Like most other illnesses, anxiety is rooted firmly in negative emotional energies and a negative storyline we carry throughout life. A storyline that offers us suspicion, fear, worry, panic, concern over who we are, how we are seen, judged, viewed and conceptualised by the outside world.

In its simplest way, anxiety is a fear of being ourselves, of being truly seen, a vulnerability we are conditioned to believe to be weakness. And through this falsehood or weakness and insecurity, the perfect conditions for worry, fear and panic to grow brings with it the very real opportunity for us to go from the type of person who was once vibrant and open and loud, boisterous even, fun, to one that struggles to leave home, entering into the public domain at great risk of anxiety or a panic attack striking. But is this a normal response to stress or a self-induced state of fear over how the world outside perceives us? And if it is the latter, why does what anyone else thinks of you affect you in this way? Because the narrative playing out over and over in your conscious or subconscious minds (or both) is one of fear. Fear of judgment, of ridicule, of looking foolish, of being noticed, standing out, saying the wrong thing, being laughed at, and so on it goes, the storyline of our life looping over. Self-talk is harmful in so many ways but none more so than on the sensitive endocrine system. This system is built for the function of safety, protection, fight or flight, rest and digest. It is designed to respond to danger no matter the proportional threat that danger brings along with it. Big or small the reactions of the sympathetic nervous system are the same and so whether the fear is of being eaten alive by a tiger, or the fear of being seen for who you truly are, the impact on the endocrine and adrenal functions are the same. 

Life used to be very simple. We hunted, ate (and later) cooked, slept and reproduced and that was more or less it. Today, we work, live busy active social lives, are bombarded with messages of what we should look like, act like and think like. From a very young age we are told we must be strong, brave, successful, progress from school, to University to a solid well paid career but rarely are we ever told to just be ourselves. We are controlled from a young age, told off for being ourselves, for vocalising pain or worry or healthy anger and so we feel ashamed of the truth of who we are, of ourselves, we feel judged, let down, suppressed and repressed and with that comes the very real fear of simply being ourselves, of being seen for being ourselves and for putting ourselves out there only to be rejected when the masks we wear slip and we are truly seen. And that becomes our core 'threat' or 'danger' in our life. And it is this that the body responds to, consistently pumping high levels of adrenalin, cortisol, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin into us because the fear is constant. The body has no way of knowing that this in itself will eventually eradicate the health and wellness of the body as it is simply responding to this inbuilt fear, and so adrenal fatigue, anxiety, panic attacks and more soon follow as to have this many stress hormones pumping through the body, expecting threat, will eventually bring that threat in more or less normal everyday situations.

What is the solution?  It is so simple - all you have to do is change the narrative.  Flip the script. Stop telling yourself you're frightened of being yourself,  stop telling yourself you are useless, not good enough, too weak, too sensitive (a very big key word for the adrenals to respond negatively to). Stop telling yourself life would be so much easier if you never had to go out again – as what do these words tell this highly sophisticated but contextual-less function of protection? That outside is threat, danger, 'tiger', and that will be your experience each and every day, the physiological experience of a tiger coming to eat you alive.

• 'I am so sensitive'. If you are using it to put yourself down, berate yourself or label yourself then it is the single most dangerous word to use against yourself. This one word impacts your endocrine system as a whole, specifically the adrenals, pituitary gland, hormone balance and autonomic nervous system like no other word will. Stop using it immediately.  
  
  
• Words of ‘victimhood’. Why me, who else feels like this, I don’t see anyone else feeling like this, why is it always me, why can’t I just be normal, I’m the worst, why can’t I just be well / happy / insert word of choice. Anything at all that tells the body you are the victim. As a victim, your body will try to protect you with more threat response. 
  
  
• Words of a 'self-blame' nature. It’s all my fault, I’m so silly, I should be able to do this, it’s my fault I can’t, only I can help myself, there’s no one to blame but me, and so on. Self-blame tells the body you are victim once more, that threat is all around you as to blame is to trigger a time in the past when you were in some kind of threat or danger - to a young child, being punished or told off for something causes them to be believe they are at fault, they are to blame, and that this action they are being punished for will result in their overall safety being threatened (love of parent lost. There is more on this in Mind Body Connection What is Emotional Energy post).
  
  
• Words of a type that make you feel inadequate, undermined, foolish, futile, as these are all evolutionary words for, ‘I’m not good enough’ and a body that believes itself to be not good enough will always worry and panic over being seen for being who it truly is; ‘me’, ‘I’, you.

If you keep a journal, read back through it and notice how many times words, phrases or thoughts of a type that relate to the 4 points above are in there. These are your words, your writings, your thoughts and behaviours and so if you wish to be free of anxiety for good, please, flip the script.I offer 30-minute consultations to talk through your narrative, what it is and how deep it’s affecting your protection mechanism. If this is something you wish to explore, please do reach out to book.