I Am Not Broken and Neither Are You
HEAL your anxiety forever!
STOP your anxious thoughts.
As I read the marketing email from a breathwork coach, my first reaction was self-doubt (why can’t I stop my anxiety?!), and my second reaction was anger. Pure anger.
I see it all the time people promising they can heal anxiety. And it makes me angry. I mean, it really pisses me off.
Maybe it is the writer in me who strongly believes in the power of words. Or maybe it is the high integrity value I have and my dad constantly saying to me growing up, “You are only as good as your word.” But this pisses me off because anxiety IS something you can quiet, treat or learn to live with, but it is NOT something you can heal forever. And this myth is dangerous.
It makes me angry as someone who lives with anxiety because I spent much of my life chasing this idea. If I was a better person, I could heal my anxiety. If I could meditate or do yoga or breathwork, I could stop my anxiety. Maybe if I journaled more or if I found a better therapist? THEN I would be fixed. I was constantly looking for the treatment that would fix me because all these professionals told me they had fixed themselves.
The problem isn’t the methodologies. The problem is they aren’t permanent fixes; they are treatments. All of these treatments do the same thing—they help you get into your body so you can acknowledge your feelings and get a better perspective, so your anxiety isn’t driving you—your Biggest Fan is. Yep, they are all ways to practice A.S.K. And A.S.K. works to quiet anxiety—it doesn’t permanently heal it. You have to WORK at it. You have to practice it. It isn’t magical.
And it makes me angry as a mental health professional that my colleagues perpetuate the myth that I am broken, and the fix is simple. And when the fix inevitably doesn’t work, I end up beating myself up more because not only am I broken because I have anxiety now, there must be something REALLY wrong with me because the solution that is fixing all these people isn’t fixing me.
It is similar to the weight loss industry promising to heal my sugar addiction. The way to heal my sugar addiction is ongoing and involves: avoiding sugar because eating sugar makes me crave more sugar, not eating my feelings, eating a variety of healthy foods. Those are strategies to eat less sugar, but I STILL have a sugar addiction. I STILL have to work daily not to lose myself in a bag of Oreos. The truth is, I will always love sugar. I am not healed from my love of sugar—AND I have strategies for not eating as much sugar that work IF I implement them.
The same is true with anxiety. We have to work it; we have to find the strategies that help us recognize when we are pushing ourselves too hard and when our Monger is running the show. And we have to find strategies that help us acknowledge our feelings, get into our bodies and kindly see a bigger picture. Maybe that is yoga, journaling, mindfulness, meditation, therapy, breathe work. It doesn’t matter WHAT the vehicle is; the goal is to remember you are not broken; you are just living with anxiety.