26/02/2026
THE most important thing you need to know when tackling anxiety 📣
There are two types of effort when it comes to responding to anxious thoughts and feelings.
One will keep you stuck. The other will set you free.
If you don’t like feeling anxious (who does, but you know what I mean), you’ll likely be thinking and behaving in a “how can I avoid, manage, get rid of this” way. It’s A way of handling it but it’s not THE most helpful way because it sends your brain the message “anxiety is a threat and I can’t / don’t want to handle it”. Which just makes you anxious about feeling anxious and scared of feeling scared.
The other type of effort is focussed around getting better at coping with anxious (and other uncomfortable) thoughts, feelings, sensations, urges. Building evidence and training your brain that although anxiety can feel uncomfortable, it isn’t dangerous - it isn’t a threat - you are capable of handling it.
This effort feels totally counterintuitive if you’re used to using your control / avoidance skills. When your line of questioning has been “how do I stop this”, “how do I get rid of this”, and all your efforts are targeting anxiety as the enemy, there’s not much thinking that goes into “how can I handle this”, “how can I tolerate this”.
Truth: you don’t have to run away from uncomfortable feelings.
They are safe. You are safe. You are capable of feeling them. You don’t have to like them, just think about making space for them, being a bit less bothered, making them page 4 news.
A good question to ask yourself is:
❓Am I trying to control how I feel? Or
❓Or am getting better at feeling what I feel?
Save this post so you can refer back to it, and remind yourself of the helpful effort which lets you take the power back over anxiety.
If you want some help, send me a message. This is what I coach with my clients.