The first thing we do when we are in pain is seek relief. That is our human instinct. The more intolerable the pain, the more urgently we seek for an instant solution. Our thoughts become consumed only with ideas of how we can stop the pain, and our fears come into their fullest form as we begin to worry that if we don’t find something to stop the pain, it will never stop.

There are so many mixed messages in our society, families and social groups that cause confusion on what healthy looks like. There are messages that being healthy means we have everything figured out, that we have no self-esteem issues, that we are able to manage our feelings and emotions without involving other people, or that we have our diet and weight under control. 

It’s so easy to project our self esteem onto everyone and everything but ourselves. Sometimes this can look like needing excessive amounts of validation from others, basing our own value on our achievements, or deriving our confidence from our appearance. The problem with these examples is that they are all external. Having a high self esteem will never be sustainable as long as it’s coming from anywhere outside of ourselves.

Many of us were raised to be “polite.” Although there’s nothing wrong with being friendly and courteous to others, this idea has often translated to a sacrificial way of operating in relationships with others. Along with being polite, many of us were also taught to make sure we are considerate of other people’s feelings before we give any credit to our own and that it’s selfish to put ourselves first. 

So you have someone in your life who has anxiety, and you want to help? You’ve come to the right place. First, know that anxiety is a natural and healthy reaction, but if you “help” in the wrong way, even with the best of intentions, it can drive the one you’re trying to help farther away and leave the situation worse than when you found it. In my own practice, I have seen partners, friends and family members struggle with what to do and that’s why I have decided to make this guide “How to help someone with anxiety”.

Almost everyone can relate: we've all said and/or done things that we wish we hadn't when we were upset. The reality is, our emotions can sometimes get us into trouble. But why does this happen? The most common reason for this is that when our emotions peak, they start to take over—something in the clinical world that we like to call emotional dysregulation.

It all begins with an idea.

People often come to me feeling confused about how they are feeling. They wonder, “Am I anxious? Depressed? A combination of both? Or something else altogether?” To me, this is not surprising.

During times of crisis, like the one we’re facing with the coronavirus pandemic, a lot of us feel anxiety’s shove. In many ways, it’s surprising that we don't all have anxiety. In fact, how we as humans evolved to respond to threats is what has kept us going for as long as we’ve been alive. When we were early humans, hearing the snap of a twig would evoke a split-second question of whether we should fight or run or freeze. In our modern society, we are asked to answer this same question every day: we face conflict in the workplace or at home; our sense of security is threatened by drops in the stock market or job loss; or by threats to our health and well being. The reality is, we all experience anxiety when such topics arise, and especially when we face an invisible enemy in our community—enter coronavirus.