What’s holding you back - anxiety and worry

What is holding you back ?

Anxiety can be understood as a pathological fear that is anticipatory, or focused on the possible future rather than the immediate or now. Since anxiety is so closely linked with fear, it is also deeply connected to courage. In fact, the amygdala and medial prefrontal cortex, brain areas connected with our fight or flight response, are also linked with anxiety and anxious behaviors. Anxiety is also characterized by the activation of the fight or flight response when there is no immediate danger, forcing the previously adaptive physiological reaction to become chronic and therefore potentially harmful.

Anxiety can make overcoming our fears and exercising courage even more difficult. We get stuck by asking all the “what if” questions. These what ifs, however, tend to focus only on the negative.

On this step of the pathway, challenge yourself to think of positive “what ifs”.

Challenge

Identify a future event or possibility that brings you anxiety. Acknowledge the scary what-if possibilities, but also think of the exciting what-if possibilities, and the possible good outcomes that could emerge. 

How are you feeling about the event? How has your feelings towards the event changed after identifying the positive possibilities?

Take a moment to reflect back on this prompt. You can write about it in your journal or in the text box below.