I was at my dentist’s office the other day when I heard the assistant, I’ll call her Emily, talking with the office receptionist. Emily asked her boyfriend to buy her an anxiety cube. My ears perked up when I heard the word “anxiety” so I asked how the cube worked and if she suffered with a lot of anxiety. She smiled sheepishly nodding yes. I told her I was a psychotherapist who teaches people how to ease anxiety and asked if she wanted me to share a bit of education that might help. She and the office receptionist both nodded yes.
Anxiety Is a Signal
I told them, “Anxiety is really a signal that we have one or more underlying core emotions, like sadness, anger, fear and even excitement, pushing up for expression. Emotions get blocked by anxiety when we previously learned from our cultures, families, or peer groups, that the emotion was not welcomed. For example, if when we showed fear to our parents, we were told not to be so weak, we would think twice before expressing our fear again. In that scenario, our brain would learn not to show fear less we would also be humiliated on top of afraid. From then on, any time the environment made us afraid, we’d feel anxiety instead”.
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