Befriending Anxiety: A Gentle Guide
Anxiety is one of the most common human experiences, and yet it often leaves people feeling isolated or as though something is “wrong” with them. The truth is, anxiety isn’t a weakness. It’s a natural response designed to protect us. It gets us our nervous system ready for the fight or flight response. The challenge is that, over time, anxiety can become distorted, reading normal human experiences as dangerous, and ultimately pulling us away from the life we want to live.
In this post, I want to share a different way of relating to anxiety. One that’s less about fighting it, and more about gently befriending it. I’ll also give you some practical steps you can experiment with, along with a personal story about how I shifted my own relationship with anxiety.
The Nature of Anxiety
The nature of anxiety is that it makes us want to avoid the things we feel anxious about. Avoidance offers short-term relief. A temporary sense of safety. But it doesn’t resolve the issue. Before long, the same fear often pops back up, sometimes even stronger than before.
The way out of this cycle isn’t through avoidance but through gathering evidence. Step by step, we begin to see that the things we dread aren’t always as catastrophic as our minds predict. In fact, people who suffer with anxiety are often strong, capable, resourceful, and a lot more resilient in a crisis than they realise. It’s the thinking that has become distorted, not the person.
When we take the courage to look at the things we’d rather avoid, healing begins.
Befriending Your Anxiety: Seven Steps
Here’s a gentle framework you can use to start shifting your relationship with anxiety:
- Safety First
Grounding is essential. Make a list of techniques that help you calm down if anxiety feels overwhelming. You can always pause and return to the exercise later.
Suggestions: going for a walk, splashing cold water on your face, singing along to music, painting, gaming, talking to a friend, using a heat pack. - Explore Thoughts
List the situations that trigger your anxiety. Start with the least intimidating and write down what you expect to think in the moment.
Example:
Social Event.
“They’ll think I’m weird.”
“No one there will like me.”
“My heart will race, meaning I must be in danger.”
“I’ll do something embarrassing.” - Challenge Thinking
For each thought, gently question it in the present tense.
Example:
“They think I’m weird.” ⟶ “Has someone actually told me this?”
“No one here likes me.” ⟶ “Do I have proof of that?”
“My heart is racing, I must be in danger.” ⟶ “My pulse is raised because I feel nervous.” “I’m going to do something embarrassing.” ⟶ “This is a worry, not fact.” - Collect Evidence
Do the thing. Pay attention to what happens in your body and mind. Use the work you did in Step 3 to challenge distorted thinking in the moment. - Reflect
Afterwards, ask yourself: Did the things I feared actually happen? And if something uncomfortable did happen, how did I handle it? Did I survive it? - Internalise
Write down what went differently than expected. Remind yourself of your bravery for stepping outside your comfort zone. - Repeat
Try again, carrying the knowledge from your last experience.
Example:
“I thought it’d be bad last time, but it wasn’t. And if things go wrong, I know I can cope.”
When Thinking Gets in the Way
What makes this process harder is how tricky our thoughts can be. Anxiety often distorts reality, and these distortions feel convincing. A few common ones include:
Learning to spot these distortions is powerful. Once you can name them, you can begin to soften them.
My Own Story
In my day job, I sometimes give psychoeducational lectures. I used to hate presentations because my anxiety would get so bad my mind went blank every time I got up there. I tried to do everything I could to not feel nervous, but I eventually learnt that by avoiding or pushing away those feelings, I only made them worse. Turns out, treating anxiety as the enemy causes it to spiral out of control.
So I tried to change my relationship with it. Instead of seeing anxiety as a hinderance, I started to treat it as an aid.
Feeling nervous before a Big Thing can be great. Anxiety can help us focus, ensures we get the thing done, and drive us to tick off our to-do list. There can be real power in personalising our nervousness and saying, “Thank you for helping me concentrate.”
Do I still get heart palpitations before a lecture? Absolutely. Does my mouth still run dry during? Yup. Are my hands still a bit shaky while I click through the Powerpoint? Of course.
But accepting those experiences as merely natural physiological responses has made me feel so much more at ease.
How Therapy Helps
Trying this work alone can feel daunting. That’s where therapy can help. In daily life, you might need to avoid certain situations just to get by. In the therapy room, though, there’s containment: a safe, structured space to face anxiety without being overwhelmed.
Together, we can:
- Practise grounding and breathing exercises to regulate the body.
- Explore gentle self-soothing techniques to use outside sessions.
- Reality-check anxious thoughts and reframe distorted thinking.
- Use psychoeducation to make sense of patterns (we might even use my amazing whiteboard).
With someone alongside you, the process of exploring anxiety becomes less threatening and more empowering.
Closing Thoughts
Anxiety doesn’t mean you’re weak. If anything, it often shows just how strong you are. Many anxious people have already weathered difficult storms; anxiety is simply your body’s way of trying to protect you, even if it sometimes overreacts.
The work isn’t about eliminating anxiety altogether. That’s not realistic. It’s about carrying it differently. By learning to befriend your anxiety, you can begin to live with more freedom, confidence, and ease.
If this sounds like something you’d like to try with me, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Leave a Reply