Anxiety and fear tend to go hand in hand. One often follows the other and isn't far behind. It could be any number of things that brought anxiety to your door (past, present or future thoughts, actions and concerns), but fear is usually attached to it somewhere.
We work hard to help people manage anxiety, and over time we've noticed it often isn't anxiety alone that's hurting people — it's the fear that comes with it. Anxiety on its own can often be managed, but paired with fear it becomes a much bigger battle, one that can feel hopeless and overwhelming. That feeling is usually just your thoughts working against you. Here we'll rely on facts over thoughts, and look at some ways to face everything and rise, rather than face everything and run.
Play fact versus thought
Here's the initial thought or worry as it starts to creep up on you: you can feel it coming, and until now there hasn't been much you could do about it. Let's change that.
As the feeling starts to build, say "stop" to yourself, firmly. That's usually enough to interrupt the spiral for a few seconds and give you room to think clearly. Take what you're about to worry about and place it out in front of you, then place the actual facts next to it.
For example: the thought might be "I said good morning to my boss and they completely ignored me — they must hate me, my job isn't secure, I can't even get a good morning right." That sets off a wave of anxiety and fear, because the unknown is always unsettling. Now here's the fact side: they're the boss, carrying a lot of responsibility, so perhaps they were preoccupied, didn't hear you, or are having an off day focused on other things.
The mind, left unchecked, tends to jump to the least positive explanation first — that's where weighing it against the facts helps. Once you've done that, you might decide to simply ask them later, "is everything ok? I said morning earlier and you seemed to miss it." You've stopped going straight to the worst-case thought, and that's one small step towards reducing anxiety before it takes hold.
Be strong, be focused
We hear from so many people, through calls and messages, who have real positivity and value to offer if only they could remain strong and focused. We tend to become what we think: if the first thing you do each morning is give yourself a blast of negative self-talk, that sets the tone for the rest of the day. Anxiety isn't hard-wired into your brain forever — it's a thought process and a way of thinking, developed at some point, and like any pattern it can be broken. Struggling now doesn't mean it will always be this way. For that change to happen, you need to want it, and to keep waking up and focusing on beating it, every day. The more focused you are on beating anxiety, the easier it becomes over time.
What fear really is
Fear is a thought, an emotion, a perception, a self-destructive pattern of thinking at times — but it's also what keeps us on our toes, and gives us a sharp focus when we need it. It isn't only a negative emotion. We just need to learn how to use it to our advantage instead of against us.
Instead of treating fear as a negative, try using it to drive you — go as hard as you can at the tasks that scare you and the things you're afraid of, and let fear push you harder than ordinary motivation ever could. Think about people in genuinely high-risk jobs — oil rig workers, pilots, armed forces, law enforcement. If the people doing those jobs hid from the reality and the fear that comes with them, nobody would be able to do them at all. Instead, they use the fear of getting something wrong to stay focused, driven, and giving it everything they have.
Share, talk, or mind-map it
If you have so many thoughts, fears and anxieties that you feel like you can barely breathe, keeping them all to yourself tends to do more damage than good. It's a bit like the old saying that acid does more damage to the container it's carried in than to whatever it's poured over — it might sound like the sort of thing people post on social media, but it's genuinely true, and we need an outlet. We need someone to share with, a way to let it out, someone to listen and maybe offer advice, or simply be there.
If you have no one to talk to, get a pen and paper and write it all down. Then sit back and look at it as if you were a friend offering advice. If your GP isn't the right fit for what you need, a private therapist, life coach, or another organisation set up to help may be worth reaching out to instead. Mind-mapping is another way of working through your thoughts and fears — start at the centre and work outward, and you'll often be surprised at the progress you can make just by seeing everything laid out in front of you.
Mullins Therapy developed the Anxiety HIT programme to help counter anxiety and fear, and we're here to help when you need us.
