My TEDx Talk: Remaking our relationship with anxiety

When I got invited to do a TEDx talk this spring, my first reaction was excitement. And my second? Fear. As soon as I noticed that pit in my stomach, I knew what I wanted to talk about: anxiety.

I’ve mentioned before on this blog that anxiety is the most common mental health problem in America. Over the past 15 months, it’s a problem that’s only grown more acute.

In my TEDx talk, I wanted to explore why so many of us feel anxious so much of the time. And I wanted to look at what we can do about it.

Where does anxiety come from?

Now more than ever, I meet young people in my therapy practice who tell me they want to make major positive changes in the world. They say things like: “I want a job that makes a difference.” “I want to help stop global warming.” “I want to end systemic racism.”

But something stops them when they try to follow through on their dreams: the weight of their own expectations.

On an intellectual level, my clients can see where they want to go. But as soon as they start down the path to making big changes, they run into negative emotions like anxiety, frustration, shame, insecurity, and anger.

And where do those negative emotions come from? Our neurologically-driven survival instincts.

When we look at our modern-day lives and all the technological advances we’ve achieved, it’s easy to assume our brains have evolved way beyond those of our prehistoric ancestors.

But in reality, our brains haven’t changed since then.

So when we use the meditation app and listen to the soothing podcast, we’re only absorbing them on an intellectual level.

We hear that we need to let go, and our brains process that we need to let go, but we don’t understand this idea emotionally.

And then we feel bad for not understanding. We think there’s “something wrong with us.” Enter anxiety.

Go beyond positive thinking

When it comes to easing anxiety, can positive thinking help?

Though it can be a step in the right direction, positive thinking sometimes backfires when we’re trying to make the leap from anxiousness to the positive affirmations we’re trying to embody.

In other words, telling ourselves we’re beautiful, confident, secure about money, or happy in our relationships doesn’t necessarily change the way we feel at our core.

On top of that, when affirmations don’t help, we can even feel like we’re failing at those, too.

So what can we do instead?

Listen to my TEDx talk to find out.

Watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxzP1U5ZUvY