Constructed Anxiety

Life is not easy, it’s not a Disney fairytale. However, how much of our troubles is constructed by ourselves? How much of it is anxiety that we have learned to become sensitive to?

Introduction

Every day we are faced with this modern society with amazing amounts of stress. As mentioned in a previous post, we can learn how to deal with insane amounts of pressure. We have jobs, we have relationships, we have kids and the world’s politics does not make life simpler either.

Stress is a long-term effect of being put under pressure. A person can be sitting down, trying to relax from a hard day, sipping at their coffee and feel immense stress at the same time. Stress is a constant modifier to our lives. It is a sum equation of all the components in our lives that cause us difficulty and worry.

Anxiety is the shorthand relative of a similar, yet different term. Anxiety is a feeling, one that we feel right now, immediately. It is like the onset of anger or joy, it can come and go. It is related to our stress levels because feeling anxious constantly will be a pressure to everything.

Usually, an anxious person also is not at top performance and hence will get more stress because things are not going their way.

Natural Anxiety

Anxiety is a normal enough of a feeling to have. When you are standing at the edge of a cliff there is a warning going off somewhere to be careful. When your child is cutting something with a sharp knife, there is an instinct and an anxiety to stop or help because you do not want your child to get hurt.

Anxiety is also normal in a social and interpersonal sense. You could be anxious because you offended your loved one or role model. You can be anxious when you are under review by your boss.

And yet there are forms of anxiety that I have observed that are completely self-made. I come into contact with many different people. If you do the same then after a while you will notice some people are similar to others that you know. Of course, if you are a trained psychologist this would have been part of your studies and your bread and butter.

The point is that psychologists have over many years mapped out these similar people and studied them. Because I understand that I fit in somewhere in a spectrum of known and recorded types, I understand that it is normal.

Each one of us may be unique and everyone has their own unique life and yet, there have been so many people before you that a similar person has likely been noticed. Bottom line – It is natural to have feelings of anxiety as a response to situations.

How do we construct our own Anxiety?

Whenever you are not feelings well, take a moment to see if it is anxiety. Taking note of this is the first step in beating this habit that undermines yourself. If you are feeling anxious but there is no physical or tangible situation to be anxious about – chances are that it is likely constructed.

People tend to have some sort of worry that makes them anxious. But that anxiety can grow to a point where they can no longer be constructive in dealing with those problems. Anxiety can even build a cage around our thoughts that prohibit us from reaching solutions.

You might notice this in yourself or in others. Have you noticed how you have a limited amount of time to get something done and then do not get to it? That’s procrastination and that’s another topic. But while you are doing this, notice your anxiety at dealing with the issue.

As the time goes by the issue becomes bigger and the anxiety grows, your inaction becomes incapacitating. Nothing ever gets done this way and no self-improvement can happen while you are feeling this way.

Another form of self-constructed anxiety is stressing unnecessarily about situations or facts outside of your control. Sometimes someone else’s behavior can encourage this.

Example: A friend of mine was told in the morning by his father that the two of them needed to talk that evening. This guy was anxious to the point that this one incident added permanently to the stress levels he was feeling. By that afternoon, he was all worked up. He had been messaging our WhatsApp group all day and generally freaking out.

Meanwhile, when he got to the conversation his dad had nothing dramatic to talk to him about. Just something that was mundane and needed to be organized.

This is a constructed anxiety that he managed to build and polish and stress himself out with. Without context, there was nothing he could do about the upcoming conversation. His father’s method of communication obviously is very different from his own. It also shows that he has likely been focussed on inward anxiety rather than learning what his father’s methods are.

Constructing Anxiety, Roadblocks to Self-Improvement

So there are many more examples of how we manage to construct our own anxiety. I cannot cover them all but I am sure that once you have taken the time to think about why you are feeling anxious, you can start seeing which parts you have placed in the position yourself.

These anxious bouts will reduce your productivity, concentration and therefore – your self-improvement journey. Many immovable or impossible obstacles have been dealt with by some people while others are still locked in a prison (sometimes a maze even) made from all our anxiousness.

Solution and Conclusion

Recognise that you are anxious.
Seek the root cause of your anxiety.
Ask yourself if this root cause natural or constructed.
If there is no action required or possible from you then push it aside.
If there is something you can do to eliminate the cause, focus on it and get it done!

If you cannot focus because you are feeling anxious then you first need to remove the anxiety. Find the root cause, the smallest malleable component and focus on eliminating the cause. Piece by piece until the anxiety is sorted out. If you do not do this then it will be like driving with your parking brake (handbrake) up.

Most importantly: Give yourself time. To master anything takes practice. To master yourself will make you a master of all things that you take up.

Good luck out there.

SteemSchool Website: Website

SteemSchool Discord Community: Discord

If you value what I do I would be happy if you would increase my Steem Witness rank by voting for me at the bottom of the Witness voting page. Simply scroll down, enter "valorforfreedom" click on vote and that's it.

You can also vote for me by clicking on the picture below with my account name in it. Afterwards, you simply have to log in with Steemconnect and I will receive your vote.