How I Get Out of the Anxiety Trap
Let's start with a question. What does anxiety mean to you?
I would describe anxiety as unnecessary thought. Have you ever had an important impending event overshadow you and you couldn’t help worrying about it in any spare moment (especially when trying to sleep!)? The more you think about anything, the bigger it gets in your mind and this can sometimes feel overwhelming. The Anxiety Trap is easy to fall into, even without realising it, and can be difficult to get out of.
When I was a teenager, I would try to predict how difficult conversations would go. What would I say to my dad when he found out I had been (*insert naughty thing here). What would he say? How would I say what I need to say to him in a way that would not cause an extreme reaction? My Dad would get angry easily, and this was scary for me as a child. The whole situation had the potential to blow out of proportion, and I would try to predict every scenario of what might happen. His temper (and many other different factors) had a massive impact on my development as I grew up and it has left me with an underlying mental health condition. The mental health hasn’t gone away, but I have learned to manage and cope with it in a more productive and positive way.
I learned that the more I practised what I was going to say when submerged in the impending drama, the less mental energy I had for it when the time came. As if the worry was taking away mental energy from the moment when the impending drama arrived. If I tried to remember what I was going to say, I would get tongue tied and end up missing the point because I was put on the spot, flaking when it mattered most. But it was when I learned to trust myself, that I could respond in an unrehearsed way, and deal with whatever happens. This practice of avoiding the ‘Anxiety Trap’ by learning positive coping skills took a long time to develop. As long as I had an idea of what I was going to say, I learned to trust myself to be confident enough to express myself clearly when the time came. This was liberating for me, and it came about by building my self-confidence. Do you know how you do that? By having real world experiences to learn about your true capabilities.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.”
Marianne Williamson
I didn’t want to get help when I first experienced mental ill health. I didn’t think I needed it. Help is for the weak people, not me. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I was proud. I never went to the doctor about anything. But I got to the point where I found myself severely mentally ill and incarcerated in a mental hospital. (*It is my plan to write a book and/or more blogs about the whole journey… so that’s for another time). I had to swallow my pride and I revolutionised my approach so that I could accept all the help I could get. As a young man of 18 years old, I thought I was invincible and could be independent (which is quite common for young men that age). A lot of people have anxiety, or other neurosis, but because it doesn’t cause too much of a problem for them, they never address it. They don’t need help, but I’m sure they would benefit from exploring their small problems with a professional. We all have mental health that needs to maintained and looked after with good habits, strategies and self-care.
The Christian perspective on anxiety is pretty well summed up in this… in Christian circles it is often advertised that the Holy Bible mentions ‘Do not worry’ 365 times. That’s once for every day of the year. So every day we ‘should not’ worry. Easier said than done! Worry is rooted in fear. Everyone has a natural response to fear. The Human body naturally goes into a fight, flight or freeze response when it feels under threat. Adrenaline and endorphins are released, to pump us up to react to the threat. This really useful in the hunter/gather phase of our existence, where sabretooth tigers were a real deal and a deadly threat! These days, a looming exam can have exactly the same effect. In fact, anything we fear can put us in this fight or flight response. And sometimes, our body gets used to it and (for me) I was in it all the time. I always felt under threat. I was mentally hooked to worrying, as (I didn’t know at the time) but my mind and body were addicted to the endorphins, adrenaline and other chemicals that the threat response caused. It took years for me to gradually slow down, reconnect my mind with my body and learn to relax. I had been ready to fight anyone or anything, while standing in a mundane shopping checkout que, or any other random place of little to no actual threat. You see there is always actual threat and perceived threat. The human brain doesn’t always balance these two out and needs to be reprogrammed.
From my walk with faith, when things don’t go the way I hoped for, imagined or expected… I have learned to trust God. I take what Morpheus says in the Matrix Revolutions movie…
“What happened, happened and couldn’t have happened any other way”.
Morpheus in Matrix Revolutions
I have little time to think about what could/should/would have been, had things been different, it scores zero on the helpfulness scale. Miyamoto Mushashi, was a samurai that wrote the infamous ‘The book of Five Rings’. He also wrote 21 principals for life, titled ‘Dokkodo’, the first one is: ‘Accept everything just the way it is’. This is sound advice, if you are trying to live without worry. I used to waste a lot of time and energy on feeling sorry for myself and being worried about the past or the future. The best way to live is in the present. It is a gift. We live in luxury, a heaven like peace and a freedom which was fought hard for during the second world war and in all times. We should appreciate this more than we do. We take so much for granted here in the UK. We have had it so good for so long, we forgot about the struggle to get here.
Worrying drains energy. It drains you. And if you cope with it by sharing your worry with others, it can drain them too (depending on how extreme the worries are). If you can do something about something, do it. If you can’t, don’t worry about it.
“Better to light a few candles, than complain about the dark"
Brummie Stokes
Worrying is a waste of energy. To learn not to worry takes practice and discipline. Don’t beat yourself up if you slip into the Anxiety Trap again, try to reflect on what happened and what you would do differently next time. It won’t happen overnight. Nobody has a magic wand that will make everything better in an instant. Battling back to good mental health takes patience, discipline and being honest about yourself and what you can and cannot change. Change happens over time. Change happens in little, achievable, steps. Little steps, taken consistently over time equals massive progress. What one improvement can you make to yourself today? What little victory can you win, to not fall into the anxiety trap?
You can always ask God to reveal himself to you. To help you and meet you where you are with His Holy Spirit. He is my Strength. He is my Power. He is my Healer. And he can be yours too. Go and find a church, a place to worship and be in fellowship with other believers in your journey of faith. Serve people as Jesus did. This can look like volunteering for a youth group, serving teas and coffee’s during a service, or befriending someone. It will look different for everyone, find a need and fulfil it. If and when you struggle, be Bold and ask for help. Ask someone to go for a coffee. You never know what life has right around the corner, so go for it.
Being vulnerable at the right time, with the right people is a huge strength and a skill that is learned through repetition, success and failure (basically... practice!). We all face difficulty in life. Life is not designed to be faced alone. Together (as a community), we are stronger.
This is part of a new series of blogs about Tom Exelby’s mental health adventures. To contact him directly, email: mentalhealthadventuresuk@gmail.com
Scripture about worrying
Isaiah 41:10
Joshua 1:9
Matthew 6:25-34
Matthew 10:19-20
Luke 12:22-31
Further Reading:
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway – Susan Jeffers
Soldiers & Sherpas: A Taste For Adventure – Brummie Strokes
Our Greatest Fear (Quote) —Marianne Williamson – Said to be quoted by Nelson Mandela, and paraphrased in the movie: ‘Coach Carter’ staring Samuel L. Jackson
For Mental Health Resources, for either yourself or for supporting others, visit:
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