The most interesting thing that I have come to learn about anxiety is that it can be a signal that something transformative has the potential to happen. Anxiety avoidance is understandable. Because the sensation of anxiety is strange and unusual, it is true. But at the end of the day, anxiety is just a sensation. And it might be telling you something different from what you think it is trying to tell you!

I used to try and avoid anxiety too. I saw it as something that was telling me that a situation was BAD for me or my health and so I regularly practised anxiety avoidance and kept pushing it away. After years of therapy (much of it ACT), there was one situation that made me realise as clear as day that anxiety itself actually indicates that something transformative has the potential to happen.

An anecdote on anxiety

I recently spoke up at my volunteering position and rocked the boat, until that point on mainly placid waters. I asked a question about why I was being overlooked for paid work, and the aftermath of this suggestion was pure anxiety. Lay awake at night and ruminate about it kind of anxiety. It was very uncomfortable. Then a week or so later they offered me paid work. And I felt anxious about that too. It was a very high-energy feeling that felt quite uncomfortable. I let it pass. I didn’t backtrack and back out of the situation.

When I started working full shifts, it became clear that getting this job was one of the most transformative things to happen to me in a long time. I absolutely felt like a different person. And then it twigged finally, that the anxiety itself was just telling me that ‘this could be exciting’ in terms of personal growth.

Embrace anxiety!?

Once you have been able to learn this (in your own time and experience), it becomes clear that rather than avoiding anxiety, it is actually healthy and productive to actually embrace it or lean into it.

(Counter-intuitive, I know! But something that you can’t unsee!)

Dr Steven Hayes (the founder of ACT) realised that with his crippling anxiety, it was not the **feeling** which is the issue, it is our RELATIONSHIP to the feeling.

Chronic anxiety avoidance

And what I understand now is that chronic anxiety can be anxiety about the prospect of feeling anxiety. It keeps you closed down. Avoiding it keeps you safe, in ever-diminishing ways. But are you happy with your life?

If you can change your relationship to the feeling, experiencing it directly as a sensation in your body, which you can describe, you can learn to accept your anxious feelings. So there will be less need to get anxious at the prospect of feeling anxious.

With time, anxiety comes to signal a kind of excitement, an indication that something awesome has the potential to happen.

ACT comes to the rescue (again)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy has again allowed me to open my mind to another of life’s challenges. I learned this lesson after a course of ACT therapy, and today, after reading A Liberated Mind, I become clear on WHY anxiety is actually a positive sign for good things to potentially happen.

Anxiety actually shines a light on what is important to us!

I was waiting in the queue for a sandwich to get made for lunch and reading a book about small space gardening. Anxiety hit me in waves, as I was reading about all the things I need to think about to bring a small space garden to life. And that was when it hit me. ‘This has the potential to transform my world’, I thought. The anxiety tells me so.

Acceptance pivot

And if you think about it, if you really observe your feelings when you are anxious – what are the actual characteristics of the sensation that you are experiencing? What shape does the sensation have in your body? Where is it located? What colour is it? Is it moving? Is it pulsating? Growing? etc. If you can observe the feeling directly it becomes clear that the problem isn’t so much the feeling of being anxious, but your reaction to the feeling of being anxious that is the issue.

Anxiety avoidance makes the situation worse because then you become less flexible, more rigid, and less able to live a valued life when you avoid your feelings of anxiety. And they have a way of coming back and biting you harder than ever before.

Has there ever been a time when you were anxious, and it turned out that the situation led to personal growth? Tell us in the comments! Or follow us on Instagram.