Let’s look at two different ways to describe your current situation.
“I have anxiety.”
This is a statement that most members of our community will make, almost daily.
“I experience anxiety.”
This is a completely different yet still factual way to describe what’s going on, but I suspect that we won’t hear this statement at all today outside of this newsletter.
☕️ The first statement glues anxiety to your identity. ☕️
HAVING anxiety is like HAVING blue eyes, or HAVING one leg shorter than the other. When you HAVE anxiety, you are describing that feeling as an unchanging and inevitable part of who you are. When you HAVE blue eyes, they are always blue no matter what you do. HAVING anxiety turns it into a personal trait. An identifying characteristic.
☕️ The second statement acknowledges that anxiety is something you can experience. ☕️
Experiences are just as real as traits or personal characteristics. Experiencing anxiety rather than having it does not invalidate what you’re going through at all. But when you decide to EXPERIENCE anxiety rather than HAVE it, you are open to change. Experiences can and often do change over time. This is normal and expected in life. You are currently EXPERIENCING anxiety, but how you experience it tomorrow can be different than how you are experiencing it now.
An experience does not define who you are, nor is it predictive or identifying. An experience is just a thing that happens.
I understand that these are just words in the end, but sometimes words do matter. Changing your narrative about the role that anxiety plays in your life can be a boost in your recovery.
Before we move on to talk about why this can be a recovery boost, we need to take a minute or two be clarify something. This is not some cliche mindset nonsense. The change in narrative is not an attempt to whitewash or ignore what is clearly a negative experience in your life. Deciding that you experience anxiety and no longer have it, has nothing to do with positive thinking, manifestation, or changing your life by changing your thoughts.
When we talk about shifting your words from “having” to “experiencing”, we are only trying to more accurately reflect reality. You ARE experiencing anxiety, so let’s acknowledge that and while we’re at it, let’s also acknowledge with our words that experiences can and do change over time. This word shift is only a first step designed to open you up to the possibility that things can change for you. When you feel stuck, and you’ve decided to identify yourself as an anxious person, having a pry bar handy to gently separate you from that identity is the first step toward real change.
Making the shift to experiencing anxiety is not going to make it go away. Operationally, it impacts nothing, but it does give you an opening to enact other changes that will have a positive impact in your life and will matter over time.
Tomorrow we’ll continue this discussion by looking at how behavior that does not match our identify is hard to sustain. Until then, start experiencing your anxiety rather than just having it.
43. HAVING Anxiety vs EXPERIENCING Anxiety