I'm successful, so why do I still have anxiety?

7 myths about anxiety that are impacting your life

The American Psychological Association defines anxiety as

n. an emotion characterized by apprehension and somatic symptoms of tension in which an individual anticipates impending danger, catastrophe, or misfortune. The body often mobilizes itself to meet the perceived threat: Muscles become tense, breathing is faster, and the heart beats more rapidly. Anxiety may be distinguished from fear both conceptually and physiologically, although the two terms are often used interchangeably. Anxiety is considered a future-oriented, long-acting response broadly focused on a diffuse threat, whereas fear is an appropriate, present-oriented, and short-lived response to a clearly identifiable and specific threat.

Anxiety keeps us trapped in a future state where we use our precious resources as a way to figure out, fight or hide from an imagined threat that can span many different areas in our lives.

As people who would identify with the term ‘successful’, or have had themselves labelled as such, admitting you have anxiety can feel overwhelming, because surely successful people don’t have anxiety, or if they do it shouldn’t be this debilitating, should it?

Sound familiar?

Today I’m going to address 7 myths about anxiety.

Anxiety is a sign of weakness

High-functioning anxiety often sets in because we don’t want to share what is going on, because you hold the association that it means you are weak or simply not capable enough.

When in reality, anxiety is a trauma and stress response held in the body and mind and has nothing to do with personal strength.

You can be a strong person and have anxiety. I was.

Successful people don’t have anxiety

There is a massive misconception that if someone is successful, they must have everything together and therefore shouldn’t experience anxiety, worry or even have down days. But anxiety, like car accidents, can affect anyone, regardless of your level of success. Of course, there are practices that can be put in place to prevent it from occuring but most of the time we weren’t shown them until we already had the problem. By that point, we were ashamed to admit how we were feeling and try to suppress what is really going on for us.

Anxiety means I’m failing

Many high achievers equate anxiety with failure, it leaves you feeling that you are not in control or managing your life properly. The thing to remember is anxiety is not a sign of failure but instead a signal that something needs attention. If you have a cut, do you ignore it so it bleds all over your laptop or do you take some action to help it to heal? Anxiety is the same, with simple actions like hypnotherapy you can heal your anxiety so it doesn’t feel like a cut that keeps bleeding out.

If I ignore my anxiety, it will disappear

Yeh, big fat no. Many believe that avoiding or suppressing anxiety will make it go away. Unfortunately, this often has the opposite affect and leads to more severe symptoms or burnout when it resurfaces.

If you are someone who is highly function, this one is probably a big one for you, surviving your days by ignoring or pushing through the feeling. The more you do this, the more you need to do this because it builds and builds and then you don’t know what else to do.

I used to make myself really physically ill from simply trying to push through. The wheels in my mind whirling at 1000mph, my immune system being negatively impacted until my body said enough, then I’d be knocked out with a bad cold, flu or something even worse. This meant that my mind could then shut off enough for me to ‘reset’, for it to all start again. Ignoring it doesn’t work, it just makes it worse.

I just need to think positively to get rid of anxiety

Anxiety often requires deeper emotional, cognitive, and physical work, to addres underlying patterns, trapped emotions, beliefs, and triggers. This is why hypotherapy is great, because it’s a gentle approach that tackles big issues, as a lot of information and energy can get repressed and stuck in our subconscious (see my previous blog post for more information about our subconscious as a portal).

Be mindful of toxic positivity, which is a dysfunctional way of managing emotions by not acknowledging the full array of emotions we experience, especially ‘negative’ ones.

Positivity has it’s place in terms of helping heal from anxiety but it shouldn’t be used at the expense of really understanding what is going on. Working with a professional can help you to understand when it’s useful to reframe your thoughts into something positive and when you actually need to dive into what’s there.

Anxiety only happens when something is really wrong

Anxiety can occur without an obvious external reason, because it’s likely rooted in past experiences or internal stress, expectations, or unresolved emotional issues.

Experiencing anxiety doesn’t mean that there is something wrong with you or your life, instead it often simply shows you that you either have a repetitive way of thinking that isn’t helpful or you have something sitting a little deeper that you haven’t processed and it just wants to be heard to clear out.

Anxiety can actually be a really beautiful gift once we understand it, helping to work with us as a signal of when and where we are out of alignment.

I just need more willpower to overcome anxiety

Willpower alone cannot eliminate anxiety. While determination is important, anxiety requires strategies such as hypnotherapy, talking therapy, mindfulness practices, and deeper emotional work to be truly overcome.

I’m clearly a big fan of using hypnotherapy for such work, but the most important thing is working with a professional and modality that suits you. I’m also trained in Cognitive Behavioural Techniques and somatic modalities, so our sessions can involve a mixture of approaches if deemed suitable.

So that’s the top 7 myths I see as running the show in professionals and entrepueners. Let me know which of the myths resonated with you the most in the comments.

Want to work with me? Drop me an email at hello@laurenwigmore.co.uk

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