Transform Your Relationship with Anxiety with ACT
Anxiety is not an abnormal emotion. Current statistics estimate that 18.1% of the adult population are affected by anxiety yearly. That’s 40 million adults. With so many people experiencing anxiety, it seems strange that we classify it as an “abnormal” disorder. There’s generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, panic disorder, OCD, and phobias; all labeled in the Diagnostic Statistical Manual as “disordered.” Don’t get me wrong, there are certainly different levels of severity for each diagnosis. Some cases are more severe and debilitating, while other cases might be more mild and functioning. Yet anxiety is not uncommon or abnormal.
Let me tell you about my anxiety “disorder.” The first time I remember calling it anxiety, I was 19 years old and beginning my first semester at the university of my DREAMS. My mom and boyfriend had lovingly helped me move in to my dorm in Nashville, Tennessee, then headed back home to Indiana. Feeling alone and disoriented in a new city, there was little I felt like doing other than lying in bed and crying. I did manage to make a few friends and see some really cool things, yet I began to feel crippled by panic and fear and the words in my head: “I will never fit in. My friends don’t really like me, they just feel sorry for me. Everyone knows I don’t belong here.” It felt like it was the obvious truth. My mind blasted me with thoughts like this continually, and the noise became deafening when I was around friends. I felt a suffocating tightness in my chest most of the time, which added to my fear and panic. Desperately trying to make these thoughts and sensations stop, I gradually stopped hanging out with my friends and spent the majority of my time in my tiny twin bed, sleeping.
You can imagine where the story goes from here. Friends stopped asking me to do things because I always said no. Ironically, the feelings and thoughts that I had been trying to escape from actually became WORSE and more debilitating. I had never felt more alone, sad, or anxious. I ended up dropping out of my dream college after the first semester and going back home to Indiana.
Yikes. Looking back now, I can see that I was really stuck, digging myself deeper and deeper in a hole, not knowing how to get out. Fortunately, a few years later, I learned that using a shovel to dig myself out of a hole only dug me in deeper.
My life began to really transform for the better when I began learning about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) during my undergrad in Indiana. As a psychology major, I really absorbed and applied what I was learning to my own life (and THANK GOD!). I had allowed anxiety to control my life for far too long, and I learned there was another way. It was liberating.
Six Major Transformations ACT provided me:
1. The ability to mindfully be in the present moment.
There are so many things that we miss out on when we try to distract ourselves from anxiety. I missed so many fun outings with my friends in Nashville by staying in my dorm and trying to sleep it away. Cultivating the ability to simply be in the present moment allowed me to see beyond my seemingly always-present anxiety to experience the richness that life has to offer. I was able to step out of my judging, doubting, self-critical mind and into my life.
2. Thoughts are not facts.
Remember all those thoughts I just believed to be facts, no questions asked? “I will never fit in. People don’t like me. I don’t belong.” Our minds tell us things like this ALL DAY LONG in a noble, yet extremely unhelpful attempt to protect us from pain. You read about the damage done in my experience when I believed these thoughts to be facts. Using my newly cultivated present-moment awareness, I was able to see there is a part of me that can simply observe these thoughts and feelings. Furthermore, I found that my thoughts and feelings were constantly changing.
3. I can feel my pain without running away or resisting it.
I was going to great lengths to avoid my anxiety, and my life had become so small and devoid of meaning because of this. I learned through ACT that struggling to avoid anxiety actually only lead to MORE anxiety. I choose to be willing to open up and feel it instead of resisting it. By making room for the pain and discomfort, I allowed myself to really feel what I had been so afraid of feeling. And I lived through it. I proved to myself that feeling my emotions is actually WAY LESS damaging than pushing it away. This acceptance paved the way for so many positive opportunities.
4. I don’t need to change my thoughts or get rid of my anxiety to feel better.
Societal messages encourage us to ‘just think positive!’ These messages suggest that we have more control over our thoughts than we actually do, and that positive-thinking is the antidote to pain and the key to happiness. Well, I was desperately trying to control my anxiety and get rid of those negative thoughts, yet I only felt worse.
ACT helped me to realize that trying to control my thoughts and feelings doesn’t really work. Instead of trying to change my thoughts and eliminate anxiety, I focused on loosening my attachment to them. There is a space between my thoughts/feelings and myself, and that space allows me to choose how I react to them.
5. I can be the person I want to be even when I feel anxious.
Before beginning my first semester in Nashville, I knew I wanted to be adventurous, seizing opportunities, and persistent in networking and meeting people. Yet when I was engaged in the pursuit to avoid my emotions, I was quite disengaged with these values that meant so much to me. In learning ACT, I was able to identify and reconnect with my values, to know what I wanted to stand for in my life. I realized that even when I feel anxious, I can still be persistent, adventurous, and seize opportunities.
6. I can create meaning and fulfillment in my life with my actions.
It’s clear to me now that the way I was coping with my anxiety took my life in the opposite direction of where I wanted it to go. ACT taught me that I have the choice in every single moment to go towards or away from the life that I want. I can always choose to be the person I want to be in any situation, which adds so much meaning and fulfillment to my life. And when I mess up (because we all do and will), I can choose to recommit to being who I want to be, again and again.
