“How do you know you’re anxious?”

She tried so hard not to roll her eyes; her eyelids twitched. “I feel anxious,” Jenny exhaled.

“How do you know?” I pushed.

“I feel shaky inside, my heartbeat races, my palms feel sweaty, all the normal symptoms.”

“Think back to your wedding day. How did you feel just before you walked down the aisle?”

Jenny started to speak and then paused. “Well, much like I just described, “ she admitted.

“So you were anxious about getting married to Tom?”

“No. But I felt nervous and excited.”

I let this sink in for a while.

I’ve had clients as young as eight years old tell me they ‘have’ anxiety. How do they know?

Because a well-meaning parent or caregiver has told them that is what they feel.

If you look at a tree, you know it’s a tree because you’ve been told so, but when you were a child, you didn’t know these brown things with green bits were trees. You didn’t know brown or green existed.

So why are you so sure you feel anxious?

How do you know?

I had a client who told me that he hadn’t ever loved anyone.

“How do you know?” I asked. Yes, dog and bone may come to mind.

This man was married with two children and a dog. He thought he might love the dog.

I asked him what he thought love was. It’s a feeling, he told me. Has he ever felt sadness or anger? I wondered.

He’d felt anger; his rages were one of the reasons he came to see me. We’d established that he mostly got angry when he thought he was being disrespected or people weren’t doing what he wanted them to. His anger wasn’t about the other person, but his thoughts about the other person.

When he had angry thoughts, he felt angry. He knew he felt anger, he told me, because he recognised the feeling.

I understand this; years ago, I used to get into such a rage that I would see a red mist, but you can only know what the feeling is called because you’ve been told.

This man had been told various versions of what people call love, and because he didn’t resonate with them, he believed he didn’t feel love.

Maybe in the same way you don’t see with your eyes, you don’t feel love in your heart. After all, the eye works like a camera. The focus light rays are directed to the back of the eye, onto the retina, which acts like the film in a camera.

The cells in the retina absorb and convert the light to electrochemical impulses, which are transferred along the optic nerve to the brain. The brain translates the image into something you can understand. You see with your brain and not with your eyes.

You love with your head and not with your heart.

All emotion comes to us via thought, even love.

You might think that you love your partner or your children, and that isn’t thought. But did you ever love someone in your past that you don’t have any feelings for now? If the answer is yes, and I suspect it is, then where did that feeling go?

When you stopped having loving thoughts about this person, you stopped having loving feelings. 

My client rarely had pleasant thoughts about his partner or children, let alone loving thoughts. But when I encouraged him to think about what he liked about the people in his life, he admitted the feeling changed.

He thought love had to come with fireworks to be the real thing; he hadn’t paid attention to the quiet, gentle feeling and usually fell back into the angry, harsh thoughts before he’d noticed a nicer emotion.

He didn’t know he felt love because his version of the feeling didn’t match what he’d been told or what he’d seen in films.

How do you know which feeling you’re experiencing?

I have clients who tell me that they’re waiting for wisdom. They’re expecting a sign, a giant finger pointing at them through the clouds, or, most often, trying to access wisdom through intellect and thought.

They want to know that the answer they’re seeking or their decision is the right one.

They want to trust their gut, but often, the only feeling you get in your gut is wind or gas if you’re not in the UK.

Many people talk about a gut reaction, a knowing, but how do they know?

My dad was a gambler. He would study the horse’s form and check out past races, but he mostly trusted his gut.

But, especially as his wins rarely outnumbered his losses, I wonder if his emotional reaction, the slight quickening of his heartbeat and sweating of the skin, were his somatic markers, an instinctive emotional reaction based on his previous losses rather than gut instinct?

What he thought was a gut reaction was an anxiety that he might lose his money or excitement at the thought of winning.

I know it’s equally problematic for me when I make decisions from a place of high excitement as it is if I’m deep in anxious thoughts.

When I’m not sure what I’m feeling, I stop for a minute. I check in with myself. Is the feeling urgent? If so, that indicates that I have a head full of thoughts rather than a gut full of wisdom.

Remember, thoughts shout, and wisdom whispers.

You know that feelings are subjective. Your feelings are labelled when you are a child, and you adhere to the label. You were told you felt anxious or even that you’re an anxious person, and you sewed this label into the fabric of your life.

But what if you’d been told you felt excitement? If you think about the feelings generated when you’re excited, you’ll notice they’re much like anxious feelings. Both feelings produce an elevated heart rate and a feeling of butterflies in your stomach. Both feelings might make you sweat. The only difference is the subject matter.

Research (https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication Files/xge-a0035325 (2)_0287835d-9e25-4f92-9661-c5b54dbbcb39.pdf) ) tells us,

“Individuals can reappraise anxiety as excitement using minimal strategies such as self-talk (e.g., saying “I am excited” out loud) or simple messages (e.g., “get excited”), which lead them to feel more excited, adopt an opportunity mind-set (as opposed to a threat mind-set), and improve their subsequent performance. These findings suggest the importance of arousal congruency during the emotional reappraisal process.”

If you have anxious thoughts, you might have been advised to try the 333 rule. When you have unpleasant symptoms, you should observe three things you can see, three things you can touch, and three things you can hear.

Why? To break the cycle of anxious thoughts and bring you back to the present, which confirms how anxiety is a thought-created feeling, and if your thoughts generate it, you can call it whatever you like.

If you think of yourself as an anxious person, try reminding yourself that you’re having anxious thoughts. This stops you from identifying with the feeling and helps you remember that thought is transitory and you can only have the feeling as long as you have the thought.

Do as experts suggest and reappraise the feeling into something like excitement.

Calling anxiety by a different name really can help you to let go of anxiety.

You can call the feeling Ethelred if you want.

You can contact Elaine: ehilides@gmail.com

If you would like to spend time with speakers like this in person and hear them share their wisdom and experience in a beautiful setting in Albir, Spain in November each year, you can find tickets here www.thevivaevent.com/registration