If back to school anxiety has you knots then this is the blog post for you. Learn what causes anxiety, how to handle it, and what not to do with it.
The Source of Anxiety
Is little Sarah extremely nervous about going back to school. New teachers and students in her class. Maybe even a new school. And then mom is nervous/anxious about how this is going to go? Or is mom the one with anxiety about how the school year will go? Perhaps you have a child with special situations: never been away from mom/dad, has a learning disability, or is neurodiverse. Are you all in knots about how this is going to go?
Well best news ever, according to Brooke Castillo, you are creating your own anxiety by what you are thinking. I know at first this doesn’t sound like good news. Maybe even something else to beat yourself up over. But if you are creating the anxiety, then you have full control over whether it’s there or not.
Your thoughts create your feelings, so you can decide what you want to think and feel. Let’s walk thru a couple examples. I had a client that was anxious about sending her autistic son to school. She didn’t know how he would respond. Would he do ok? Maybe he will have meltdowns at school? Would he refuse to follow the rules or have a hard time making friends? Will the school work with us to help him? All of these thoughts create the feeling of anxiety. I’m not saying that feeling anxiety is right or wrong, but that you are creating that emotion.
Sometimes it can be difficult to pin point what your thoughts even are. We have over 60,000 thoughts a day and some come on autopilot. If you can’t figure out what thoughts are creating your anxiety, ask yourself “What am I anxious about? What am I afraid of going wrong?” If you still can’t find the answer then the help of a life coach may be needed to find out what your thoughts are.
How to Handle Anxiety
Having anxiety isn’t “bad.” Anxiety is a normal human feeling. Without having anxiety, we wouldn’t know what relief feels like. Without anxiety our bodies wouldn’t be working properly. It’s our brains job to keep us safe and it does that by worrying about what may happen in the future. So thank your brain for doing it’s job and allow the anxiety to be there when you notice it come up.
Allowing it means getting inside your body and shutting off your brain. What does it feel like in your body to be anxious? There is no right or wrong answer to this question. For me: I feel tense, a rapid heart rate, I feel fast movement in my chest area, my stomach knots up, etc. How do you feel it? Every time you feel anxious recognize that is what you are feeling and then just feel it in your body. If you don’t try to push it away it will often go away in 30-60 seconds.
After allowing the feeling and when you aren’t in the middle of being anxious, you can also decide if you want to keep feeling anxious. Let’s go back to our example from my earlier client. Last year, she decided she did want to feel anxious. It didn’t seem right to her to send him to school without worrying and trying to help him. That’s ok!
This year however, she has decided she doesn’t want to worry about it. She has evidence that he did great in school last year. So she came up with a new thought to think about her son going to school. “He thrived at school last year.” With this thought she feel confident sending him to school rather than anxious. You get to decide what you want to feel. There is no right or wrong answer.
If you decide that feeling anxious is what you want to feel, then you get to wear it around like a purse or belt. Just allow it to be with you while you go about your life. It will come and go. You just practice allowing it to be there. You wont die with some anxiety following you around.
Things to Avoid with Anxiety
What you don’t want to do is try to ignore the anxiety or push it away. We as a society are taught to not have big emotions. But when we try to not have emotions, we actually end up making them bigger and harder to handle. If you push anxiety aside, it will grow.
Also you don’t want to talk yourself out of anxiety. Telling yourself that it is silly will increase your anxiety as well. Instead acknowledge that you have a good reason to feel anxious. Have you ever tried telling a kid that it will be ok when they were anxious? My guess is it didn’t really help. You can’t talk yourself out of anxiety.
What if it’s my Kid that has Anxiety
You can walk them thru the same steps that you would take. Don’t dismiss their anxiety or try to talk them out of it. Instead help them label it. Some kids may know they are feeling anxious others may need you to label it for them. You might say something like, “You are feeling anxious and that’s ok. It is created by sentences in your brain. What does it feel like in your body?” If they don’t know how to feel it in their body you can ask questions like: What color is the anxiety in your body? Does it move around or hold still? Where is it at? Is it hard, soft, squishy, etc? Remind them it is okay that the anxiety is there and its normal.
Want further help with your anxiety or your child’s anxiety, schedule a free 30 minute call with me. Let’s work on getting the anxiety under control. Simply schedule a time that works for you at this link. You’re doing better than you think you are.
Until Next Time
-Keira
