Most of us are walking around with big doses of anxiety, keeping us from our desired lives. This might be true in general, but I’m referring to our emotional responses to recent events. How can we zero out anxiety? Anxiety is an emotion that doesn’t pass through your body, it hovers. It stays. And we can feel powerless over it. And we can feel like it is “caused” by outside events.
But is it? There are four root emotions – sad, mad, glad and afraid. We have four facial expressions that correspond to those emotions, so we can surmise that they are biologically – not socially – produced.
Other emotions, like guilt, anxiety, surprise and disgust build on these emotions. More importantly, their presence in our emotional lexicon are socially produced, not biological. Your body produces those four emotions, only, and from there, you analyze and add on and “feel” everything else.
Technically anxiety isn’t an emotion. It is a cover emotion.
Don’t get mad. I know you’re feeling anxiety – so it must be real. I feel it too, lately. But it is a cover emotion. A cover emotion is one we’ve developed to cover up our other feelings, bec they don’t seem acceptable at the moment or in the social circumstances.
Have you ever felt glad at a co-worker or siblings bad fortune? You might have tried to alter your facial expression to be more empathetic, mad or sad on their behalf.
Have you ever felt angry that you couldn’t get what you wanted? And the next moment, guilty about that “selfish” feeling? Or guilty about having anger at all?
Anxiety, like guilt, is something we’ve developed over time, to cover up an emotion that feels risky in the situation. Many of us might feel anger is inappropriate. It seems appropriate to the situation, but not appropiate to express. Fear might feel too vulnerable to express safely, or even feel safely.
Can we safely let ourselves feel as we feel?
Expressing and feeling a feeling in your body creates a wave of physical sensations.
- Anger might feel like tightening fists, lowered eyebrows, scrunched nose, taut stomach and/or shoulders.
- Fear might feel like raised eyebrows, surprise/shock, shallow breathing, clenched teeth, uneasy stomach, eyes wide.
- Happy can visit even in hard times. How does it feel to you? relaxed muscles, upturned mouth, easy breathing, excitement, the desire to move dance, connect
- Sad leaves your body despondent. Your mouth turns down, knit your eyebrows, your limbs might sag, shoulders slump.
Allowing a feeling to wave through your body is not synonymous with yelling, lashing out, sharing that emotion. You can permit it to come (and go) without having to include anyone else.
How to Zero Out Anxiety – And Feel the Feels
By contrast, anxiety feels like a bottled-up storm that you’re trying not to express. And not expressing it creates anxiety. What is beneath the emotion? It can have any of the four emotions at its root. After the events of this week all four emotions are acceptable, but not all four are welcome in all forums. So you bottle it up. You feel anxious.
- Is it anger? It made me mad to see people invading the Capitol so easily, and our elected officials put at risk of being taken hostage or worse.
- Is it fear? Maybe you’re thinking: What comes next? We don’t know. We can’t know.
- Is it happiness? I’ve felt happiness, peppered into the other emotions. I’ve felt gratitude and happiness for small things in my life, like petting my dog.
- Is it sadness? You might be thinking: How did we get here? How can we hope to go forward from this point?
So, how to express your emotions in a socially safe way?
You don’t have to kick your cat, or cry on social media, or call people names to process these emotions and take the fuel away from the anxiety building in your gut.
It’s simple, it’s effective, and powerful.
Lie down. Be curious about the emotion you’re feeling. Let it come. Where do you feel it? How is it effecting your body? Tears well up, fists form and release. It feels involuntary, and you are the observer.
Also notice its strength. You might start off with a powerful emotion. But it will express itself through your body and ebb.
You will feel better. You will feel free of the need to cover the emotion with anxiety or guilt or other social emotions. I hope that helps. Let me know if the FB group, if it does.