What to do when your anxiety gets triggered

What do you do when your anxiety gets triggered?

I don’t know about you guys, but my anxiety has been super sporadic lately. One moment I’ll be in a chill grateful headspace, thankful for all of the amazing things and people I have in my life, and then I’ll see a random insta post or get a news notification and all of a sudden my body switches into anxiety mode. But why?? What caused me to get so anxious? How can I be in such a good mood one moment and then do a complete 180 without even realizing it’s happening? 

My answer? Sometimes. Life. Is. Just. Triggering. 

And ya know what? It’s ok. 💕 It’s ok to feel unsettled. It’s ok to feel anxious. It’s ok to feel angry. It’s ok to feel confused. It’s ok to FEEL.

The difficult part is it’s not always easy to distinguish what actually triggered your anxiety in the first place. Was it something you saw? A lyric in a song? A thought that popped into your head? A dilemma at work? In our world right now, there are definitely certain triggers that are more obvious than others right away, but what about triggers that trigger an even bigger trigger? (Try saying that 10x fast 😜). Maybe you listened to a song recently that reminded you of an ex, which triggered you to think about the maybe not-so-great state of your romantic life right now, which then triggered you to think about how frustrating this pandemic is… and the spiral continues. Honestly, even having the thought of “why am I so stressed?” can be triggering in itself!! 🤦🏼‍♀️ 

So what do you do about it? Instead of fixating on whatever triggered your anxiety in the first place so you can “fix” whatever it was (which is where our brains like to immediately go to), try simply sitting with the emotion. 

The next time your anxiety hits, try using this 4 step process to move you through it:

1) Recognize the emotion you’re experiencing 

2) Release any resistance you have toward feeling that way

3) Reframe how what you’re feeling can actually serve you at this moment in time

4) Recharge your mind and body (I love doing a quick 20 second breathing exercise or grounding activity or a quick stretch sesh) so you can move forward with your day even more refreshed and restored than you were before.  

Allow yourself to feel. Give yourself PERMISSION to feel without judgment or resistance. Because the less you try to resist your emotions, the less power those emotions will have over you. 

Let your anxiety (and emotions in general) empower you and fuel you forward instead of hold you back. You got this babe, I know you do. ♡ #mindsetshifts #youarebeautiful #anxietyaintgotnothingonme

xo,

Em