Before becoming a therapist, I was a person who suffered a lot from panic attacks, phobias and anxiety. I kept these experiences private, and they stopped me from socialising and enjoying my life. I did not understand why I was experiencing them, which created another layer of anxiety. I felt abnormal. When I tried to talk to friends or family members, I often encountered more judgement than understanding. This left me feeling even more isolated and lonely.
During my training to become a psychotherapist, I began to understand anxiety and panic attacks from the perspective of the brain and body. Understanding what was happening helped me question the interpretations I had attached to my symptoms: “You are weak.” “You are abnormal.” “Nobody understands you.” “You are alone.”
Gradually, I learnt to respond with more understanding: “I can slow my breathing.” “This feeling will pass.” “I can give myself time to recover.” “I have done well to get through this.”
Through my own therapy, I also explored emotions I had not previously had the capacity to process. I learnt to make room for sadness, fear and other feelings I had struggled to welcome. Rather than immediately judging or trying to remove them, I became curious. What am I feeling? What might be happening for me? What do I need?
With time, I began to understand my experience and respond to it with greater care. This felt like a beautiful process of self-discovery and acceptance.
Today, as a psychotherapist, I experience much less anxiety and no longer have panic attacks. I am more aware of my feelings and better able to communicate them to the people close to me. If I need some space, I can ask for it. More importantly, anxiety no longer takes up so much space in my relationships with others.
Here, I want to offer some encouragement to people who may feel as alienated and overwhelmed as I once did.
Anxiety as energy
When I experience anxiety, my body can feel charged with electricity. There is tension and a sense of energy moving through me, yet sometimes I also feel paralysed, unable to do anything with it whilst experiencing racing thoughts.
Over time, I have become curious about this energy. If it is here, how might I respond to it? Can I move with it, dance with it, breathe with it? Can I begin to befriend what is happening inside me?
This has opened up a question: How can I use this energy to serve me?
Finding a choice within anxiety has been a gradual process. There are moments when that choice feels very small, and moments when I need support to find it. These are two ways I have learnt to explore it.
1. Move with the energy and keep living
On one occasion, I felt anxious and wanted to stay at home. There was tension in my chest, and going out felt difficult. I decided to move, go out and see what happened.
I went to an exhibition and talked to a friend. Through this experience, I learnt that I could continue living with this phenomenon in my body. I could look at art, have a conversation and remain connected to the world while anxiety was present.
When it feels possible, movement can be a way for me to respond. Sometimes this means walking or going somewhere. Sometimes it means dancing, breathing gently or simply noticing how my body wants to move.
You might ask yourself: Is there a small movement towards life that feels possible for me today?
2. Bring compassion to the feelings within it
As I explored my anxiety, I began to recognise emotions I had held back or had not been able to process. It felt as though these emotions were seeking a way to express themselves. I became interested in how they manifested in my body. Where could I feel them? What qualities did they have? Using visual language helped me describe my experience and begin to relate to it.
In meditation, I would bring my attention to these suffering parts of myself and try to send them love and compassion. I was learning to stay close to feelings that had previously frightened me.
This gave me another way to use the energy of anxiety: I could direct some of my attention towards caring for what was hurting.
Beginning this work in therapy
Learning to respond to my anxiety in these ways was a process supported by my own therapy. With time, I came to recognise a younger part of myself that felt bruised, anxious and wild and that needed understanding and care. Having someone accompany me through this process made it possible to explore feelings I had struggled to approach on my own.
For me, embracing anxiety as a force means meeting its energy with compassion and discovering, with support, more freedom to choose how I live.