Chapter 3. Welcome Your Anxiety – it’s your Friend.
What? Really? Welcome it? That nest of vipers in the stomach, the knots of tension across
your back.? Well, hopefully you’re not at that stage – right now. Yes, absolutely welcome your
Anxiety. By welcoming your Anxiety you are acknowledging its important role in keeping you
alive but far more importantly than that you are not entering into conflict with it, you are not
trying to suppress it, you are not trying to fight it! That negative internal battle in your mind
as you vainly try to suppress it generates the Anxiety itself. It feeds it. The more we try to
ignore it and push it down the stronger it gets and it builds and builds. So you can work on an
internal dialogue that says “Welcome...I recognise your care for me but right now, this instant,
I’m OK. Thank you.” It does sound vaguely ridiculous on one level but, trust me here, this is
very, very powerful. You are no longer fighting and therefore feeding it.
Another great way to welcome it is to give it the name of a character that means something
to you. “Dick Dastardly” was one. “Ah, He’s here,” the client would say. This is actually really
powerful because it puts space between you and your Anxiety and it also critically means that
you are not defined by your Anxiety. It is not you and you are not objectifying it, becoming it
more and more. How would you name your Anxiety? I am sure there are a lot of Voldemorts
out there.
Practical Steps
• Recognise your Anxiety and now welcome it.
• Greet it and thank it for its role in keeping you alive.
• Name it – if you want to.
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