Anxiety

Anxiety is just a feeling

Worries > stress > anxiety, many of us know these feelings far too well.
 
Anxiety is a feeling that in many cases can serve us well, because it can prevent us from doing something that could turn out to be hurtful or even fatal. We should really embrace the fact that we feel anxious from time to time.

Working on building and running a successful business makes you vulnerable for experiencing severe stress that often leads to anxiety symptoms and even evolves to anxiety attacks.
Being a woman doing so makes you even more vulnerable I think, because we women are known for neglecting taking care of our own needs, always taking care of others needs first. I guess it is something in our genes. Therefore I find it important for us to understand more about the anxiety we experience and also it is of importance to understand what causes our anxiousness, how to calm it and then to stop it. 

Another thing characteristic for us business women, is that we want to show the world that we can do it all, we do not want to ask for help, or to admit failure, and many of us are very reluctant to delegate some of our workload to others. We manage to keep a proud face in a CEO meeting but inside we may be filled with anxiety feelings.

Anxiety appears in many forms

• Stress is a respond to fx a frightening situation like if we are going to an important sales meeting without proper preparation trying to convince ourselves that it will be ok. Perhaps we start sweating a bit or we find it difficult to begin our presentation but we make it through all right.
• We can be very stressed knowing we must do something we know we are not capable of handling well. We can´t sleep one or two nights before, we loose our appetite and we have a hard time concentrating. We become really worried and then anxious as anxiety is a reaction to the stress. The anxious feelings get worse and we really fear the worst will happen. Here we need to be careful not to become short tempered. Being a successful business woman you need to keep it cool even under stress.
• When we experience intense anxiety, things can get out of hand and at this point our anxiety can have an effect on our way of thinking and even on our behavior. We panic. We react without thinking. We say things we regret – or we keep quiet and later we regret we didn´t say anything, we didn´t do anything. We get scared. We throw up. We are certain the worst scenario will happen.
• Being in a crowd of many people gives some a very intense anxiety often referred to as social anxiety if it is very severe and there is also claustrophobia, an extreme or irrational fear of confined places..
• Just the thought of having to get in an elevator on your way to your office on the top floor can be a hectic situation for you every morning.
• One of the most frightful situation for many people, even for many business women and entrepreneurs, is having to give a speech, even at a parent meeting at your kids school. Some people say this is even more threatening to them than the thought of dying. Perhaps you would be fine with this, but you still need to understand that some of your colleges may find this very difficult, even though it doesn´t show.

It´s good to know that all the above scenarios are situations you can find your way around as you get control over your thinking.

 

Stress – worries and anxiousness effect your thinking and your behavior.

When you become anxious your thinking isn´t clear, you get confused and even trapped in your mind, you can‘t think straight. Perhaps you start sweating or you feel dizzy, some have trouble breathing, others get sick in their stomach, they feel desperate, frightened, sad or fx. angry.

Your thinking pattern becomes locked in a loop, „The Circle of Anxiety“ until you learn the way out of it. There is always something that triggers the anxiety feelings and as we become anxious our thinking tends to become irrational.

Finding what triggers the anxiety feelings inside you and how to diminish the effect is key.

When your anxiety starts to stand in the way of you living a joyful and fulfilling life, it is important to face the problems and learn how to find out what triggers the anxiety feelings.

As you understand the circle of anxiety and you find what triggers your anxiety, then you are well on your path to be able to „feel anxiety free“, meaning knowing how to react to and minimize the effect of your anxiety feelings, to calm them and then to let them go.

Your life is now, it is for you to love living a fulfilling life.

Jona Saetran
jona@feelinganxietyfree.com

2023