needs at our own expense. We push too hard.  We push through difficult times without stopping to rest, eat, or take time out to rejuvenate.  If you are experiencing significant levels of anxiety you are also in the habit of thinking thoughts which upset you.  Worrying.  "What if-ing", "Should-ing".  More and more of your time may be caught up in thought patterns such as these.  The more time you spend caught in the cycle of negative thoughts, the more uncomfortable your feelings of anxiety become.

The Good News
And there is very good news.  While your biology or history may have set you up to be more likely to experience significant anxiety, this is not the whole story.  Anxiety is a habit.  It is a habit you developed in order to cope with your body sensations and your environment.  Because anxiety is a habit, it can be unlearned and replaced with new and more life-supporting, positive habits.  Understanding the formulation of your anxious thoughts, identifying your habits, and learning new habits is the path to freedom from your anxious thoughts.  You have the power to choose a  step towards freedom today.  Call me.  We can take those first steps together.

Victoria Wallace Schlicht, MA, LMFT
victoria@transforminghearts.com
714.914.5565

"May you be well.
May you be happy.
May you be free from suffering."

--Tibetan Heart Meditation
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