Seven Practices to Manage Anxiety When the World Is on Fire
I don’t know about you, but these last few weeks have been rough for me, with the threat of Roe v. Wade being overturned and multiple mass shootings within days of each other. Even though I live in Washington State and won’t be affected by abortion bans (for now), I feel the tyranny of having our lives controlled by a small minority. Our collective foundation is on quicksand, but that’s been the norm for several years now.
I have anxieties of my own already, which I’ve written about extensively, and they’ve been triggered like no other in the last month. I’ve had to bust out every one of my tools for managing anxiety — and even though they helped, it was still touch and go for a while.
If you’ve also been struggling, these are some practices I’ve been using that have helped me get through this period.
1. You are not your feelings.
The first thing I suggest when you’re feeling anxious (and the first thing I forget when I’m feeling it myself) is to create some space between you and your feelings. Feelings and emotions are hormones rushing through the body when we experience various stimuli. They aren’t just “in our heads.” We have legitimate fears when people want to control our bodies, when we’re targeted for our skin color, or when kids are randomly slaughtered in classrooms. (Excuse me for being “political,” but these days, everything is politics.)
So the first thing to remember is that anxiety is your body’s response to threat, but who you are is a conscious intelligence that can make choices beyond reacting to your feelings. When we’re in fight-or-flight, blood is pumped into our muscles to prepare us to run or fight. Our thoughts become defensive and rigid, and we often default to old behaviors that we may have thought we’d grown out of, and it can be frustrating to have them come up again. When my anxieties get triggered, I often feel extreme self-doubt because that’s my old pattern. It may never entirely go away because its neural pathways don’t disappear from our brains — but that doesn’t mean that everything we’ve learned is lost in these moments.
So don’t compound your pain by beating yourself up for your feelings, but don’t deny them, either. Think of these intense feelings as a storm passing through your body and psyche. You may have to batten down the hatches and lie low for a while, but you know that it will pass.
Affirmation: “I allow my feelings.”
2. Practice self-compassion.
Self-compassion has been one of the most powerful practices I’ve come across as someone with chronic negative self-talk. If we grew up with critical parents or teachers (and let’s face it, the entire American culture defaults to criticism), we tend to focus on the negative and use condemnation as a way to control ourselves, and we may believe that showing kindness lets us “off the hook.”
That couldn’t be further from the truth. Take a moment to think about how you react when someone criticizes you or shows you kindness. Criticism, by which I mean one that is condemning rather than constructive, is a method of behavior control through fear. It triggers the fight-or-flight response and releases adrenaline and cortisol, which help us confront or run from a threat. When we criticize ourselves, we are reenacting the same tactics used to control our behavior as children.
On the other hand, compassion triggers the release of oxytocin, which facilitates feelings of trust, calm, safety, generosity, and connectedness. Self-compassion lets us feel comforted when things go wrong rather than double down and make us feel worse. And from personal experience, self-criticism might work temporarily, but you’re constantly feeling an underlying threat of disappointment. It’s a hard way to live — not to mention that stress takes a toll over time.
So, practice self-compassion by talking to yourself as if you would a child who fell and scraped her knee. Give yourself a mental hug. Tell yourself, “it’s okay, I understand.” And if you catch yourself falling into criticism, give yourself a break for that, too. This is a practice that takes time.
Affirmation: “I can be kind to myself.”
3. Remember the good.
When we’re anxious, we tend to fixate on what’s wrong. It can amplify everything wrong within us and in the world. This negative bias is a built-in survival mechanism, but it can become debilitating in the age of instantaneous information. Our nervous system didn’t evolve under a 24-hour news cycle. Now more than ever, it is essential to remind ourselves of the good things in our lives to adopt a more realistic perspective.
We can do this by literally counting our blessings. Write down (or think about) the things you’re grateful for in your life. Remember the people you love and who also love you. Think about things that give you simple pleasures. Expand your thoughts to include the positive as well as the negative. Be sure to feel your gratitude and love while doing it, and know that they are just as valid, if not more, than any anxiety and fear you might have.
After doing this, notice if your anxieties don’t feel as overwhelming anymore.
Affirmation: “There is more to life than this.”
4. Focus on the present.
Chances are, if you’re reading this, you are safe at this moment, and your needs are taken care of. Anxiety is the fear of a potential future that has yet to happen. When we’re anxious, that vision of the future can feel incredibly real, but it’s still in our imagination. It’s not causing harm at this moment. Even though the threat may be legitimate, we would be more effective at preparing for or moving away from that potential future if we could calm our nervous systems and focus on constructive action.
You can bring yourself back to the present by going for a walk, practicing yoga, exercising, getting a massage, or meditating on your breath. Bringing your attention to the body often helps because the body always lives in the present.
Focus your attention on the world around you and how your body feels. If you’re outside, notice the birds, the trees, the patterns on the ground. If you’re indoors, notice the room you’re in and the things around you that give you pleasure. Move your attention from object to object and observe them as they are without interpreting what they mean. Remind your body of the three-dimensional space it occupies and that it is safe.
Affirmation: “I am safe in this moment.”
5. Share your anxiety.
One of the things that always helps me when I’m going through periods of depression or anxiety is talking to a good friend, counselor, or therapist. They may not be able to solve your problem (and sometimes you don’t want them to), but sharing our problems and being heard can make us feel less alone. Like self-compassion, human connection also triggers the release of oxytocin, which calms the nervous system. After telling someone about my struggles, I usually feel much better and find my problems less overwhelming.
We often think that everyone else has it all together, but none of us go through life without challenges — particularly not at this time when society’s upheavals affect many of us. We’re just taught to hide them and present a façade of perfection. Sharing our vulnerabilities often prompt others to share their experiences, and we realize that we’re not alone.
Affirmation: “I am not alone.”
6. Take constructive action.
Fear is not always something to be soothed away but something to act on. Fear is our body’s natural alarm system. If our ancestors didn’t fear a sudden ruffle in the bushes and chilled around until a lion leaped out, we wouldn’t be here in the first place. We’ve evolved to react to potential threats, not just real ones.
Because we are complex humans, we can project danger onto ideas that feel threatening, such as embarrassment, criticism, other people’s differences, and shifts in how people view the world.
The work of managing anxiety is to parse out the threats that can hurt us and the ones that can’t. Because sometimes the danger is real, and fear is our body’s way of getting us to act. Climate change is real. Structural racism is real. Economic disparity is real. The threat of fascism is real.
This can also apply to the threat of losing a job, a terminal illness, or your child running onto a busy street. Sometimes the only thing that calms our anxiety is to address the threat directly.
I am reminded of Greta Thunberg, the climate activist, who overcame her chronic depression when she started protesting climate change. Fear, anxiety, and depression around these world problems (and personal problems) can be a call to action. We each have to figure out what we can do, of course. But I think many of us know it can’t be business as usual because business as usual is what got us here.
Affirmation: “My actions create change.”
7. Do the best you can, and surrender the rest.
The reckoning that we are going through, this crisis point of many of our world’s problems, is bigger than any one of us. That’s what makes this kind of anxiety so tricky to handle — our actions seem like a drop in the bucket. And no matter how much we contribute, it might not be enough.
Ultimately, we will be more effective if we learn to do the best we can (whatever that means for each of us) and surrender to the fact that many things in life are out of our control, and none of us will make it out of this alive. It might seem a bit morbid, but I’ve found that pondering the fleeting and fragile nature of life helps me remember what’s important and what’s not.
Surrender is not a choice for passivity or giving up (oh, the shock and horror in our doing-obsessed culture) but a choice to rest. The paradox is that by letting go of what we can’t control, we can be more effective at living our lives and navigating challenges without unnecessary stress.
Affirmation: “I’m letting go of what I can’t control, for now.”
These are some of the concepts and practices that I’ve found especially helpful for relieving anxiety around world events. Did you find them helpful as you read through the article? Are there any that you’d like to hear more about? Let me know your results below, or shoot me a message here.
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