One of the greatest barriers to overcoming anxiety is the ingrained belief that being anxious is the thing that's keeping you safe.
"If I worry about something," people tell me. "Then I can make sure it doesn't happen."
It kind of sort of makes sense. If you're worried about being safe in a car crash you're likely to make sure your seatbelt stays buckled. If you're worried about fire safety you're likely to change the batteries in your smoke detector.
And if you're NOT prone to anxiety then those worries stay there in the reasonable lane of responsibility. But if you ARE prone to anxiety then it grows and morphs. There is always always ALWAYS something you could be doing to be even safer.
For some people this spirals into compulsions to manage obsessive intrusive thoughts. For some people it twists into disordered restrictive eating. And for some kids it becomes an increasing, overwhelming list of worries that hems them in tighter and tighter and tighter.
Getting people to let go -- to stop checking, eat the cookie, accept that bad things can happen even to very good, very conscientious, very worried and careful people is incredibly hard.
"You expect me NOT to check for monsters in my closet?" they gasp, aghast. "Don't you see? THAT'S HOW THE MONSTERS GET AWAY WITH IT!"
This idea that we can control the great crises of life (or that we can protect our children from those crises) is wishful, magical thinking. Understandable, sure, but ultimately a trap.
When we spend all of our time avoiding monsters then ironically the monsters are running the show. They are dictating what we do and don't do; they are the bosses in our lives. Somehow we need to find our way to the sweet but scary middleground where the monsters exist and we learn to live alongside them.
That feels exhausting, I know. And unfair. When I'm working with kids who are learning this it's a very hard lesson and they need a lot of space to process the existential angst of it all. Actually, let me rephrase that. When I'm working with PEOPLE (kids and adults) it's a tough lesson.
I remember certain very specific moments in my life when that lesson came home to me again and then again (because us anxious type have to relearn it in new contexts) and I will tell you that it gets easier. Eventually we can say, "Oh it's THAT lesson! Rats! Here we go again!" It's still painful, sometimes we still might want to pout about it, but at least we know how to do it.
Now that is a very different thing then: HOW DO I CURE MY CHILD'S ANXIETY, right? Instead it's how do I help my child develop the strength to learn this lesson? How do I hold them through it? How do I show them the way so that they can do it again without me?
I can (and will! am happy to!) tell you the practical ways to do this but ultimately you will be bringing the love, attention, and acceptance that will see their way through. 🧡
Monthly Theme: Letting Go
Tell Me It Will Be OK: The Practice
For loving parents raising anxious kids in a worried world
In honor of autumn, in honor of the trees letting go of their leaves, I decided that this month's Practice theme will be about letting go as parents, as people. Letting go of what? That's what we're writing to find out! What and how and I'll be sharing more about WHY letting go is so important but also WHY it's so dang hard! The link below will take you to a sample practice where you can sign up, no obligation, to listen to one of our earlier episodes and see how bringing The Practice to your week can support you in your journey. 🧡
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Dawn Friedman MSEd
therapist • parent educator • writer/speaker
I've been supporting kids & families for more than 30 years. I have my masters in clinical mental health counseling and post-grad certification in infant/toddler mental health.
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“Children are a funny business. Each child is like a new season until you get used to it, and then another one comes along. Plenty of headaches along the way, but at the beginning of every season you think something new is happening, something different.”
~ Yiyun Li (from Must I Go: A Novel)