Anxiety’s Trying to Tell Us Something

Anxiety: it’s something we’ve all experienced… and maybe even currently experiencing.

Our tendency with anxiety is to push through it or ignore it altogether. What if we defied the tendency and slowed down to see what anxiety is trying to tell us? 

Today’s conversation walks us through how to practically process and get to the root of our anxiety, and how to experience real resolve and relief. 

Transcript

Hey friends, welcome back to another episode of The Sobat podcast. My name is Anna McGuire. And I'm so excited to have a conversation with you today about sowing intentionally into our lives so that we can reap abundantly in the days, weeks, months, and even years to come.
Anxiety.
I say that word and we're all like, Dun dun dun, yeah, anxiety. We've all experienced it.
I've experienced it. And I really don't feel like I should say even experience should be like experience, I experienced anxiety. I would guess that from time to time you experience anxiety. Anxiety can be experienced through work through day to day tasks, maybe conversations that we are anxious to have nervous to have. Anxiety can come up while we're watching a movie or or a TV show is kind of got that like cliffhanger moment, there can be moments of anxiety. And if there's one thing that I've learned over the last handful of years is that anxiety is actually a God given gift.
It is a gift in the sense that anxiety is an indicator. It gives us a clue. It gives us a sense, it gives us a warning that we may be in danger or that we feel uncomfortable or that we're worried. Like if I was in the woods, and I hear some wrestling around in the bushes. Anxiety flares up why? Well, it could be another hiker or it could be a bear. But it's my anxiety that trips me to tells me that tells me Okay Anna, you need to be on guard like something could be coming out of the trees any minute.
Anxiety can be a good thing. There's also times where we can live in chronic anxiety that we're chronically worried or feeling worked up about things or something in particular.
But anxiety in and of itself it can be good to has a message is trying to communicate something to us. I had explained to me a while back ago like this that anxiety is like a smoke detector.
Anxiety is like a smoke detector. The room that I am currently sitting in there is a smoke detector, I can see it. And when that smoke detector goes off my responses to get curious that smoke detector is trying to tell me something that beeping noise is trying to move me to action.
And I can do one of two things when the smoke detector goes off, I can completely ignore it and let it beep. Or, again, I can get curious, it's begging me to action I can go and look for and seek out what's making this beeping go off. So sometimes when the smoke alarm goes off, more often than not is that the microwave burnt my popcorn or the stove like was boiling over or the smoke alarm could be going off because the kitchen is literally on fire.
Whatever may be tripping it off there is a reason why the smoke detector is going off the smoke detector is trying to tell us something. Again, it could be something like burnt popcorn or it could be that the kitchen is on fire but either way it's trying to communicate that something is off something is not right in your home or wherever it is that it's going off.
Anxiety in and of itself. Is it a feeling? Yes. However I don't see it like as like a full feeling like sadness or joy or excitement is anxiety really is a feeling that points to another feeling.
Anxiety is an indicator. Anxiety is a smoke detector it is trying to alarm us it is trying to point us to something not being right.
Anxiety is sends us a message that you've got to get curious and it's trying to call us to action.
Anxiety is like a smoke detector. It's an indicator. It is always pointing us to another feeling.
A lot of times I see that when we experience anxiety we try to
to treat anxiety, and that can be helpful. Like I do believe in what a lot of people call coping skills I, I do believe that like when you experience anxiety, you have your coping skills. And that can be helpful. For the moment, however, I find that doesn't treat anxiety. Like if my smoke detector was going off, I could put earplugs in for a few moments. And that will help alleviate the stress of hearing the alarm go off. However, that doesn't stop the alarm going off completely.
And that's the way coping skills can be, they can be helpful to alleviate some of the stress and the pain associated with anxiety. However, it doesn't treat anxiety doesn't completely make it go away.
So when you experience anxiety, what is your response? A lot of times we want to get away from it, we want to move past it.
Now this might sound a little shallow, but I'm going to share with you in a moment where I experienced anxiety very recently. Andrew and I we love watching the show, survivor I've of survivor, and it was tribal council. So if you don't watch Survivor, which I'm guessing if you live in the Western culture, you kind of have an idea of what it is it's usually 20 strangers that are put on this island with very little food very, like no shelter, they had to build their shelter, and they compete in games and all this stuff. And at the end, if you are the sole survivor, you get a million dollars anyways, this season is progressing. There's only a couple episodes left and there was tribal council. And while I was sitting there watching, I suddenly felt my heart like pounding. I'm sitting there. And it was so overwhelming. And I'm like, Why do I suddenly feel like I'm going to throw up? Mike, what is going on? I have no idea. And then I had to sit there and say, Okay, I'm experiencing, like, for real for real anxiety right now. Like, this isn't like, oh my goodness, what's gonna happen? Like, I was having serious anxiety about this. And I sat there with and I'm like, Okay, what is my anxiety trying to point out to me. And so once I got curious with it, I tried to see what message is my anxiety, trying to tell me, and there's this person, this cast member, in survivor that I feel very deeply invested in. And there was a chance in that moment that they were going to go home. And that made me sad, because I wanted them to win a million dollars, because I really believe in their life mission and their purpose and all those things. And I just realized I was getting nervous. I was sad. I was frustrated that this person was being put on the spot and potentially going to be going home. Okay.
But that was a moment where I was experiencing anxiety. And I had to get curious, it was so overwhelming, I had to get curious with it.
And my question for you is, is that something that you would be willing to try? The next time you experience anxiety? Would you be willing to look at your anxiety as a smoke detector as an indicator for another feeling?
Would you be willing to get curious to see okay, what is this anxiety trying to tell me? What's my anxieties? Message?
Get curious with your anxiety, look for what's beneath it. Again, when the smoke detector goes off. It's telling us that there's something going like it doesn't just go off to go off. Unless like the battery's like dead or dying. It goes off because something is happening around it something is happening near the smoke detector that would make it go off. So looking okay, why is my anxiety going off? Why am I feeling anxious?
Get curious. Start asking yourself some of those questions. What am I feeling right now? What am I thinking about in this moment? Start doing some interviewing become a journalist of yourself. Start asking yourself some questions to see what is beneath my anxiety.
Again, it can be so tempting to put some earplugs in and try to ignore the anxiety ignore the smoke detector in the beeping. However, that doesn't resolve anything. It is getting curious and finding what is beneath the anxiety that we can find relief from it.
So you say okay, Anna, I'm willing to try this. I'm willing to get curious and see what's beneath my anxiety. What do I do then with what I discover?
Well beneath your anxiety