You're listening to Take Out Therapy with your host, Rebecca Hunter. If you're into personal growth and fascinated by the human condition like I am, stick with me. In the next few minutes, I'll break down a common personal growth topic and give you some straightforward ideas for change.
I'm a private practice therapist and online mental health educator, so I see a lot of popular topics both in and out of the therapy office that we all struggle with. I'm here to help with that. This podcast is not a substitute for therapy, but rather the musings of a therapist and an opportunity for information and a little bit of help.
Okay, let's get to work. Hello friend, thanks for joining me. Today I'm going to be diving even deeper into the subject of anxiety because I'm hearing so much about increased rates of anxiety and I might be able to help you out.
So listen up because I'm going to explore the roots of anxiety. And what I mean by that is that anxiety comes from somewhere, friend. And so much of the time when people come into my practice, what they tend to really be focused on is like, why am I so anxious? And so today I thought it would be really helpful to just talk about that question.
It's a question that I ask in my, I have a private Facebook group, it's called the Anxiety Recovery Club, and it's one of the prompts that I use to welcome new members is kind of like, do you know why you have anxiety? And so much of the time people have no idea why they have anxiety. And so I want to dig into it just a little bit today because it is important to understand that there's a lot of different reasons why anxiety happens, but it's not a reason to get stuck. Meaning so much of the time people are like, well, you know, I come from a long line of anxious people, so I'm just anxious.
And I kind of call BS on that. I don't think that we have to get stuck there. I think it really helps to start to understand, yeah, where did this come from? And yeah, how do we get rid of it? That's what I like to do.
I like to help people get rid of it, right? Not to just like, yeah, so you should totally develop some coping skills so you can adjust your whole life around it because you're going to be like this forever. Yeah, we don't have to live like that, my friends. So let's start to talk today about the origins of anxiety, knowing that next week I'm going to follow along the path and talk about the reality of anxiety and I'm going to cover a bunch of different, well, I'm just going to kind of validate those anxious folks out there.
They're like, is this normal? Listen up next week because I'll go into why yes, that is very normal that that's your experience of anxiety. And then the following week I'm going to do the recovery from anxiety. And if you send me some questions, I will do a Q&A after that.
And that's kind of fun. You know, it's nice to hear from people, but it's also nice to just help you out with the gaps. This is only a 20 minute podcast, so there's a lot more we can do.
And I'm going to try to do more of it online because that's kind of fun too. So anyways, let's get into the roots of anxiety. You know, I think one thing it's really important to just start out by saying is it is so personal.
Anxiety is such a deeply, deeply personally felt experience for each person. It's a very unique situation for every person. And it's so funny because people are like, well, how do I solve the problem of anxiety? Like, what's the thing? What do I do? And I kind of have to laugh at that because I'm not saying like I'm laughing at people.
I'm just saying this is this is the life out here, right? We just are like, give me the solution, tell me what's up. And it's interesting because it's very unique for each person because we've all had our own life. My friend, you got your stuff, I got my stuff, right? So what worked for me, maybe isn't going to work for everybody.
Like a good example is something like meditation, right? As we, a lot of people talk about meditation, so good for anxiety. Well, let me let you in on a little secret. It's actually not good for some people.
It doesn't work. In the beginning of it, it actually increases their anxiety. So trust me when I say that the process of anxiety is very personal, as are the roots of anxiety.
But I'll break it down for you this way and tell you, it's about the past, it's about the present, or it's about the future. That's anxiety. So you know, we all have a very unique perspective on our own past, right? And a lot of times I hear from people when I, you know, when we're exploring this idea of why, why so much anxiety, they say, well, I, my mom is really anxious or my, you know, all the women in my family were very anxious.
And I want to validate that that's a totally appropriate experience of a root of anxiety. If we're raised by anxious people, we're going to be a little anxious, my friend, and that's okay. That's totally normal.
There's also more to look at there, though, with the past, and part of that can be an exploration of the environment. Well, was there chaos, right? Was there synchronicity? Like, you know how in some households, it's like, you know, your parents don't really enjoy each other very much, but everybody says everything's okay. And so it's a very confusing experience that can lend itself to us being a little more anxious as adults, right? Because when you know something's up and you're not allowed to express it, sometimes that causes anxiety.
Another thing to look at in the past, of course, is any trauma, trauma being anything that was scary as hell, guys, okay, or threatening as heck. Something that happened to you that you would describe as like, that was not good at all for a child to have to go through, that's trauma. And so past trauma obviously can set us up for anxiety when we get older.
And again, I just want to reiterate that the setup doesn't mean that it's a life sentence. It's just a setup. It's how your brain grew.
So another place to look is the present in your life, right? The anxiety often is environmental. It's massaged by our environment. So and it's so funny, like whenever I talk to people about anxiety, I'm like, anxiety is the past and the future, because you're literally not in the present moment.
And so that's the other thing about the present is like, the roots of anxiety have to do with us being willing to be in the present moment a lot of times and deal with what's right in front of us, my friend. You know what I'm talking about? If you know what I'm talking about, you know what I'm talking about. When I started to really take a look at anxiety in my own life, I was, well, I had been anxious for a really long time, but at that current time, some present circumstances, I was really perpetuating the anxiety.
Like for example, I was a young mom and I really wanted to do everything right, right? And so I was doing everything. I mean, I was like making the baby food and I was, you know, doing the cloth diapers. I mean, I was like, I was killing it as a mom and myself, right? Because I was really anxious.
And so that was, that's just an example of how sometimes when you're getting ready to deal with the problem of anxiety, it really helps to be aware that your current situations likely perpetuating it, my friend. And then the other thing we want to look at when we're talking about the roots of anxiety is the future. Oh, honey, anxiety begs us to figure out what's going to happen next, doesn't she? She likes to know what's going to happen.
There's a lot of worry. There's a lot of anticipation. There's anticipation and worry about being worried and anticipating, right? Anxiety is all, is very, very future focused.
So whether it's worrying about the kids or obsessing about something rude that somebody said to you, or, you know, I could go on and on. We future trip, my friend. And it's part of what causes anxiety.
Because if you don't discipline that, it's like a runaway train. So it can really exacerbate anxiety. And if you're anything like me, then you have, you're relating to all three of these, the past, the present and the future.
Because I can look back and go, yeah, yeah, there's something in my, oh yeah, there's a few things in my past. You know, my unwillingness to take up space in the present moment. And I was an absolute worrier, scared of everything when I was anxious.
So it helps to figure out like, where's, what's the deal? Like where is this coming from? So that you can start to work towards solution, right? But here's the bottom line. It doesn't matter where it comes from, my friend, because you can solve it. And so if you're sort of leaning on the where it comes from as a reason to like not go after solution, just step back from that maybe.
And then the other thing is, it really matters. The roots of anxiety really matter. They're really important for you to understand.
Because they create an opportunity for you to be insightful about yourself and your life and your behavior. You know, we really dig, dig, dig into the roots of anxiety within my online course. And that's because in that course, it's a healing experience.
It's basically like a healing program. So it's like you have to get at those root causes. You can't just cope with anxiety and expect it to go away.
You have to attack it like from the bottom up. So that tends to really help people and hopefully that will help you too. But by the way, all the information about my course is on my website.
You know, I think it's really important for us to just take a pause from asking why, right? Why do I have anxiety? Why am I so anxious right now? Why do I have morning anxiety? Why do I have this experience? Let's start asking, what do I need right now? You know, instead of meeting up with anxiety in this very resistant way, just start asking yourself, like, okay, here it is. What do I need? And see if anything changes or shifts for you there. You can always come visit me online because I'm talking incessantly about anxiety in my private Facebook group, which is fun.
So come have a dialogue with me. Next week, I'm going to talk about the reality of anxiety. Every day is a new adventure, am I right, when we have anxiety.
And so I want to talk to you a little bit about the different areas of your life or someone who's anxious life that might be affected by anxiety. I'm not going to be able to hit them all because it's short podcast, my friend, and anxiety is a biatch. But I'll talk about some common presentations of what we are calling anxiety.
And may I just remind you that it is an epidemic. So if you're feeling anxious, don't sit there and go, I'm anxious, right? I'm this way. This is how I am.
Look around you, my friend. Just understand that you're not alone and that there's a bunch of help out there available for you. This is just one place where you can come and kind of lean up here and get some information and hopefully you feel validated, right? Yeah, because it's not easy out here, guys.
It's not easy out here. So keep plugging, keep being willing to look at yourself and come see me next week if you want to keep the conversation going. Thanks for showing up.
Before you go, I just wanted to let you know that if you like this episode on anxiety, head to my website because I've developed a custom made for you online class to help you ditch anxiety for good. Yeah, a therapist designed program for healing anxiety. It's called the anxiety course and it's been really fun for me to do this project and watch people heal frankly without having to go to therapy.
It's possible, people, to heal without going to therapy. Examine your options before you pick one. For more information on the anxiety course and some of the other things that I offer, head to my website at rebeccahuntermsw.com. If you like the podcast, it really helps this project if you subscribe, send it along to a couple of friends, and keep listening.
We need more mental health education, people. That's what I'm doing here. I have a lot of unpaid content that I put out like this podcast, but I also have two paid programs.
One for people who want to stop overthinking everything to death and I also have an in-depth program for anxiety recovery. So if you want to dig into some work with me, get in touch. You can find me at rebeccahuntermsw.com. That's an MSW because I have a master's in social work.
A lot of people ask about that. And yes, I am a therapist, but this show is not meant as therapy, but rather education. Thanks for listening.
