Anxiety
Anxiety, worry, fear, anxiousness - what else describes that feeling of things are not right; that there is something wrong or very wrong? The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders’ (DSM) describes anxiety disorders as sharing features of fear and anxiety and related behaviors disturbances. DSM states:
Fear is the emotional response to real or perceived imminent threat, whereas anxiety is anticipation of future threat. … fear is more often associated with surges of autonomic arousal necessary for fight or flight, thoughts of immediate danger and escape behaviors, and anxiety more often associated with … cautious and avoidant behaviors.
At Pinashka Psychotherapy, I mainly use parts work to address feelings of fear and anxiety. Parts work is a paradigm shift from a model of disease or disorders to conceptualizing all experiences as ways the inner system adjusts to the lived experience.
Anxiety in this parts framework is neither good nor bad, it just is. Is it possible that anxiety is an extreme response of parts to get things done, speed things up, take care of business, focus more intensely? Might anxiety be on a continue with empowerment, excitement, activation?
If we understand anxiety as an extreme reaction and judge it neither as good nor bad, we are able to work with it.
In my personal parts work, anxiety shows up like the brightest light - stronger than the sun.
When it feels needed, this light comes in and shines on all the corners of my system. I takes notes about things that need to be done, it pushes other parts to take care of business (make calls, schedule appointments), and it demand immediate action. It shows up in jumpy legs, and racing thoughts that keep me awake at night. EVERY aspect of my system is on HIGH HIGH alert, nothing goes well, nothing is working, everything is spirally faster and faster into chaos.
By understanding anxiety as a blanket I am able to see the job it is doing for me. More importantly I can identify it when it shows up and focus on it. It usually takes some time for me to see its activating influence, but when I do am able to step back, and learn from it, why is it here now? It is usually a trail head to more understanding.
Everyone’s journey, with the parts that feel anxiety, is unique to them. Some people describe ants crawling on their whole body, other feel a fire on their feet, and so on and so forth. Some people don’t visualize anything. The common denominator is everyone is able to objectively see the part that feels anxiety as neither good nor bad, but simply as is. Through accepting this part there is work to do and hope.
