Building Greater Capacity
Stop worrying! When is the last time someone said that to you and it actually worked? #never. Many of us spend so much time trying to hide, escape, project, and internalize our anxiety in our relationships until it manifests through our physical bodies and harmful behaviors/responses to situations and people. The thought of the unknown, ambiguity, and not having control can trigger a predictable fight and/or flight response for most people. Are you a blamer, shamer, controller, or escaper?
Anxiety isn't supposed to be a bad thing in relationships (or life in general). It is a human experience that is meant to heighten our awareness and protect us from potential threats. It is meant to keep us safe. However, when anxiety becomes excessive and unmanageable, we live in a constant state of anxiety where our brain loses its ability to turn our fight and/or flight responses on and off at appropriate times. It triggers our physiological and emotional bodies to go on overdrive -- basically hanging out on survival mode even when there is no real threat. Can you imagine what that does to our mental health and how we engage our relationships?
So how do we build greater capacity for anxiety without going on overdrive and tolerance for ambiguity within our relationships? Rather than saying the cheap answer #stopworrying, I want to encourage us to do the following:
Honor anxiety and ambiguity, and its purposeful place in your life and relationships. Sit with it. Acknowledge that you do not have control of all things, cannot know all things, and cannot be thoroughly prepared for all things. You are human.
Identify a list of practical things you can do to help relieve some of the immediate and heightened sense of anxiety so that you have capacity to examine what is happening inside of you? (i.e. exercise, taking a bath, meditation, prayer, yoga, journaling, therapy, relaxation exercises, mindfulness techniques).
Ask what is the underlying need being expressed through your anxiety? Is it the need to be seen, to be understood, to experience feeling worthy of someone's time and affection, to feel secure and good enough, etc.
Then ask yourself, how do you typically react when feeling the anxiety and does this predictable anxious behaviors really help you to get your actual needs met? (highly unlikely)
Brainstorm possibilities of how you could respond/communicate to get your needs met without reacting in the predictable anxious way that either hurts you or the other person. Is there risk? Yup, there is the ambiguity again. Give your brain some better options for possible responses the next time you catch yourself feeling the anxiety and the urge to react in regretful ways.
Practice following through with your new possibilities, over and over again. Mess up and try again. Brainstorm more possibilities. Constantly learn how to show up meaningfully, communicate more lovingly, and grow in awareness in your relationships.
Hatty J. Lee, LMFT (she/her) is an Asian American licensed marriage and family therapist and brainspotting practitioner who has been practicing for 14 years in community mental health settings, schools, and private practice virtually across California and in-person in Los Angeles and Pasadena, California. As the founder and clinical director of a group practice called Oak and Stone Therapy in Los Angeles, CA, she trains clinicians and supports people to deepen their relationship with themselves and the most important people in their lives. She writes about mental health on her Instagram and is the co-author of The Indwell Guide that integrates visual storytelling, mental health education, and practical tools to support people to heal and thrive.
