A Recipe for Anxiety
In this post anxiety is explained with the metaphor of the Pot.
Ingredients:
- Fire: External circumstances and events (trigger situations)
- Pot: ‘The Self’ with its contents: emotions, programs, feelings, beliefs, stories, traumas…
- Steam: The anxiety rising
- The Pot lid: Avoidance
Three steps for anxiety:
- Turn the heat on: (Stressful situations) As the temperature rises, it influences the pot’s content.
- Let the steam rise: Anxiety appears (It feels like a vape inside our body and mind) a mixture of distressing feelings and thoughts – (tiredness, demotivation, nervousness, anger, irritability, fear, guilt, sadness).
- Put the lid on: Of course, we don’t want those feelings, so we tend to avoid them. But it will only make things worse. At some point we may feel that something is going to explode inside us.
What can we do Instead?
Realistically in life, we cannot control the fire (external situations), but we can remove the lid, carefully letting the emotions vent, with curiosity and self-compassion look what is inside and start to process those feelings and emotions. With practice, we will identify and manage anxiety to avoid unexpected or unhelpful reactions in future situations.
Causes and Triggers
Factors like underlying believes, core fears, genetic or environmental reasons and trauma can play a role in your anxiety. However, it is key to identify what triggers it, particular situations or events can be boosting the symptoms of your anxiety.
Uncomfortable emotions are often telling us something about ourselves- something that matters to us and we care about (values), exploring them is the way to process them and learn about ourselves.
What are you cooking in your pot? What emotions are you dealing with?