Mindfulness To Help Anxiety

Do you ever feel like you are overwhelmed by all of the thoughts and feelings taking up space in your head? Most of us have days where we feel like our brains won’t knock it off, but for folks living with anxiety, this can be a constant battle. Your thoughts, feelings, worries, judgments, and decisions take up a lot of space in your brain, and it can be hard to focus on anything else sometimes. One way to give yourself a buffer between you and the noise in your head is to develop a mindfulness practice. 

You’ve probably heard of mindfulness before - we’ve talked about it on the blog a few times before, and mindfulness is kind of a buzzword right now, especially in mental health and wellness spaces. Mindfulness is a practice designed to teach us how to be in the present moment.  According to PsychCentral, the act of mindfulness is “paying attention in the present moment, on purpose, nonjudgmentally.” The two big things to remember when practicing mindfulness are awareness and acceptance. Mindfulness gives us an awareness of what’s going on in our own inner world. When practicing mindfulness, it’s also important to accept yourself. Do your best to shut down any judgment or negative self-talk when they come up, and just remember to focus on the present moment. 

Mindfulness helps to take us out of the mindset where we do things automatically or out of habit.

When you’re living with anxiety, you might feel like you don’t have enough time or emotional energy to change up your routines, but when you make time regularly to notice your surroundings, both internally and externally, you will start to notice patterns that you might not have seen before. Taking note of the patterns that come up for you in your daily life can help you make better decisions in the future, plan for tricky situations, and remind yourself that you are capable of doing difficult things. 

If you’re looking for some ways to practice mindfulness that can help you manage your anxiety, here are some tips: 

Make your space more mindful

When you have a set space to practice mindfulness, you will signal to your body and brain that it’s mindfulness time every time you sit there. You don’t need to use a whole room in your house for this, but if you have a cozy spot that you can dedicate to mindfulness, even the habit of sitting in that spot can help you get in the headspace to be present and aware of your surroundings, internally and externally. Try sitting in your favorite chair, or by a sunny window, or even in a corner of your bedroom. You can personalize the space so that it is ideal for your exact needs - have soft things to touch, smells that make you feel calm or grounded, play calming or happy music. 

Don’t go it alone

Anxiety is something we largely have to deal with on our own, but mindfulness doesn’t need to be a big secret! Try involving someone else in your mindfulness practice. This doesn’t necessarily have to be someone you sit down to practice mindfulness with, but it can be someone who holds you accountable to your goal of practicing mindfulness more often. When someone else knows that you’re working toward a goal of being more mindful, it can be really motivating. 

Morning journaling

Mindfulness isn’t just about sitting still with your eyes closed. Mindfulness can be anything that makes you feel connected to the present moment, whether that’s sitting quietly on a cushion, taking a walk through the woods, or even washing your dishes. One way to help combat the overflow of thoughts that comes with anxiety is to spend some time each morning journaling. Write down anything and everything that comes to mind, without judgment. You can set a timer and just free write until you feel more focused on the present, or you can find journal prompts to help you get there if you need a little guidance. 

Notice your breathing 

Getting out of your own head can be really tricky. Try starting with your breath. Focusing your thoughts to the present takes lots of practice, so if you can’t stop your thoughts that is okay. Do your best to move on from each thought when you notice it pop up. Try to slow down your breath and really focus on each inhale and exhale. Close your eyes if it helps! 

Mindfulness is a great tool because you can practice it anywhere- all you need is your mind. When you have anxiety, you take it with you everywhere you go, so it’s extremely valuable to have tools you can use in the moment to soothe yourself. With practice, mindfulness will become easier and you can use it anytime you need a reset to focus on the current moment. If you’re trying to figure out how mindfulness can help you manage your anxiety, our clinicians can help you come up with a mindfulness practice that works for you. 

Learning to Reparent Your Inner Child

What is your inner child?

Have you heard the term “inner child” before? Your inner child is exactly what it sounds like: it is you, the younger version of you, still inside of your mind. Imagine that as you grow, you are not outgrowing past versions of yourself, but rather growing around them. So they are still there, inside of you. 

And that means that their dreams, their needs, their fears, are also still inside you. If your needs were neglected as a child, there is still a version of you inside of who you are today, hurting from that neglect. 

The key to healing that hurt is to tap into your inner child. Become aware of that vulnerable version of yourself, learn about their hopes and dreams and fears. And then, to heal those neglected wounds, act as both child and parent within yourself. This is called reparenting your inner child.

What does it mean to reparent your inner child?

Reparenting your inner child, as we said above, is about healing past wounds that still exist within you. When your inner child feels safe and loved and listened to, you help to rewrite your own makeup. 

If growing up you didn’t feel safe and loved and listened to, then because of your inner child, there is still a part of you holding onto that fear. And that fear has likely affected your life as an adult–even though the experience was so long ago. As the adult you are now, you are able to identify what in your inner child needs healing, and then provide them with it. This is how you work as both parent and child within yourself. 

You are the child, hurting. And you are the parent, helping them heal. 

When you start building a life that makes your inner child feel safe and loved and listened to, you are able to let go of those coping mechanisms you used when you didn’t feel safe and loved and listened to. In this way, inner child work helps you reach the future you want by healing your past wounds. 

How can you take care of your inner child?

So how do you start going about inner child work? Inner child work is a long process that involves you taking intentional time to get to know yourself, examine your emotional reactions to things, and really investigate where those instincts come from. Talk therapy is one of the best ways to do this, but there are things you can do on your own to get started or to continue work done in sessions. 

These things can include: 

• Journaling: try writing a journal entry from the perspective of your inner child; write a letter from yourself to your inner child; write after a high emotion incident, and try to explore where your feelings came from; write about something that happened recently that reminded you of a time when you were a child, etc. 

• Talking it out: ask your friends if they ever feel like they are back as the childlike version of themselves, see what experiences you have in common

• Giving into playful urges: there is a pressure to be serious and mature all of the time, but if your desires as a child were neglected, giving yourself the experiences you desired as a child but weren’t allowed can be incredibly healing

• Keep a log: when you notice your inner child coming out, if you don’t want to sit down and journal or talk it out every time, just make a quick note on how they’re showing up. Then, you can look back on all the times you’ve noticed and see what they have in common, what desire or need or fear they are expressing to you.

If you need more ideas for how to go about tuning into and reparenting your inner child, or have questions about how it could help,  our clinicians can help you. 

Daily Habits to Help Manage Anxiety in a Healthy Way

People living with anxiety know that managing it is often a daily struggle. Anxiety is a complicated condition, and like many mental health disorders, it can lead to a totally new routine in order to manage it. Remember, there’s a difference between anxiety and everyday stress; they aren’t exactly the same. One definition of anxiety is that it is your body’s response to having too much stress. When we’re feeling stressed, we can usually still function, but the hallmark of anxiety is that it interferes with your everyday functioning. That’s usually how you can tell if you stress has morphed into anxiety: is it interfering with the way you live your life? It’s normal to once in a while feel nervous or worried, but you don’t need to feel that way all of the time.

Waking up with a ball of anxiety in your stomach every morning is not ideal.

It can leave you feeling like you don’t even want to get out of bed. That’s why it’s helpful to establish habits that you can use every day to carry you through on the days when your anxiety is spiraling out of control. It can be almost impossible to snap yourself out of an anxious spiral, especially without practice. That’s why it’s important to find anxiety-relieving methods that work for you and then practice them until they’re second nature to you. That way, the next time you’re feeling anxious and out of control, you have something to reach for to soothe yourself. 

Fortunately, there are lots of different ways to manage anxiety. Everyone’s anxiety is a little bit different, so if something doesn’t work for you, just move on to something else. Some of the popular ways folks manage anxiety are implementing lifestyle changes, starting therapy, or taking medication. Even though these methods can be really helpful, there is still stigma attached to mental health treatment and medication. Remember that there’s nothing wrong with taking medication to manage your anxiety. Finding ways to manage your mental health is just another facet of self-care. 

Since folks who live with anxiety have to deal with it every day, a natural starting place for anxiety relief is with your daily routine. You already have habits, whether you realize it or not: what do you do every day? The key to spotting a habit is that it happens almost automatically - you don’t even have to think about it. What habits are you currently practicing that you might not be aware of? Take a few days and just notice when you do something out of habit. 

It may also be helpful to point out that most of our habits reflect our needs, after a little digging. If you habitually scroll through Instagram for a few hours every day, you might be trying to connect with people socially, or numb yourself to the hard emotions you’re feeling. Do a little digging to find out the needs that your current habits are meeting. You might be surprised! 

Here are some daily habits that can help you manage anxiety: 

Rest

Anxiety can be a sign from your body that you need to take a break. When you push yourself too hard for too long, you can put yourself at risk for burnout, and then you won’t be able to get anything done, no matter how much you want to. It’s good to notice what anxiety feels like in your body so you can pay attention to which parts of you need extra rest or care. Start getting strict about getting the right amount of sleep - it’s wild how such a small change can have a huge impact. Our bodies and brains need rest to function, so making time to rest every single day is a good way to honor that need. 

Mindfulness

A lot of anxiety comes from worry about what’s coming. Mindfulness is a powerful tool in your anti-anxiety toolbelt because it teaches you how to be present in the moment, instead of focusing on the past or the future. Even taking five minutes every day to sit and notice your surroundings and slow your breath can have a valuable impact on your anxiety levels. 

Movement 

Movement is a great way to expend any anxious energy you may be feeling. Even if you’ve thought about exercise in terms of punishment until now, you can reframe it in your head as being for your mental health. Moving your body can go a long way toward expelling that extra anxious energy that you feel. You don’t have to do hardcore exercise to reap the benefits - making time to go for a walk a few times a week can make a real difference. 

Journaling

It’s hard to move through things when we don’t give ourselves enough time and space to process them. Journaling is a quick and cheap way to check in with yourself regularly about how you’re feeling. Journaling is helpful for managing anxiety for a couple of reasons. To start, the medium forces you to slow down. You can only write one thing at a time, so the process of journaling naturally makes you work through your thoughts one at a time. Journaling also gives you a place to explore the reasons behind your feelings instead of just feeling dread and anxiety. Journaling can help you identify patterns in your thoughts, which can help you find new ways to cope. 

Intentional Social Media Usage

It is so, so easy to get stuck looking at your phone and then realize hours later that you’ve lost all that time. Our phones were designed to be addicting, so don’t feel ashamed that you get sucked into a social media spiral. One way to combat that feeling is to be really intentional with your social media usage. Unfollow or mute accounts that make you feel badly about yourself. Follow accounts that show a diverse range of body types and that share your values. If you get a bad vibe from someone every time you look at their posts, remind yourself that you can unfollow. 

Anxiety is a little different for everyone, so if these ideas don’t help you, that’s not the end of the road. Our clinicians can help you come up with an anxiety management plan that works specifically for you. 

Racial Justice Resources

Over the last few weeks, the Black Lives Matter Movement has become hypervisible on social media. While not a new movement by any means, the exposure we have had to racial injustice in this country over the last month has drawn more attention than ever to the work–both community based and internal–that non-Black Americans have to do. 

As attention on the movement on social media begins to die down, we wanted to share a small directory of racial justice resources. Anti-racism is lifelong work that will often feel uncomfortable. But it’s important to commit to that lifetime of learning, listening, and doing better if we ever want to see real change. 

Here are some resources that can help you navigate this work: 

Books to Read:

• Me and White Supremacy by Layla F. Saad

• How to Be an Anti Racist by Ibram X Kendi

• Are Prisons Obsolete? By Angela Davis

• The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander

• The End to Policing by Alex Vitale

Directories, Resource Documents & Syllabi:

• Dismantling Racism Resources

• Anti-Racism Resources Doc

• Ways to Help Directory

• Justice in June Lesson Plan

• Free Intro to Critical Race Course

• Anti-Racist Resource Guide

Voices to Follow and Learn From: 

• Layla F Saad

• Decolonizing Therapy

• @urdoinggreat (Gem)

• Alishia McCullough

• Monique Melton

• @mpd_150

• @decolonizemyself

• Raquel Willis

• @brandonkgood

• @officialmillennialblack

• @kinsalehues

• Annika Hansteen-Izora

• Victoria Alexander

Things to remember: 

• Lots of intellectual labor has been provided by Black folks for free. If you are using the resources they have taken the time to put together (and have the financial means yourself) look for ways they would like to be compensated. This could be a venmo/paypal link, a link to an organization they are trying to raise money for, etc. 

• Google is your friend! Jumping into this work can be confusing and overwhelming. When you come across something you don’t understand, instead of asking for free labor from BIPOC (Black Indigenous People of Color), take time to do your own research. 

• You are going to mess up. None of us are perfect–and there isn’t an expectation that we have to be. Your character and intentions will be shown through how well you respond to & listen to criticism, rather than through magically never saying the wrong thing. 

• Allyship is an action, not an identity. You can’t be an ally without practicing allyship. This means finding ways in your life that you can help. That can be protesting, signing petitions, educating family members, donating money, etc. The most important thing to remember about allyship is that it is not one and done. To be an ally you must continually practice allyship–not just go to one protest and call it a day. 

Free, Affordable or Accessible Therapy Resources for Black folks: 

• The Loveland Foundation: provides financial assistance to Black women & girls seeking therapy

• Boris Lawerence Henson Foundation: a nonprofit organization founded by Taraji P. Henson, currently offering free therapy Up to five sessions) to BIPOC who have recently experienced trauma 

• Ethel’s Club: Mental wellness community resource that offers free & subscription mental health services for BIPOC

• Black Men Heal: Pro-Bono Quality Therapy for Men of Color by Providers of Color

If you need support, or have questions about self care in tumultuous times,  our counselors can help you.